NFL: 100 greatest players show (only 2 Skins?)

[21Knock_U_Out]

Baugh and D. Green!

[RansomthePasserby]

He'll get left off the list just like he was for many years for the HOF doesn't mean we can't believe he's one of the best to ever play

While I never got to actually see him play (before my time), I hear the guy was a stud. I don't get why he's not recognized as such by main stream football.

Green has to be on this list, he was an awesome player, and is an awesome man.

[armstrong001]

With 32 teams, that averages to 3 players per team. 2 players, while maybe not as many as we would like, is not exactly out of line. If you look at any team, you can probably find 4-5 players who you think should be in the top 100. Look at the Packers, Browns, Giants, Cowboys, 49ers, etc. and how many great players they had.

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

With 32 teams, that averages to 3 players per team. 2 players, while maybe not as many as we would like, is not exactly out of line. If you look at any team, you can probably find 4-5 players who you think should be in the top 100. Look at the Packers, Browns, Giants, Cowboys, 49ers, etc. and how many great players they had.

Yup. Just think, an NFL roster is made up of 53 players. 100 in the entire history of the NFL and you can't really be bitter about having only 2.

[RansomthePasserby]

With 32 teams, that averages to 3 players per team. 2 players, while maybe not as many as we would like, is not exactly out of line. If you look at any team, you can probably find 4-5 players who you think should be in the top 100. Look at the Packers, Browns, Giants, Cowboys, 49ers, etc. and how many great players they had.

The Cowboys? Hmmm... sorry, non come to mind. :no:

[CM916]

Have any of the people deciding these things actually watched a 1930's game tape? I'm pretty sure most of us here would have seen such a thing if it actually existed outside some NFL vault. That's a real shame in my opinion. I'd never suffer through an offseason again if I could just watch a random season from before my time every year, I know which ones end in championships and that the first 11 games in '91 are wins but beyond that the weekly results would be surprises.

I've seen that same Baugh highlight tape they air any time his name comes up on any network a dozen times, what I want to see is an entire game of his. The tapes exist somewhere.

[Funky Art Monkey]

sucks only two skins on the list, but im cool with it as long they are the number 1 and number 2 players. i think that the number one player should be art monk, and by a very slim margin the number 2 player should be art monk.

[scruffylookin]

I'd love the people who think John Riggins should be on a list of the 100 greatest football players EVER to make the case for it. What is it that makes him worthy? The 82 playoffs and a Super Bowl run that NFL films made iconic? Is that really enough? Seriously think about that. 100 Greatest Players. Nope, Riggins doesn't even sniff this list. It's easily Baugh and Darrell Green.

[Oldfan]

Huff is probably better known as a Giant, anyway.

I watched him play. Sam was overrated. He made lots of tackles with the Giants because he had a great D-line in front of him. In a Skins uni, he wasn't nearly as good as London Fletcher.

[Oldfan]

I'd love the people who think John Riggins should be on a list of the 100 greatest football players EVER to make the case for it. What is it that makes him worthy? The 82 playoffs and a Super Bowl run that NFL films made iconic? Is that really enough? Seriously think about that. 100 Greatest Players. Nope, Riggins doesn't even sniff this list. It's easily Baugh and Darrell Green.

Agreed on Riggins. I can't see it being Darrell either.

My vote would be for Baugh and Charley Taylor, HOF, 8-time Pro-Bowl, member of the NFL's 1960s all-decade team.

[MartinC]

If Baugh isn't at least in the top 5, the list is a joke. Baugh is the greatest player to grace the NFL, and I don't say that just because he was Redskin.

You may be right - his stats alone given the era he played show he is one of the players who redefined what the sport was and would become. However I smile when I read comments like this about players from that era, not many people alive now who saw Sammy play for example. Assuming you are not 90 just how much film of Sammy have you seen on which to base your opinion I wonder?

On a wider point the problem with all these type of lists is on which criteria do you judge and how do you really compare for example Sammy Baugh with say Dan Marino given they played in such different eras and conditions. The lists are almost meaningless - expect in so far as they generate viewers, readers and comment which is really all they are designed to do in the first place.

[barefoot]

.................Huff could be on there as well, but considered a Giant.

Agree, everytime I see a piece on Huff, they consider him a Giant that played a game or two as a Redskin.

Baugh has to be top 5 at the very least.

[Oldfan]

You may be right - his stats alone given the era he played show he is one of the players who redefined what the sport was and would become. However I smile when I read comments like this about players from that era, not many people alive now who saw Sammy play for example. Assuming you are not 90 just how much film of Sammy have you seen on which to base your opinion I wonder?

On a wider point the problem with all these type of lists is on which criteria do you judge and how do you really compare for example Sammy Baugh with say Dan Marino given they played in such different eras and conditions. The lists are almost meaningless - expect in so far as they generate viewers, readers and comment which is really all they are designed to do in the first place.

I've been a Skins fan since I was ten (1945). I watched Sammy play until 1952.

You're right -- you can't compare players from one era to another for many reasons. But, you can compare their performances with other players of the same era. So, the list of the best 100 would be of players who stood well-apart from the crowd when they played.

My complaint is that the players from dynasty-calibre teams are over-represented in the HOF and similar awards which are supposed to be for individual accomplishments. Joe Montana is likely to be on the list. In my opinion, Joe was an above average QB who would not be remembered by any fan had he played for any team other than Walsh's Niners.

[MartinC]

I've been a Skins fan since I was ten (1945). I watched Sammy play until 1952.

