by Jared Smith

Created on: March 26, 2009

After ten seasons of agonizing defeat, the greatest running back of all time, Barry Sanders, decided that the time to end his career was then. Ten seasons, however, was enough for the 5-8 running back to solidify his professional football career as the greatest of all time - even greater than the prestigious careers of Emmitt Smith, Walter Payton and Jim Brown.

Eluding the NFL's most physical players at every defensive position, Sanders collected each of his 15,269 yards in the greatest fashion possible for an NFL running back to do so. The statistical measures often bore readers and learning debaters, but facts are more reliable than opinions and for that reason alone they should be used to determine the better running back.

Emmitt Smith may have totaled 164 rushing touchdowns but he also took greater than 43% additional handoffs from the quarterback in the backfield than Barry Sanders did (1,347 more). A rounded down 3.2% of the time, Sanders took the pigskin to the house as his competitor, Smith, took a rounded down 3.7% of his carries the distance. Many fail to realize that the running styles and strategies allow Smith to gain a greater number of short goal line touchdowns from just one to five yards out of the opponents' end zone. The running style of Emmitt Smith's does no more greater damage on rival defenses than Barry Sanders' style does, but it allows the touchdown stat column to appear rather inflated in comparison to Sanders' even though the true progress on the field demonstrates the touchdowns Smith collects are easily gained.
Only once did Barry Sanders fail to reach the season mark of 1,300 rushing yards: Emmitt Smith fell short of the mark eight times in just five more seasons. The ignorant claims that the meaning, behind Emmitt Smith's all time record for career rushing yards, obviously points to Smith as the greatest back of all time do not paint, but a small part of, the picture. When the career of Barry Sanders was abruptly and unexpectedly ended, he cemented his career numbers averaging 5.0 yards per carry, 0.8 yards more than Emmitt Smith. 0.8 yards may not appear to be an eye-opening difference although it is more than 19% of the yardage Smith averaged per carry - 19% difference in yards per carry favoring Barry Sanders versus the 0.5% difference in the number of carries it takes to score a rushing touchdown favoring Emmitt Smith. One can also add that Barry Sanders' style of running required him to run backwards until finding an opening

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