Brad Oremland is a sportswriter and football historian. There are few who have given as much thought to the history of pro football as Brad has over the years. What follows is Brad’s latest work, a multi-part series on the greatest players in pro football history.

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This is the tenth article in a twelve-part series profiling the greatest pro football players of all time. You can find the previous installments below:

111-125
101-110
91-100
81-90
71-80
61-70
51-60
41-50
31-40

I would prefer to write about the players in exclusively positive terms, but since this series is organized as a ranking, some of the comments will highlight weaknesses by way of explaining why the player isn’t even higher. I try to anticipate arguments that a player should be ranked higher or lower, and tailor the summaries accordingly, but please don’t misinterpret these justifications as disrespect for the player’s accomplishments. At this point in the series, we’re considering the very best players in the history of professional football.

Best Players of All Time: 21-30

30. Alan Page
Defensive Tackle
Minnesota Vikings, 1967-78; Chicago Bears, 1978-81
23 FR, 86 yards, 2 TD; 2 INT, 42 yards, TD
1 MVP, 2 DPOY, 4 consensus All-Pro, 8 AP All-Pro, 9 Pro Bowls, 1970s All-Decade Team

The greatest pass rushing defensive tackle of all time, Alan Page retired before sacks became an official statistic, but historian John Turney credits him with 148.5, the most ever at his position. Page was an undersized DT for most his career, despite his 6′ 4″ height. Page lost more and more weight over time, coming into the league at 278 but playing his best seasons around 250 lbs. He was famously down to 225 by the time he played with Chicago, but he remained an effective player. Turney credits him with 40 sacks during 58 games with Chicago, and Page was All-NFC as late as 1980. He had 3.5 sacks in his final game.

Although he had many good seasons, Page’s prime was the early 1970s. In 1970, he personally recorded eight takeaways: 1 interception, 7 fumble recoveries, 104 defensive return yards, and a touchdown. In 1971, he was the consensus Defensive Player of the Year, and the Associated Press named him NFL MVP. He was incredibly impactful at a position not normally expected to produce impact players. MVP awards were for quarterbacks and running backs. Lawrence Taylor and Page are the only defensive players to win that award. Two years later, Page was again DPOY.

He was the keystone of Minnesota’s defensive dynasty, variously known as the Purple Gang (after a 1920s Detroit mob) and the Purple People Eaters (after the Sheb Wooley song), with both names originally referring to the defensive line (of Carl Eller, Gary Larsen, Jim Marshall, and Page) but popularly extended to the entire defensive unit. Eller, Page, and safety Paul Krause are all enshrined in the Hall of Fame. From 1969-76, the Vikings ranked in the top three in fewest points allowed seven out of the eight years, including three straight seasons leading the NFL (1969-71). The 1969-76 Vikings went 87-24-1 (.781) — about 12.5 wins per season in 16-game seasons — and reached the Super Bowl four times in eight years. The Cowboys or Vikings represented the NFC in nine out of 10 Super Bowls from 1969-78.

Page was an unusual football player, but specifically, he was an unusual defensive tackle. He moved around on the line, upsetting blocking schemes with his unpredictability. Page is very intelligent, and he guessed a lot as a player: where to line up, where the ball was going, when the snap was coming. He anticipated the snap as well as anyone at that time, and he was incredibly quick for his size, often blowing past offensive linemen before they’d gotten out of their stances. He wasn’t huge, he wasn’t a space eater, and he didn’t have great power. As time went on, he became increasingly devoted to distance running, which led to his weight loss. Page completed his first marathon in 1979, three years before he retired from the NFL, and went on to run many more. He compensated for his lack of size with quickness that linemen couldn’t match, with endurance that allowed him to go hard on every play, and with intelligence that facilitated blowups in the offensive backfield. Despite his light weight, Page also had good height and long arms which he used to beat blockers, intimidate quarterbacks and deflect passes, and block 28 kicks in his career. He was perhaps the best kick blocker ever. Twenty-eight.

Page attended law school during the offseason and became a judge on the Minnesota Supreme Court following his retirement as a player. He’s a remarkable man, a true pillar of his community, and I’m sure Page is more proud of what he’s accomplished off the field than on it. But in this series, I don’t want Page’s legal career, or his uncommon decency as a human being, to overshadow his excellence as a football player. Aaron Donald is the perhaps the best player in football today, but I think it’s premature and even disrespectful to suggest that he has already overtaken Page as the greatest pass-rushing DT in history. Donald has 59.5 sacks, only 40% of Page’s total. I don’t think he needs to get to 149 before we pass the crown, but surely he should get at least halfway there before we rank him ahead of Page. Donald has been brilliant in every season of his five-year career, but it’s not obvious to me that he has played better than Page did in his five best years, and Page had a lot of other good seasons, too. Part of what made Page so impressive is that he was so good for so long, winning postseason honors in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Make no mistake, Aaron Donald is coming for everyone ranked ahead of him. But by the same token, make no mistake: Alan Page was a truly excellent player for many years, a terror to opposing linemen and quarterbacks, and the standout on some of the greatest defensive teams of all time.

29. Drew Brees
Quarterback
San Diego Chargers, 2001-05; New Orleans Saints, 2006-18
74,437 yards, 520 TD, 233 INT, 97.7 rating
2 OPOY, 1 consensus All-Pro, 5 AP All-Pro, 12 Pro Bowls

In 16 seasons covering the NFL for Sports Central, one of my favorite traditions was the All-Loser Team. At the end of each regular season, I named an all-star team comprised entirely of players whose teams missed the playoffs. I published the list each year to give recognition to great players on average-to-bad teams and to refute the notion that individual skill is best measured by team success. Besides, assembling all-star teams is fun.

