As we discussed, after seeing Gosselin's ranking of Sayers as 3rd best all-time, I looked at the stats. This week's SI talks about the existing film and his contemporary players' recollections. Football is just different; so many careers cut short that you have to look at players' impact. Sayers played in 51 games before his right knee was destroyed and to that point had averaged 5.3 yds/carry and way over 30 yds per kickoff. 10 months after the knee surgery (with no ACL) he played a full season and led the league in rushing and had a 4.4 avg/carry. The next preseason his left knee was totalled and he was basically finished. In just his first 3 years he returned 8 kicks for touchdowns, but never another one. When he was injured 9 games into his 4th season, he was averaging 6.2 yds/carry that year. In addition, he averaged a quite amazing 11.7 yds per reception over his career, a huge average for a RB. He finished with 56 TD's in 68 games. By the way, he played at 6' 200 lbs. In summary, there's a reason we still hear and see Sayers as an icon of the sport. He probably had as much pure talent as anyone who ever played the position, and no one who ever saw him can forget him.
S
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment