Bears' Madness Sweet 16 is Set

that a good game for Sanders was an average game for Sayers. Gale didn’t have any “off” games. Plus he brought it on special teams and excelled. He was at least as good as Sanders and probably brought (brings) another level to the game with his faith and beliefs. Read “I am Third” co-authored by Sayers. It was the inspiration for “Brian’s Song” and gives a much better picture of Sayers than I could ever paint.

But I think this one says it all. Now, Sanders was #1, but he wasn’t a special teamer and he had a full career. Deacon Jones sums it up well…

I think the biggest difference, from a pure football perspective, between Sayers and Sanders, was Gale rarely went backwards. Barry was like an insect out there, running any which way to avoid tacklers and sometimes lost yards or ran 50 yards for a 2 yard gain. Gale had all the moves, but usually made them while moving forward. Sanders could start and stop, while Sayers made his moves, seemingly at full speed, while rarely stopping.

Both were among the greatest pure runners ever and fun to watch, but (granted, I’m not completely objective on the subject) Gale Sayers was the best ever.

There’s no point in debating who was the better runner because we’ll never know. I personally lean towards Barry because of the competition he faced compared to Sayers but that’s about the only thing that can really be debated between these two.

They both had a plethora of moves that would embarrass anyone trying to tackle them. Neither of them ever wanted to get tackled and were relentless runners. They both had speed, quickness, agility, and the most important trait was there running instincts. I think that’s what seperated those 2 from every other RB this league has produced. It just seemed when you watch their highlights that they knew exactly where defenders were going to be and they made sure that they weren’t going to be there.

In today’s football, defenses are so fast and athletic now that it’s hard for RBs to juke like these 2 did. I think what everyone could agree on is that there will never be anyone better than these two at running a football.

nothing against butler

Great kicker, but he was just that, a kicker. I think being an ’85er helped him beat the others

semi- finals will be Halas vs Ditka… and Payton vs Singletary or Butkus? those are some tough dudes there..

That’s total TDs for Sayers. He scored 14 rushing TDs, 6 receiving TDs, 1 punt return, and 1 kick return for 22 TDs in 14 games. LT scored 28 rushing TDs, 3 receiving TDs, 0 returns and 2 passing TDs for christ sakes for 33 Tds in 16 games. LT had more rushing TDs than Sayers had total TDs. However you want to swing it, 33 TDs is f***ing impressive. He had 11 more TDs in just 2 more games than Sayers. Let’s not diminish LT’s accomplishments to validate Sayers’ accomplishments.

but that team sure was fun to watch.

You mentioned Aikman, Irvin, and Novacek… add to that Moose Johnson, Nate Newton, Mark Tuinei, Eric Williams, Alvin Harper. And on defense Haley, Lett, Tolbert, Norton Jr, Casillas… that was just a good friggin team.

Smith was a good back but, despite his numbers, I can’t see where he’ll go down as an NFL immortal. Payton, Sayers, Butkus, Halas, Nagurski, Grange, are icons.