Drew Brees was my All-Loser QB in 2005, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016. According to my selections, he was the best non-playoff QB every single year the Saints missed the playoffs. Brees, with seven selections, was the only player at any position to make the team more than four times. Playing a position often judged by team results, he was a player whose team’s inconsistent success didn’t reflect his performance. In Brees’ 13 seasons in New Orleans, his defensive teammates have combined to make only 11 Pro Bowls.

Brees has led the NFL in passing yards seven times. That’s more than Tom Brady and Peyton Manning combined, more than John Elway and Dan Marino combined. Brees has five of the top 10 passing yardage seasons of all time, including four of the top six. Granted that the ranks are still in flux while Brady and Brees are active, but Brees ranks 1st all-time in pass completions and yards. He’s 2nd in pass TDs and 3rd in TD/INT differential. Brees has led the league in pass TDs four times, and his 10 seasons of 30+ TDs are the most in history.

He has led the NFL in passer rating twice, and also maintained the lowest sack percentage in the league twice; Brees is among the best passers in history at avoiding sacks. He has led the NFL in first down percentage and net yards per attempt twice each. The statistical case for Brees’ greatness is expansive, and very easy to make.

The eye test has been more challenging. Playing in a small market, on teams that have not consistently been good enough to command national television appearances, Brees has had fewer opportunities than some of his peers to dazzle fans with his play. And with fewer victories for his team, Brees has fewer signature moments than Brady and Manning, or even Aaron Rodgers.

Brees is even at a genetic disadvantage. Brees is under six feet, at a position where most starters are rubber-stamped 6-foot-4. ^[1]His success has forced some reevaluation of the importance of height in a quarterback, but of the 33 QBs who qualified for the passing title in 2018, 31 were over 6 feet tall, including 22 listed … Continue reading He doesn’t have a classically strong arm, and he’s not a dangerous scrambler. He makes up for these potential drawbacks with accuracy, intelligence, and leadership. There are dozens of QBs with ideal height and cannon arms and greater mobility than Brees. What most separates the best QBs of this generation has been not their physical talents — which, while extraordinary compared to the general populace, are relatively commonplace in the NFL — but their understanding of the game, their ability to read defenses, to make good decisions and split-second adjustments. Brees’ understanding and ability to adjust have consistently distinguished him, but those things show up more noticeably on the stat sheet than the television screen.

Stylistically, too, Brees has been at a disadvantage when it comes to awing spectators. Playing quarterback, Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers were artists; Brady and Brees are technicians. All have been extremely effective, but the artists make great plays that cause you to fall off your chair, whereas the technicians make great plays that look routine. Brees’ career demonstrates the relative lack of utility of two statistics: completion percentage and yards per completion. Brees has the highest completion percentage in history, and he has broken the single-season record four times. So accurate! However, he has facilitated this miraculously high completion percentage by throwing high-percentage short passes far more often than risky downfield passes. Here’s every passer with at least 25,000 yards from 2010-18, ranked by yards per completion:

1. Cam Newton, 12.3
2. Russell Wilson, 12.2
3. Carson Palmer, 12.1
4. Aaron Rodgers, 12.0
5. Philip Rivers, 12.0
6. Ben Roethlisberger, 11.9
7. Tom Brady, 11.9
8. Ryan Fitzpatrick, 11.7
9. Eli Manning, 11.6
10. Andy Dalton, 11.5
11. Matt Ryan, 11.5
12. Matthew Stafford, 11.4
13. Drew Brees, 11.3
14. Alex Smith, 11.2
15. Joe Flacco, 10.8

Other than at the low extremes, completion percentage and yards per completion are indicative of playing style rather than skill level. There’s nothing these statistics tell you about overall talent level and performance that you can’t learn faster by looking at net yards per attempt. ^[2]Brees, Brady, Rivers, Roethlisberger, Ryan, Rodgers, Palmer, Wilson, Eli, Fitzpatrick, Stafford, Dalton, Newton, Smith, Flacco However, downfield passers, the guys with high yards per completion, tend to look more impressive, while the guys at the bottom of the list sometimes get tagged with demeaning “game manager” and “system QB” labels. Brees’ undeniable excellence has largely sheltered him from those tags, but it hasn’t always facilitated the jaw-dropping plays that inspire “GOAT” arguments. Obviously Brees has made plenty of impressive plays, but I don’t think any objective observer would claim he has as many as, say, Peyton Manning.

I wonder how Brees would be viewed if his career didn’t overlap so closely with those of Brady and Manning and Rodgers — or if he’d had Bill Belichick and New England’s defensive units. Don’t shed too many tears for Brees’ offensive support, though, which includes head coach Sean Payton, 11 Pro Bowl linemen (including Jahri Evans), Antonio Gates and Jimmy Graham, Marques Colston and Michael Thomas, and some of this generation’s best receiving RBs, including LaDainian Tomlinson, Reggie Bush, Darren Sproles, and Alvin Kamara.

28. Anthony Muñoz
Offensive Tackle
Cincinnati Bengals, 1980-92
7 consensus All-Pro, 11 AP All-Pro, 11 Pro Bowls, 1980s All-Decade Team, 75th Anniversary Team

Last week, I described several players as “complete.” Anthony Munoz was a complete offensive lineman, a standout in every area offensive linemen can stand out. He had great strength, and was known for pancaking defenders. In a workout prior to the 1980 NFL Draft, Muñoz’s leg strength was literally off the chart. However, Muñoz was — if possible — even more renowned for his agility and footwork. Four-time Pro Bowl defensive end William Fuller credited Muñoz with “the best feet of any tackle I’ve gone against.”

That combination of size (6′ 6″, 280 lbs.), strength, and agility would have been enough to get Muñoz to the Hall of Fame, but he also used flawless technique to direct opponents where he wanted them to go. Like a great pass rusher who alternates a speed rush and a bull rush, Muñoz could overpower defenders, or simply finesse them out of the play. Run-blocking is typically aggressive, a driving type of block. Pass-blocking is usually more passive and reactive, protecting the passer’s pocket rather than creating openings. Muñoz excelled in both areas as few players ever have.

Coming out of USC, Muñoz was regarded as a risky pick. No one doubted his talent, but he’d had knee injuries and hadn’t been able to stay on the field. As a pro, Muñoz never missed a game due to injury. His workouts were unique among players his size, more focused on endurance than weight-lifting. He kept himself in tremendous shape. His durability separated Muñoz from peers like Jim Covert and Joe Jacoby, who had trouble staying healthy.

Muñoz was intelligent and diligent, a coach’s dream who had a natural gift for understanding what opponents wanted to do, enhanced by study of those opponents. He had exceptional balance, leaving no weakness for opponents to exploit. Bruce Smith praised Muñoz, “There are no comparisons between him and other tackles. He’s proven it year after year that he’s the best . . . what’s amazing is that he does everything right.” Muñoz is the top-rated offensive lineman in this series, the one who did everything right.

27. Emmitt Smith
Running Back
Dallas Cowboys, 1990-2002; Arizona Cardinals, 2003-04
18,355 rush yards, 4.16 average, 164 TD; 515 rec, 3,224 yards, 11 TD
1 MVP, 1 OPOY, 4 consensus All-Pro, 5 AP All-Pro, 8 Pro Bowls, Offensive Rookie of the Year, 1990s All-Decade Team

It was inevitable that people would compare Emmitt Smith to Barry Sanders and Thurman Thomas. In the early 1990s, those were clearly the three best running backs in the NFL, light years ahead of the rest of the league. Most fans, and even more, most of the media, want things to be simple. So Sanders was defined by his awesome open-field running, and Thomas by his receiving, and Emmitt was … the other one. The jack of all trades is never admired as much as the master of one.

When he got into the open field, Smith ran away from people, but he wasn’t as fast as Barry Sanders or Marshall Faulk, so he was never known for speed. Smith broke a lot of tackles, but he didn’t have the size of Jerome Bettis or Christian Okoye, so he wasn’t considered a power back. Smith had great agility, and made a lot of tacklers miss, but playing at the same time as Barry, he was never going to be known as that guy with superior cutting ability. Smith was a sure-handed receiver, with over 500 receptions in his career, but the Cowboys’ offense didn’t call for him to catch as many passes as Thomas or Faulk, and he was never known for that. Smith was durable, with over 350 carries four times between 1991-95, but people don’t really think of that as a skill. Smith had great vision and ability to read his blocks, but when people mentioned that at all they deferred most of the credit to the blockers themselves.

The Great Wall of Dallas. Emmitt Smith did play with some of the greatest offensive lines in history, and the best blocking fullback of his generation. He played for a gifted offensive coordinator, Norv Turner, and had teammates like Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin to ensure that opponents couldn’t sell out to stop the run. All those things are true, and it’s important to put Smith’s accomplishments in context. But none of those factors disqualify Smith from being one of the greatest running backs in history. If you dock him for all those advantages, what would he have to do to win you over? Become the league’s all-time leader in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns? Win NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP? Lead the league in rushing four times, in TDs three times, and in rushing average once? Break the single-season touchdown record? He did all of that.

Of course, we quickly grew to appreciate Emmitt’s overall combination of skills. In his 1996 book All Madden, John Madden wrote, “Emmitt Smith, to me, is now pro football’s best running back . . . if you want a running back to do everything a running back has to do, run the ball, catch the ball, and block either in pass protection or for somebody else running the ball, Emmitt Smith is the best. He’s not that big. He’s listed at five nine and 209, but he plays big.”

There’s this idea that big backs make the best goal line runners. I’m sure that was true in the past, when the biggest RBs were the same size as defensive linemen. As recently as the early 1980s, power backs like Earl Campbell and John Riggins were the best short-yardage runners. But today, defensive tackles weigh 320 lbs, and a 235-lb RB isn’t going to move those guys off the line of scrimmage. The all-time leaders in rush TDs are Emmitt Smith (164), LaDainian Tomlinson (145), Marcus Allen (123), and Walter Payton (110). All of those guys weighed about 205. Emmitt had some power, but he was an effective goal line back because he could also run outside. He made defenders miss more often than he bulldozed them.

To the extent Smith was known for a particular quality, it was bound to be something relatively intangible, and on January 2, 1994, we settled on “heart.” The Cowboys and Giants were both 11-4, and Dallas was playing at New York in Week 17, with a division title on the line. Smith separated his shoulder in the second quarter. He came back in, dazed by the pain, and finished the day with 32 carries for 168 yards, and 10 catches for 61 yards, including 41 total yards in overtime. The Cowboys won, and it became the defining game of Smith’s career.

