tothewhipbill said:
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emmitt has the record because emmitt wanted the record more than anybody since payton.
i think martin exhibits the same trait of durability. but does he have that same determination and drive to get the record? and to keep it?
My guess is no, that Curtis has nowhere near the drive to obtain individual records that Smith did. Football itself is just a means to an ends to him, he has often said, and the ends of course, are being in the position to 'make a difference'.
I can honestly say that over three decades of watching football, Martin is unlike any professional athlete I have ever observed. He drives himself beyond the constraints of his own body, on his own. Each offseason it is something new, whether renting a seaside condo with twenty flights of outdoors stairs, and running up and down them til he drops, or finding a personal trainer who ties a bungee cord 'round his waist and has him run to its limits.
Martin's chief competition has always been with himself - he's got to be physically and mentally better than he was the last season or he's dissatisfied. But his attitude toward personal records can be demonstrated by his reaction to winning last season's rushing title - he seemed to get much more pleasure out of the 'oldtimer accomplishing it' aspect than the actual title. He is an ascetic thorugh and through.
I don't see Martin continuing for a personal record if his body tells him it's over. (I can however, see the Bus hanging on). But Martin lacks something Emmitt had, three things, in fact. Rings.
If the Jets become competitive enough to really give New England a battle in the AFC East...would that be enough for Martin to keep going past his currently high level of productivity? With rings, you never know..