Which makes you one of a very small group of people in any position to judge Sammy.

You're right -- you can't compare players from one era to another for many reasons. But, you can compare their performances with other players of the same era. So, the list of the best 100 would be of players who stood well-apart from the crowd when they played.

Agreed. Which is why I think that just looking at the stats Sammy put up compared to his contemporaries he clearly was one of the all time greats.

My complaint is that the players from dynasty-calibre teams are over-represented in the HOF and similar awards which are supposed to be for individual accomplishments. Joe Montana is likely to be on the list. In my opinion, Joe was an above average QB who would not be remembered by any fan had he played for any team other than Walsh's Niners.

I think you make a fair point here but choose the wrong target. Joe Montana for me was an average to above average QB physically - it was the bit between his ears which separated him and made him, for me, truly great. His performances in the biggest games of his career and his ability to perform when it REALLY mattered made him far more than an above average QB.

Also don't forget that at the very end of his career he took what had been a poor Chiefs team and made them a playoff team. It was not JUST about Bill Walsh and his system though that clearly helped.

[jasjhughes]

I have found a list of the top 50 and another of the Top 100 (but old) In both cases he (Ken Houston) was the first Redskin after Baugh.

[Oldfan]

I think you make a fair point here but choose the wrong target. Joe Montana for me was an average to above average QB physically - it was the bit between his ears which separated him and made him, for me, truly great.

Phil Simms said that he turns a deaf ear when people talk about a QB's intangibles. I do the same. It's not that the intangibles are not important. It's that they are intangible -- they can't be measured. So, if someone wants to hype a QB or trash him, they dwell on the intangibles.

The QB position is the most important single position on the team. It's also the most team dependent. A QB on a good team, in a great scheme, can achieve things other QBs can't.

Montana and Young had the mobility to fit Walsh's scheme which was way ahead of the defenses of its time.

[Audible_Red40]

I just don't see Riggins making the list. He is generally not even in the discussions about greatest running backs of all time. He's just a legend from our team/hearts.

[wilburmarshall]

The weird thing about Sabol, though, is that he's not a notorious 'Skins hater (though he's a big time Eagles fan).

I guess, though, it was NFL films that coined the term "America's Team" for...that other team...

If Baugh isn't at least in the top 5, the list is a joke. Baugh is the greatest player to grace the NFL, and I don't say that just because he was Redskin.

Baugh, Riggins, Green, Jurgensen, and (Bobby) Mitchell should be on that list.

People need to get off of the Jurgensen stuff. He was a good player, and a great Redskin, but no where near top 100 ever. No where.

[RansomthePasserby]

I've been a Skins fan since I was ten (1945). I watched Sammy play until 1952.

You're right -- you can't compare players from one era to another for many reasons. But, you can compare their performances with other players of the same era. So, the list of the best 100 would be of players who stood well-apart from the crowd when they played.

My complaint is that the players from dynasty-calibre teams are over-represented in the HOF and similar awards which are supposed to be for individual accomplishments. Joe Montana is likely to be on the list. In my opinion, Joe was an above average QB who would not be remembered by any fan had he played for any team other than Walsh's Niners.

I think that's just the nature of the beast. Football is a team oriented sport, so a player's reputations lives and dies with the team.

[MartinC]

Phil Simms said that he turns a deaf ear when people talk about a QB's intangibles. I do the same. It's not that the intangibles are not important. It's that they are intangible -- they can't be measured. So, if someone wants to hype a QB or trash him, they dwell on the intangibles.

The problem with that approach to evaluating QBs is that it is exactly the intangibles which separate the great QB from the average and the average from the Ryan Leaf/JaMarcus Russell for that matter.

There are probably a couple of hundred people in the US who have the physical ability to play QB in the NFL. Size, arm strength, athletic ability etc. The current evidence is that NFL teams struggle to find 32 people capable of being a successful starting QB in the NFL over any extended period of time. Whats missing is not the ablity to throw a ball or even to understand a system and read a defense - its the ability to do those things under pressure, consistently over time and when it really matters.

The debate we have started here about Joe is a prime example of why these types of list are both silly and also great fun. They spark debate and disagreement but ultimatley its a subjective judgement.

[Bonk]

I'm surprised Monk isn't mentioned in any of this......

[Mr. Sinister]

I think the two players will be Sammy Baugh and Darrell Green.

[Oldfan]

The problem with that approach to evaluating QBs is that it is exactly the intangibles which separate the great QB from the average and the average from the Ryan Leaf/JaMarcus Russell for that matter.

We don't disagree on the importance of the intangibles. And, I will certainly concede that it's possible to pick out a few "head cases" who failed miserably. But, that doesn't prove that you have the ability to determine who among the QBs is better at reading defenses, playing well under pressure, or providing leadership.

To my eyes, in the same era, Ken Anderson was a better QB than Dan Fouts or Joe Montana, but he didn't play with great receivers in a cutting-edge offense, so the HOF wasn't in his future..

[Enzo]

Vince Lombardi is quoted as saying that Sonny Jurgeson was the best QB he ever saw play. What really gets me is they like to compare QBs from Sonny's era to QBs from the 90s & today. There is no comparision in Sonny's day it was much harder to be a QB & a WR because the rules weren't tilted in their favorite. The dumbest thing the NFL ever did was change the bump & run rules. It's football not a track meet.

[Paydirt]

I agree that Ken Houston was a great player, as was John Riggens...but, if Darrell Green isn't on that list, it's completely worthless.