That’s especially remarkable considering that Smith was MVP of Super Bowl XXVIII, in which he rushed for 132 yards and 2 TDs, adding 4 receptions for 26 yards. That game was tied in the third quarter, until Smith accounted for 61 yards of the 64-yard drive that put Dallas ahead for good. Altogether, Smith rushed for 1,586 yds, a 4.54 average, and 19 TDs in the postseason, with his teams going 12-5 in those games and winning three championships. His seven 100-yard rushing games in the postseason are tied with Terrell Davis for the most in history, and Smith averaged nearly 100 rushing yards per game, a 1,488-yard pace over 16 games.

Smith was a complete back, with no weaknesses. He was remarkably consistent, rushing for 1,000 yards in 11 consecutive seasons and setting significant career records. He also had a brilliant peak, with numerous All-Pro selections, winning NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP. He wasn’t as visually spectacular as Sanders, but he was good at everything. He got into trouble less often, though that really does need to be viewed in the context of the blockers, and he played a lot longer, 15 seasons to Barry’s 10. Smith had three 1,000-yard rushing seasons after Sanders retired.

Since Sanders hasn’t appeared in the series yet, and it would be extremely unorthodox to rank him outside the top 125, you’ve probably discerned that I have him ranked higher than this. But the difference is not large. Smart, well-informed fans and analysts can and should respectfully disagree about Barry vs. Emmitt.

26. Mel Hein
Center (Pre-Modern)
New York Giants, 1931-45
1 MVP, 4 consensus All-Pro, 11 All-Pro, 4 Pro Bowls, 1930s All-Decade Team, 50th Anniversary Team, 75th Anniversary Team

You can’t really compare Pre-Modern, two-way players to modern players who specialize at a single position. However, this ranking includes players of both types, so I’m implicitly making the comparison anyway. And since I’ve gone this far … Mel Hein is the highest-rated offensive lineman on the list, two spots ahead of Anthony Muñoz.

Of course, Hein wasn’t just an offensive lineman. He was the greatest linebacker of the 1930s, and once they started keeping track of interceptions in 1940, Hein had at least one every season. My personal idea of heaven is a place where (hopefully among other things) I could see exactly what Mel Hein did to win the NFL MVP award in 1938, beating out the likes of Don Hutson, Clarke Hinkle, and Ace Parker. Hein has exactly two official statistics from that season: games played (11) and interception return TDs (1). He was the best in the league at both center and linebacker, but with no purely objective data to demonstrate his case.

Two essential factors persuaded me to rank Hein ahead of Muñoz. One was longevity. In the brutal era before facemasks, when few players lasted over a decade, Hein played — and played well — for 15 seasons. Muñoz lasted 13 seasons — a good number, but not one that would distinguish him, by itself, from other great linemen of the 1980s. The other factor in Hein’s favor, of course, is that he played all 60 minutes.

Hein was listed at 6-foot-2, 225 pounds. He doesn’t look especially big for that era, but he was strong and — more importantly — he was tough. It is impossible to overstate how important toughness was in the 1930s. Players took a ferocious beating. Not only did they play the whole game, with minimal safety equipment and no medical or training staff to speak of, the rules allowed any number of techniques that are banned today, mostly involving blows to the head. Centers were terribly vulnerable, getting smashed in the face immediately at the snap, to take them out of the play before they could get their hands up. 1940s Hall of Fame center Bulldog Turner explained, “They put the biggest, toughest guy they had right over the center, and he’d let you have it in the face as soon as you snapped the ball.”

Abililty to endure (and willingness to absorb) that punishment defined player’s careers. You couldn’t tackle half-heartedly on defense, or be afraid to get hit on offense, and most players couldn’t take it for more than a few years. Hein played in 170 regular-season games, a record that lasted until the NFL adopted a 14-game schedule — and began to ban certain types of hits — 15 years after Hein’s retirement. Hein famously called timeout just once in his long career, so he could re-set his broken nose without missing a play. He was nicknamed “Cappy,” as the Giants’ team captain for 10 years, and “Old Indestructible.”

In addition to his legendary toughness and durability, Hein was smart and athletic. As a linebacker, he was famous for limiting Hutson’s impact by cornering him on the sidelines. Hein had great genes: his son Mel Hein Jr. set a world indoor record in the pole vault, and grandson Gary Hein was a great rugby player.

Hein was an agile, fearless, and technical run-blocker, in an era when that was critically important, but he was also ahead of his time as a pass blocker, anticipating the quarterback pocket implemented by Paul Brown after Hein’s retirement. The Eagles’ Bucko Kilroy, who entered the league in 1943, compared Turner — the greatest center of the 1940s — to Hein: “Bulldog Turner was a bull, a great strength guy, but Mel Hein of the Giants was more skillful.” Hein was the best snapper in the league, in an era when that ability couldn’t be taken from granted. “He could center a ball from 50 yards and hit a needle in its eye,” hailed Bears’ coach George Halas.

Another Hall of Fame coach, the Packers’ Curly Lambeau, called Hein “the perfect center.” Hall of Fame fullback Bronko Nagurski called him “the greatest linebacker that I played against.” His own Hall of Fame coach, Steve Owen, lauded, “I’ve never seen a player who made fewer mistakes than Mel.” Team owner Wellington Mara called him “the number-one player in the first fifty years of the Giants’ history.” Hein played in seven NFL Championship Games in 15 seasons.

