Better RB Emmitt or Barry

[Jarv]

Ah Yes, the ol' "cut back and hit the hole" dance, .. that was one of his "dances", but he had others too.

He had the "juke left, juke right", go down for a 1 yd loss.

And the ever-famous "juke left, juke right, spin around" and go down for a 3 yd loss.

It probably comes from the teams I played on and the coaches I played for, or the RB's I grew up watching .. but Barry Sanders would be a little ways down on my list of RB's.

But that's just me.

Bill Parcells would have ruined Barry...lol.

 

[GimmeTheBall!]

Barry.

In Dallas he would have been even more of a monster running back.
Emmitt in Detroit would have been average.
Alas, we'll never know so spare me the homerisms about Emmitt the Diamond, Emmitt the selfless player blah, blah, blah.
IMHO, Barry was/is the best RB of all time.

 

[GimmeTheBall!]

Bill Parcells would have ruined Barry...lol.

. . . would have "rested" Barry to save him for the playoffs.
If injured, Parcells would have disparaged him, calling him on his manhood, his toughness, his committment. Then he would have made Barry share time with another player and then complain that Barry was not producing enough.

Just like he did JJ.

JJ is a tough son of a gun. Talented. Parcells drained him and the rest of the team.

Look for JJ to have a great year without Parcells stabbing him in the back every chance he has.

To the Parcells toadies, sorry. But it's true.

 

[WV Cowboy]

Barry.

In Dallas he would have been even more of a monster running back.
Emmitt in Detroit would have been average.
Alas, we'll never know so spare me the homerisms about Emmitt the Diamond, Emmitt the selfless player blah, blah, blah.
IMHO, Barry was/is the best RB of all time.

I had to look really, really hard to find something true in your post, but I did finally find something.

Quote : "Alas, we'll never know so spare me"

Everything else is laughable.:laugh2:

 

[superpunk]

Barry.

In Dallas he would have been even more of a monster running back.
Emmitt in Detroit would have been average.
Alas, we'll never know so spare me the homerisms about Emmitt the Diamond, Emmitt the selfless player blah, blah, blah.
IMHO, Barry was/is the best RB of all time.

Your humble opinion is garbage. blah, blah, blah, blah....

 

[dalboy]

Emmitt no question. :lions:

 

[Tricericon]

Getting into this topic late.

My 2 cents are:
Barry Sanders was the more talented athlete, but that is about it, and better athlete =/= better player ***coughDeAngeloHallcough***.

Consistent running backs generally contribute (simply from running, not even considering blocking etc.) more to the offense than boom-or-bust backs with similar or even somewhat superior stats. Barry Sanders was probably the greatest boom-or-bust back the game has ever seen, but I would still only put him as borderline top 10 all time.

My take on some other commonly seen arguments:
The 'Sanders quit on his team' and 'Sanders was awful in the playoffs' arguments are just Cowboy fans blowing smoke to excuse Barry's superior conventional statistics. Stop doing it; you don't need to.

The 'Emmitt had the greatest oline ever, while Sanders had a cruddy one' is a large exaggeration. Nobody puts up Barry Sanders numbers behind a weak oline. Also, I think the early 90s Dallas line is a bit overhyped, and probably Smith & Aikman made it look better than it was. It was still excellent, but not the greatest oline ever like many people make it out to be. The oline gap is much, much smaller than most people seem to think.

 

[The Curly One]

The 90's Dallas O line was that good. They were the best I have ever seen. It was actually fun to watch Eric Williams beat the defense into submission. Generally the exciting players to watch are runningbacks, wide receivors and Quarterbacks. The Dallas offensive line added a whole new demension to the game.
Yes, with out a doubt Barry Sanders would have had better numbers behind that line. (duh!) That is not an insult to Emmitt it is just a fact we had one of the most dominant offensive lines ever. That offensive line is also one of the big reasons for Aikmans success and when the O line went down hill and was not able to protect him it was much of the reason he had to retire. Our sorry Oline since 1999 has been much of the reason for our lack of success.
Barry Sanders was a great runningback behind a bad offensive line. Emmit was a good runningback behind a GREAT offensive line. A team would be better off every time with the great oline and Emmitt but if you could ever get a player such as Barry Sanders behind an O line like we had history would be made again for sure.
If the question is Barry or Emmitt then of course Barry but they never played on the same quality teams. Emmit was lucky enough to land on one of the best teams off all time. Yes he did help make us better and one thing that I think was one of the best things about Emmitt is he rarely ever fumbled. Curly

 

[ThreeSportStar80]

Emmitt Smith put up big numbers at every level so I can't see why people question his greatness. Emmitt made people look bad every Sunday, he was the complete back, so he didn't have burner speed but he made up for it with everything else.

Why did I get sucked into responding to this thread...

 

[Deputy493]

If he had a better supporting cast, who knows how far out of reach the numbers would be. He probably wouldn't have walked away from the game so soon.

Sorry, but I am so sick of hearing how Barry never had anyone around him.......they ran a run and shoot offense for the bulk of his career and in 95 in particular they had the #1 passing offense in the league......he played with the WR duo of Herman Moore and Brett Perriman......Moore if you recal was probably one of the top 5 WRs in the NFL in the early-mid 90's along with Rice and Irvin.............and let's point to the fact Sanders played in a run and shhot offense for the bulk of his career.....that means not meany 8 man fronts to run against like Emmitt did...that means the D was spread out a lot more.............both running backs had their opportunities in big games and playoff games.....in those opportunities, Emmitt was at his best and Barry seemed to disappear...........Barry was fn to watch, great RB, but if I wanted a RB in their primes to win the big game, give me Emmitt any day of the week and after all this league is about winning.

I am also sick of listening to these revisionists talk about "if Barry had our O-Line or Moose"..........that comes from people that has no clue about their running styles....Emmitt was perfect for our O-Line and Moose, Emmitt was a north south runner that hit the holes and had great vision......Barry was not, if you remember him playing. he improvised as soon as he got the ball many times in the backfield, meaning he shuffled his feet almost immediately...a FB would've gotten in his way and he was not the typical north south runner that hit holes like Emmitt did............FYI, if anyone could've run behind our O-Line why did we always loose when Emmitt was out and our running game non exsistant? Some of you revisionist need to watch some tapes of the early 90's on both players.

 

[adamknite]

Come on people Sanders holds the NFL record for the most carries for negative yardage, and even ended a playoff game with -1 yards rushing.... negative yards in a playoff game, that's unexcusable for the "Greatest of all time" no matter how bad the team around him was!!, even if it was really that bad

 

[wxcpo]

Barry was better period. No homism here. Barry lacked a team and yet he still out-performed Emmitt in every way except winning. Football is a team game and that explains why Barry didn't win.

Why is it when it comes to QB's the measurement of greatness is championships, yet when comparing RB's it's based on who had the better team?

Give me Emmitt over Barry any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Barry was electric on the field, but he had more runs for losses than any RB in NFL history. You never knew if he was going to get you an 80 yard TD or a 10 yard loss. Plus he was always taken out near the goal line. Why is that? With Emmitt you always knew the guy was going to plow forward and get you the tough yards and he was always a threat to take it all the way everytime he touched the ball.

Also why is it always brought up that Emmitt played behind a much better offensive line vs Barry? Maybe the true fact is Emmitt was the greatest of all time and simply made his line look great and not the other way around.