Fantasy Football Discussion Thread

[Berzerker]

First of all, I'm still in it. My team has suffered horrible injuries but is still competitive.

The team you drafted would suck pretty bad if you were actually playing any of them. As usual, you've been on top of the waiver wire and have a completely different team now more or less.

I have 1/2 my original team (10 of my 16 starters) and most of the half are starters taken early on in the draft. Most of the changes have been players I've been rotating in and out to fill the few weak spots or dealing with DLs and they were mostly taken in the later rounds, but aside from Mat Latos I haven't gotten anyone from the wire you can blame for your poor analysis

[Al B. Sure!]

Let's see... I'm not putting these in any order, just picking the real top 5 of all time... OJ Simpson, Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith, Walter Payton. Maybe, you could put LT at 6th, but Tony Dorsett, Eric Dickerson, Marshall Faulk, and Curtis Martin are still out there, not to mention guys like Gale Sayers and Earl Campbell.

LT might be the best of his generation but had he been 5 years older, he would have been third to Faulk and Martin.

And he's really only the best of his generation because Ricky Williams and Jamal Lewis had off-field issues that derailed their careers. I think both of those guys could have been dominant. It seems strange now but let's not forget that Ricky had 1800+ yards one season and Lewis followed up the next year with 2066. You go back in time to 2002 or 2003, those two (along with Priest Holmes) were clearly the best backs in the league. Their disappearance contributed to LT's apparent dominance.

[MRT144]

Curtis Martin is the most underrated back of all time.

[snoopy369]

Gale Sayers is definitely better than LT. There is an argument to be made that he is the greatest RB of all time, in the "If you have to pick one RB for your all-star team" sense (not the long career sense, sadly), particularly given the quality of the teams he played on...

LT was a great player, but even top 20 would probably be stretching it. He was largely on a very good team that was perfect for his skillset, which is the dream of any RB

[SlowwHand]

Earl Campbell

[snoopy369]

I would say I generally agree with this list:

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/6907909//

assuming length of career is taken into account. There are still a lot of people left off that list, though...

[Ben Kenobi]

Albert,

12490 yards 138 TD 3955 Rec 15 TD 16445 S
11236 yards 57 TD 2142 Rec 14 TD 13378 S

LT is better than OJ in every way.

[Ben Kenobi]

As for the rest, yeah I get it, if Sayers had played anywhere other than the Bears, he'd be a footnote. Massively overrated.

[Ben Kenobi]

Dickerson, he's up there, but I think LT is better. Dickerson has about 750 yards, but LT has about 60 TDs and 1800+ reception yards.

12490 138 3955 15 16445 S
13259 90 2137 6 15396
9407 74 806 10213

Campbell, he's not even in the same league as these guys.

[Ben Kenobi]

12490 138 3955 15 16445 S
14101 90 3329 10 17430 S

Curtis Martin is a good argument, and better than Dickerson but are 55 TDs worth 1000 yards from scrimmage?

I'd say 15 TDs are worth 1000 yards, which would make LT about 2000 yards to the good.

[Al B. Sure!]

Albert,

12490 yards 138 TD 3955 Rec 15 TD 16445 S
11236 yards 57 TD 2142 Rec 14 TD 13378 S

LT is better than OJ in every way.

HOLY CRAP! OJ played 14 game seasons

[Ben Kenobi]

The adjustments aren't enough, LT is already ahead of him.

2 extra games a season, aren't enough to make up 3000 yards from scrimmage.

[Al B. Sure!]

You can't go off of stats alone, Ben. For one, the number of games per season has changed. For two, the game itself has changed over the years.

For example, Johnny Unitas never passed for more than 3500 yards in a season or threw more than 32 TD's and he averaged around 22 TD's a season (he also had 5 seasons in which he threw 20+ picks). Terry Bradshaw never threw more than 25 TD's in his career. Namath never threw more than 28 TD's and had 3 seasons with 27+ INT's (in fact, 10 of his 12 years, he threw more INT's than TD's!).

If you compare the statistics of those three to players in the game today, you would wonder how the hell all three of them didn't rot on the bench!

[Ben Kenobi]

12490 138 3955 15 16445 S
12279 100 6875 36 19154 S

Faulk, right now is ahead of LT, by virtue of being the greatest pass catching RB of all time.

Giving 15 TDs = 1000 yards, LT is about 1500 yards behind Faulk.

A 800 yard season with about 10 TDs will put him over. LT's only had 9 seasons as compared to 12 for Faulk, and 14 for Curtis Martin.

[Ben Kenobi]

For example, Johnny Unitas never passed for more than 3500 yards in a season or threw more than 32 TD's and he averaged around 22 TD's a season (he also had 5 seasons in which he threw 20+ picks). Terry Bradshaw never threw more than 25 TD's in his career. Namath never threw more than 28 TD's and had 3 seasons with 27+ INT's (in fact, 10 of his 12 years, he threw more INT's than TD's!)

I really don't see how that's pertinent wrt to Running Backs. LT has scored more TDs at a faster clip than anyone, including Jim Brown. Running backs had better stats in days gone by than they do now, taking into adjustment the game being much less focussed on passing.