Other than his legendary toughness, Hein was probably best-known for his intelligence, especially on defense. He anticipated the play and had an instinctive sense for necessary adjustments. Hein was an assistant coach for many years after his retirement, and supervisor of officials in both the AFL and AFC.

When the Pro Football Hall of Fame opened in 1963, Hein was one of 11 players to be inducted as a charter member, but he is seldom remembered today. Even in the two-way ’30s and ’40s, center was not a glamorous position, and Hein has no stats to show how far ahead of his contemporaries he was. When we recall players of that era, we focus on stat-generating positions, the same glory positions that get emphasized today. Fans know names like Red Grange and Sammy Baugh, Sid Luckman and Ernie Nevers. Hein was a truly great player, a league MVP at his peak and an iron man over his career, the best player on a perennial championship contender. He deserves to be remembered and celebrated today.

25. Fran Tarkenton
Quarterback
Minnesota Vikings, 1961-66, 1972-78; New York Giants, 1967-71
47,003 yards, 342 TD, 266 INT, 80.4 rating
1 MVP, 1 OPOY, 1 consensus All-Pro, 2 AP All-Pro, 9 Pro Bowls

Fran Tarkenton broke broke all of the career passing records set by Johnny Unitas: completions, yards, touchdowns. He set them out of reach: the marks survived the 16-game schedule and liberalized passing and blocking rules to endure almost 20 years after Tarkenton’s retirement. Among casual fans, though, Tarkenton is remembered mostly as a scrambler. He was an inveterate scrambler, but he wasn’t really a running quarterback the way we think of them today. Tarkenton frequently abandoned the pocket, dodging and backtracking and going anywhere that seemed like it would avoid the nearest defender. But he ran to avoid pressure, to set up plays rather than create them. He was an escape artist, nimble rather than fast, and tough by necessity rather than design.

In 1961, the expansion Minnesota Vikings drafted Tarkenton 29th overall. In the team’s first game, Tarkenton came off the bench to pass for 4 TDs, running for a 5th. The Vikings won that game, but with the league’s worst defense, they finished 3-11. The offensive line stunk, too. “They are not big,” offensive line coach Stan West lamented of his unit, “but they are slow.” Playing behind that unit, with a receiving corps led by Jerry Reichow, Tarkenton ran for his life more than for yardage. Often he ran backwards, leading head coach Norm Van Brocklin to complain, “With Tarkenton, you need to have an exceptionally good 3rd-and-40 offense.”

Over the course of his career, Tarkenton rushed on 8.7% of his plays, ^[3]Where a play is defined as a pass attempt, rush attempt, or sack a figure that is above average but far from astronomical. Plenty of Tarkenton’s peers — Terry Bradshaw (9.5%), Roger Staubach (11.1%), and Frank Ryan (11.6%), among others — ran more often and more aggressively. Tarkenton was a scrambler specifically. He was known for running around — not necessarily running for yardage — and he was elusive but not fast. His compulsive scrambling wasn’t a foolproof strategy, but it was wildly entertaining, and with poor offensive lines for much of his career, it often seemed like a necessity.

I’ve downplayed Tarkenton’s running to emphasize the scrambling nature of his mobility, but he did rush for a lot of yardage. Tarkenton five times led all QBs in rushing, ^[4]Only Randall Cunningham had more seasons as the leading rusher among quarterbacks. with four more years in the top three. He rushed for 300 yards seven times, the record for QBs until Michael Vick upped the mark in 2013. Forty years after his retirement, there are only 10 passers with more yards than Tarkenton, and there a handful of QBs with more rushing yardage, but no one is ahead of him in both categories. Likewise with touchdowns.

Tarkenton didn’t have tremendous arm strength, but he was accurate. He took the most sacks in history, but he didn’t throw a lot of interceptions, which is remarkable considering how often he threw under pressure. He was intense, competitive, and a better leader than he is usually given credit for. He rushed for 3,674 yards and 32 TDs. He was durable and consistent, and he was not only a great fit but a vital bright spot for otherwise moribund franchises.

Tarkenton played heroically with the expansion Vikings, and led them to a winning record (8-5-1 in 1964) sooner than Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys, who had debuted a year earlier. In 1967, the Giants traded two 1st-round draft picks and two 2nd-round draft picks for Tarkenton. Teams normally regret that kind of trade, and it did lay the foundation for a minor dynasty in Minnesota, but the Giants improved immediately. His first season in New York, Tarkenton set career-highs for passing yards and TDs, the Giants scored 106 points more than the previous year (an improvement of over 40%), and New York rose from 1-12-1 to 7-7, the first of four straight second-place finishes.

After five years with the Giants, another blockbuster trade returned Tarkenton to Minnesota, now coached by Hall of Famer Bud Grant and backed up by a brilliant defense featuring three Hall of Famers. The Vikings won the NFC Central in each of his last six seasons, including three NFC titles — and three Super Bowl losses. His teams went 6-2 in the NFC playoffs, including 3-0 in NFC Championship Games. Tarkenton is most famous for those seasons, at the helm of a team that dominated its conference, but at an individual level, his best seasons were probably those spent dragging terrible teams to .500 records. “This team could win a Super Bowl,” he mused during his 1975 MVP season, “but I don’t know that I would have made a bigger contribution to football by being a part of it than I did a couple of seasons in New York when we went 9-5 and 7-7 with no football players.”

