NFL
By: Greg Rector
There’s a pandemic going on in the sports social media sphere. The disease in question? That only the athletes of today are the best ever, what I call recency bias.
You have this not just from the younger generation of fans but also we’re seeing from the current player’s claims that they would beat someone 1 on 1 who was playing before the game before they were even born. Still, others seem to feel they need to proclaim their Hall of Fame credentials. Guess what? There’s a system in place to determine being worthy of enshrinement in all the Halls of Fame. Touting yourself as Hall of Fame worthy is not classy at all.
Other than gaining clicks I sure don’t see the point to this and I find it repugnant that both fans and these players think it’s an okay exercise. It truly denigrates previous generations of athletes and what they did in their eras. Even less fun? Being an older fan who has watched several eras of these sports and the players we saw and enjoyed so much.
I want to write about this because I was involved in a recent exercise with a bunch of folks on Twitter. I and NBS’ own Bill Carroll (NBS Draft Central) recently participated in what was called “The All-Time NFL Mock Draft.” We had a snake draft with all 32 current NFL teams represented. Of course, I represented the Dallas Cowboys while Bill represented the Philadelphia Eagles. For me, the keywords in this draft are “All-Time.” so yes you could if you wanted to draft a player from 1920 onward. Here’s where Bill and I diverged from the rest save for one choice by Bill (His placekicker) we didn’t select any active players at all. I vowed to myself to not use a single current player and stuck to it. Yes, there are current players who certainly could qualify for an “All-Time,” roster. But when you see Justin Herbert and Josh Allen being drafted in an “All-Time,” mock draft you kinda shake your head and go say what? Justin Jefferson? Seriously folks do those limited careers belong in any “All Time,” list in a sport with 102 years of history? So for next year, it will be a 5 season minimum of a career before you can be selected. Many of the teams were built in this century only, hence the “recency bias,” I spoke of. We had to draft One QB, One RB, Two Wr’s, a flex player, each OL position, and a tight end. Every defensive position, a placekicker, a punter, and Kick returner along with a head coach, offensive and defensive coordinator.
Here’s the roster I built:
QB Terry Bradshaw
RB Eric Dickerson
WR Bob Hayes
WR Isaac Curtis*
Flex Raymond Berry
TE Russ Francis
LT Gary Zimmerman
LG John Niland
C Mark Stepnoski
RG Kevin Gogan
RT Mike McCormack*
Defense: You had to decide what scheme to use 3-4 or 4-3 I went 4-3
Edge Charles Haley
Edge Kevin Carter
DT Joe Klecko*
DT Jethro Pugh Jr
LB Isiah Robertson
MLB Sam Huff
LB Larry Grantham
Corner Everson Walls
Corner Hanford Dixon*
Safety Darren Woodson
Safety Cliff Harris
PK Eddie Murray
P Mitch Berger
KR Billy “White Shoes” Johnson*
HC George Siefert
OC Kevin Gilbride
DC Ernie Stautner*
I denoted a few with the * for a reason. Joe Klecko was a Pro Bowl player at 3 different positions, bet you didn’t know he had 20.5 sacks as a defensive tackle. Mike McCormack may be better known as a general manager, yet Browns owner/coach Paul Brown also called him the best offensive lineman he ever coached. Isaac Curtis, many might not know the name at all. You should because the “Curtis Rule,” changed the way defenses had to play. Hanford Dixon was half of what many football historians call the second-best pair of cornerbacks to play together along with Frank Minnifield, oh and you can thank him for instigating a beloved Cleveland institution we all know now as the “Dawg Pound.” Finally, Ernie Stautner in addition to coaching both the original “Doomsday and Doomsday II,” defenses in Dallas was as a player the very first Pittsburgh Steeler to ever get his number retired. Go and read how tough a player he was. Do you love the celebrations after a TD? Thank Billy Johnson. Let’s not forget some of the older players played both sides of the football as well. Not just for one play or a series but for all 60 minutes.
Sure the size of players eras ago was smaller than we have today, obviously, they didn’t train year-round either. It was a far different era of the game. just as selecting Bradshaw as my QB, which I defend with 4 Super Bowls, 2 Super Bowl MVPs who called his own plays, a regular-season MVP, and even though it was a far heavier rushing era led the league in passing TDs twice. I’ll take that over guys who have been in the league for just 2 or 3 years. That roster has players spanning the 50s through to the early 00s. Oh and just as an added bonus the team that had the most players drafted and it wasn’t close, the Dallas Cowboys, tough luck haters.
Here’s another example of the recency bias that bothers me. I see people claiming this NFL team or that team had the best season ever anyone from the Patriots team that fell one game short of an undefeated season, the undefeated Dolphins, or the 85 Bears, one of the Ravens teams, and yes some will claim the 95 Cowboys as well. Sorry folks but as much as it pains me to say but if you use real numbers such as yardage for vs against, points for vs against, do you know what franchise actually had the most dominant team in the Super Bowl era? The 1991 Washington team had the most dominant season of any Super Bowl-winning franchise. Oh, how it pains this Cowboys fan having to say that.
We all know the numerous examples going on with NBA players, those are being done to death. So I will go back to a different sport. Baseball’s biggest change in the last 25 years? Five-man rotations versus the previous eras of four-man rotations. Now in the “olden days,” pitchers up until the 1969 season also had the advantage of pitching from a higher mound. Go look at how awful batting averages were in the 1960s for the most part, almost as awful as today but for different reasons. Today it’s because everyone swings the fences way more. The more important point is the context involved. There are changes in every sport that changes the parameters of how the games are played. I have used this example before but Shohei Ohtani is not the first guy to play a position and pitch either, just some guy named Babe Ruth did it over 100 years ago. I really don’t know how you can compare guys who amassed over 300 innings and over 300 strikeouts to today’s specialized pitchers fairly.
What I really think is so different is that we have generations now of players and fans who really haven’t been taught the history of the sports they follow. Unless they haven’t seen it on the internet or live, they dismiss the games as they were once played along with the players. That really is sad. I don’t claim that the older players were better, I don’t claim today’s are either. It’s simply that people say this stuff without having any context. I will say there is one recent hypothetical match-up on Twitter that did intrigue me. Aaron Donald versus Larry “The Landlord, “Allen. Now that would have been a battle to witness. That’s where it should be kept though as a fun type of hypothetical instead of this instant dismissal of those from the past.
In closing please take a few minutes out and look up that “All-Time,” roster. You might learn something.
As always you can find me on Twitter @GregCowboys
