Powerhouse233 wrote:
FavreFan wrote:
sjboyd0137 wrote:
Scorehead wrote:
Interesting...not one Emmitt Smith reference.
Could you have imagined the career Barry Sanders would have had behind that Dallas OL?
Emmitt Smith is completely overrated.
I'm not sure he is. If anything, I think he has become a bit underrated since his retirement. People act like he was just a league-average RB. Emmitt Smith was a great player.
He might be underrated. People get a bit carried away when they downplay his greatness. I view him as being a poor man's Payton but that's still brilliant.
You may be reaching with the use of "still brilliant" and "underrated"
I'd reserve brilliant for players of transcendent talent for whom I'd consider paying my $$ to see, even if he was on a bad team. Emmitt just never rose to that level. He was strong & had lots of heart, but so did John Riggins. But I wouldn't have paid to watch him either.
Emmitt wasn't fast nor particularly shifty. He was average + at changing directions, much less so on grass, with little artistry on display when he played. I'd guess that 90% of his highlight reels came showing runs where the hole was 5' wide, or that where he ran through tacklers showing poor form and or bad angles.
That was usually because Aikman had at least 2-3 other legitimate weapons & the line of the last 40 years on the field with him at all times. Most of the rest would come from the glory of his '93(?) game vs. the Giants where "you could hear his bones crunching" according to NFL Films.
But his fans cannot stand the perfectly valid opinions that he was a high performing, yet overrated player. He was a great player. A great system player. No shame in that. But more is too much imo.
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