Paul Zimmerman remembered a conversation with Tarkenton: “I told him the best game I’d ever seen him have was in a Monday-nighter against Dallas in 1971, a 20-13 loss, when he was playing for the Giants. ‘It’s my favorite, too,’ he said. The Giants ended up 4-10 that year. Dallas was the Super Bowl champ. The receivers Tarkenton had to work with that night were Clifton McNeil and Dick Houston, his running backs were Bobby Duhon and Junior Coffey. But Tarkenton managed to keep that motley assortment in the game almost through sheer will, scrambling, dodging bullets, making big plays out of nothing, finally seeing the thing fizzle at the end when he tried, in desperation, to lateral to a lineman. That’s the picture of Tarkenton that I’ll always remember, a quarterback in a competitive frenzy.”

What most distinguished Tarkenton, and what allowed him to drive his career stats so high, was remarkable year-to-year consistency at an elite level. He ranked in the top 10 in the NFL in completions 17 times, including three years leading the league and 11 seasons in the top five. He ranked in the top 10 in passing TDs 16 times, and that doesn’t include an average of 2 rushing TDs per season. He was top-10 in passer rating 16 times. Passing yards per game — and again, this doesn’t credit his rushing — 17 years in a row, with 12 in the top five. For the better part of his 17 healthy seasons, Tarkenton was one of the best players in football at his position. Over his long career, Tarkenton made nine Pro Bowls and won the 1975 NFL MVP Award. He was one of the most efficient passers of his generation, one of the greatest running QBs in history, and he played forever with basically no down seasons.

24. Night Train Lane
Cornerback
Los Angeles Rams, 1952-53; Chicago Cardinals, 1954-59; Detroit Lions, 1960-65
68 INT, 1,207 yards, 5 TD
2 consensus All-Pro, 6 AP All-Pro, 7 Pro Bowls, 1950s All-Decade Team, 50th Anniversary Team, 75th Anniversary Team, All-Century Team

The single-season record for interceptions is 14, by Dick “Night Train” Lane in 1952. That was a 12-game season, but his record still stands and might never be broken; it’s been over a decade since anyone intercepted 10 passes in a season. Night Train’s 298 INT return yards that season are the 7th-most in history, and one of five seasons in which he gained over 100 INT return yards. His 68 career interceptions are the fourth-most in history and his 1,207 return yards rank sixth all-time.

Despite all of that, Lane was known more for his devastating tackles than his pass defense. He was a headhunter, at a time when that was ruthlessly effective rather than dirty and illegal. “Train” specialized in clothesline tackles, and any opponent who tried to prove his toughness against Lane — or who had the bad fortune not to notice the defensive back sprinting towards him — was liable to pay for it. The “Night Train Necktie” was a clothesline that transitioned to wrapping up the runner and throwing him backwards. Lane was one of the most feared tacklers of all time, but he was not regarded as a dirty player. Clotheslines and facemask tackles were legal when Lane practiced them, though his merciless hits eventually inspired rule changes.

Lane debuted in the NFL as a 24-year-old Army veteran, undrafted and unrecruited, a walk-on who asked for a tryout. He had an offensive background, but the ’52 Rams had Hall of Fame receivers Tom Fears and Crazy Legs Hirsch, and anyway Lane struggled to learn the receiving routes. He was far more effective in man-to-man coverage on defense, but he still brought a receiver’s skill set and an offensive mentality to his pass coverage. Lane was one of the first defenders to deliberately bait QBs into throwing interceptions, playing off his receiver and then breaking in front of the pass. He was a gambler, certainly the most aggressive ballhawk of his generation, but he had remarkable speed that allowed him to recover when he guessed wrong or got beaten. In his first training camp with the Rams, he drew attention for chasing down Hirsch and catching him from behind.

Before the Rams switched him to defense, Lane studied the offensive playbook religiously with Fears, spent hours in Fears’ room. Fears was always playing the song “Night Train” — Buddy Morrow’s recording of the Jimmy Forrest song — and one day teammate Ben Sheets walked into the room and exclaimed, “Here’s Night Train visiting again!” The nickname stuck. Night Train was tall, 6-foot-2, but light as a rookie, probably only about 180 pounds. He put on weight during his career, ending up around 210. His size is unmistakeable on film: Lane was bigger than anyone he covered. His combination of size, speed, instincts, and ruthlessness made him the greatest cornerback ever to play.

It’s hard to be certain about these things before 1950 or so, but I believe Lane was the first defensive back to dictate offensive strategy, the first one opponents would deliberately stay away from. Hall of Fame QB Bart Starr cautioned, “Don’t throw anywhere near him, he’s the best there is.” Johnny Unitas explained to Paul Zimmerman that Hall of Fame coach Weeb Ewbank “had tremendous respect for Night Train Lane. He’d tell me, ‘Don’t throw the ball in his area.’” 49ers coach Red Hickey lamented, “People go broke throwing into Lane’s zone,” and moved R.C. Owens to the opposite side of the field so Lane wouldn’t cover him.

Lane didn’t garner an extraordinary number of honors. Most of his Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections came at the end of his career, with the Lions. Lane was in his mid-30s then. That period excludes his most impressive INT seasons, and the majority of the years his most effective tackling techniques were legal. He wasn’t really a better player in the ’60s than in the ’50s. He was better-known by then, an elder statesman, and — perhaps more importantly — racial prejudice was decreasing. Lane was passed over for Pro Bowl and All-Pro honors in some of his best seasons simply because of bad picking by the selectors. The people who vote on Pro Bowls and All-Pro teams are human, and they make mistakes sometimes. With most players it balances out eventually, but there are exceptions. If you judge Lane by his postseason honors, you’ll dramatically underestimate him. By 1969, he was named the greatest cornerback in history.

Vince Lombardi, who coached HOF corner Herb Adderley, concurred, calling Lane “the best cornerback I’ve ever seen.” That’s how I see it, too. Lane was a standout in every facet of the position.

23. Barry Sanders
Running Back
Detroit Lions, 1989-98
15,269 rush yards, 4.99 average, 99 TD; 352 rec, 2,921 yards, 10 TD
1 MVP, 2 OPOY, 5 consensus All-Pro, 10 AP All-Pro, 10 Pro Bowls, Rookie of the Year, 1990s All-Decade Team

Running backs, more than other positions, are categorized and compared to players with similar styles. Today, any back with exceptional agility and balance gets compared to Barry Sanders. What used to be the domain of Hugh McElhenny and Gale Sayers was swallowed up by Sanders’ mind-bending, ankle-breaking, physics-defying cuts.

I have great admiration for the top open-field runners, the Sayers and McElhennys and O.J. Simpsons and LeSean McCoys. But none of them compare to Sanders. He bedeviled defenders in a way the game has never seen from another runner. His change of direction was unparalleled, a magic trick that seemed to contradict the laws of the universe. Without a doubt, he made tacklers miss more than any other player in history.

Sanders made the Pro Bowl every year of his career, made All-Pro every year, and rushed for at least 1,100 yards, with an average over 4.30, every season. He scored double-digit TDs seven times, and in 1997, he had the third 2,000-yard rushing season in history, with 14 straight 100-yard games to finish the regular season. Sanders retired with 25 150-yard rushing games, by far the most in history (Walter Payton, 20). He suddenly retired on the eve of the 1999 season, or he might have set the career rushing record, and potentially put it out of reach.

At the start of this series, I encouraged readers to watch Herschel Walker‘s University of Georgia highlights, tweaking a familiar saying: a video is worth a thousand words. I don’t know how many words a good Barry Sanders highlight video would be worth, but it’s more than a thousand. Sanders could halt his momentum almost instantly, and return to full speed in a different direction before the defender had arrested his movement out of the play. As a spectator, Sanders was the most dazzling ball-carrier of all time, including everyone, and it’s not close.

Barry was listed at 5-foot-8, 203 pounds. He wasn’t a power back, but he wasn’t a puffball; Sanders squatted 600 lbs. at Oklahoma State, and he could break tackles. He ran out of bounds less often than today’s RBs do, always certain that one more cut could gain extra yardage. Sanders also used his lack of height effectively, hiding in the backfield and blowing past defenders, plus tacklers could never get under him. Paul Zimmerman summed up Sanders, “No one ever has matched his crazy-legged, pinball style. No one ever had the balance he did. He is a one-man highlight reel of the most amazing runs in NFL history.”

Thinking about the qualities you want in a running back, Sanders had them in spades: speed, agility, balance, and so forth. He was durable, missing only seven games in 10 seasons. There was only one season (1993) in which he missed more than one game. He was humble, a quiet superstar, but in an unconventional way. When we describe players as humble, we often say that they put the team before themselves. Sanders did put himself before the team, but in unexpected ways. Doing endzone dances, breaking records, and soaking in media adoration weren’t important to him. When Sanders unexpectedly retired on the eve of the 1999 season, Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press wrote a nuanced but devastating column in which he recalled Sanders’ less desirable qualities:

Barry always has been one of those guys about whom people make excuses. He is eminently likable in person, soft-spoken, polite, humble. And oh-so-incredible on the field.

So when he held out in salary disputes, he wasn’t greedy; he was “worth it.”

When he gained minus-1 yard in a playoff game against Green Bay, he didn’t let the team down; rather, “didn’t get the blocking he needed.”

When he didn’t show for minicamps like the rest of his teammates, he wasn’t being a prima donna; he was “being smart about his body.”

When he failed to rise as a locker-room leader, he wasn’t shirking a role; he was “being himself.”

Sanders was inevitably compared to Emmitt Smith. Barry vs. Emmitt remains a contentious debate, a quarter-century after they were the best RBs in the league. I always thought Sanders was better. He was more impressive to watch, and his numbers were superior despite less help from his teammates. I’ve devoted an enormous amount of time to RB analysis since then, and I still have Sanders slightly ahead.

But.

There are two critical questions that should factor into any ranking like this, when comparing similar players: (1) as a fan, which one would I rather have on my favorite team, and (2) as a player, which one would I rather have on my team? Comparing Sanders and Smith, I think the answer to the first question is Barry. He was the most exciting player in football, a guy who made rushing plays in traffic as exciting as downfield passes. Even if the team wasn’t great, you could draw solace and pride from Barry. No matter what else was going on with the team, he’d give you something to be enthusiastic about.

At the same time, I’m virtually certain that the answer to the second question is Emmitt. Smith was congenial and had warm relationships with teammates, while Sanders was reserved, inscrutable, holier-than-thou. Smith was a great pass blocker who did a lot of different things for the team. Sanders was more specialized, an improviser whose best plays were of his own making. Smith was a leader on and off the field. He wasn’t a diva, but he cared about his image and knew that most of his teammates did, too. He was reliable and he made the people around him look good. Sanders didn’t understand that his linemen, with no stats of their own, cared about his. He fell asleep during film sessions and even games. “While he was eminently humble,” wrote Albom, “he wasn’t much for returning calls or keeping appointments. While he worked terribly hard, he never embraced leadership.” Smith’s teams were far more successful, and it’s wildly unfair to blame Barry for failing to single-handedly elevate the Lions into contention — but I don’t think there’s really any question that Emmitt was a better fit for a great team.

I’m not saying Emmitt was better. I think Barry was better. But Sanders wasn’t perfect; his amazing highlight-reel performances notwithstanding, he had weaknesses. He lost yardage on about 15% of his rush attempts; like Fran Tarkenton, he had a tendency to go backwards, and he seldom fell forward because if he didn’t see daylight he ran horizontally. This tendency increased over the course of his career. In 1998, his final season, Sanders lost yardage on 65 of his 278 rush attempts, 19%. Some Sanders advocates will want to blame that on poor blocking, and there’s some truth to that, but center Kevin Glover and left tackle Lomas Brown combined to make nine Pro Bowls in Detroit during Sanders’ tenure. Brown was one of the best OTs of the 1990s. Sanders was exceptionally gifted, but he wasn’t perfect. He was like a great baseball slugger, a guy who hit a lot of home runs but also struck out a lot. He wasn’t a great blocker, and he wasn’t an asset in the locker room or a leader on the sidelines. His abrupt retirement, too close to the season for the Lions to draft or sign a capable replacement, hurt the team.

I understand why people get enthusiastic, even impassioned, about Sanders’ greatness. His talent was unique and unmistakable, and he was a singularly thrilling player to watch. The complete picture of his career adds some flaws, but that’s a good reminder that everyone is human, even Barry Sanders.

22. Johnny Unitas
Quarterback
Baltimore Colts, 1956-72; San Diego Chargers, 1973
40,239 yards, 290 TD, 253 INT, 78.2 rating
4 MVP, 5 consensus All-Pro, 7 AP All-Pro, 10 Pro Bowls, 1960s All-Decade Team, 50th Anniversary Team, 75th Anniversary Team, All-Century Team

Sacrilege. No quarterback was more respected, more universally revered, than John Unitas. I have him ranked very, very high — but low enough to be somewhat unorthodox. I’ll take two paragraphs to explain why I don’t have Unitas even higher, then I want to focus on what made him great, to highlight his excellence for fans who know his name but not why it remains a byword for excellent QB play.

The Unitas-era Colts have four players in the top 65 of this project, most of any team. They had four players on the 75th Anniversary Team, six players on the 50th Anniversary Team. They had Hall of Fame head coach Weeb Ewbank until 1963, when they replaced him with Hall of Fame head coach Don Shula. Those teams were mostly very good, but with all those legendary players in their primes, from 1960-63 the Colts went 29-25 (.537) with no playoff appearances. ^[5]In 1960, RB/WR Lenny Moore, WR Raymond Berry, OT Jim Parker, and DE Gino Marchetti were consensus All-Pros. Unitas, G Art Spinney, DTs Art Donovan and Gene Lipscomb, DE Ordell Braase, LB Bill … Continue reading I have trouble reconciling the otherworldly reputations of the Colts’ players with the relatively limited success of the team.

Unitas played with the best offensive lineman of his generation (Jim Parker), the best receiver of his generation (Raymond Berry), the best TE of his generation (John Mackey), and the best receiving RB of all time (Lenny Moore). He spent the first 14 years of his career with HOF coaches. His defense led the league in fewest yards or fewest points three times, and ranked 2nd in both categories a fourth time. Few quarterbacks have been better-positioned to succeed. Unitas wasn’t a system QB and he wasn’t just a product of his coaches and teammates, but he was uniquely positioned to become a legend. Unitas was the consensus NFL MVP in 1967, but when he was injured in 1968, the Colts scored more points and won more games, and backup Earl Morrall was named league MVP. Unitas was a superb, magical QB, but I believe the legend has grown larger than his play. As Jason Cole observed, “He was beyond just being great. He was a piece of mythology.”

Unitas was an MVP candidate in 1957, but his legend was born in The Greatest Game Ever Played, the 1958 NFL Championship Game. It was one of the first pro football games to attract a large television audience, and it was the first overtime game in NFL history. Unitas passed for 349 yards, ^[6]300-yard games were uncommon at that time. From 1957-59, there were only fourteen 300-yard passing games in the NFL regular season. but the man became a myth based on the two-minute drill. The Giants led 17-14 when the Colts took over at their own 14-yard line with 1:56 remaining. Unitas led the Colts downfield for a 20-yard, game-tying field goal, prompting something the audience had never seen before: sudden-death overtime. Following a Giants punt on the first drive of overtime, Unitas led a 13-play, 80-yard TD drive to win the Colts’ first-ever championship. “That vision of him, I think, was embedded in the American mind thereafter,” suggested Frank Deford. Unitas expertly mixed runs and passes, converted several improbable 3rd-and-longs, and accounted for 74% of Baltimore’s yardage.

Unitas has passing stats that look pedestrian by today’s standards. He never passed for 3,500 yards in a season, never had a passer rating over 100. Unitas not only played before the Tom Brady rule and defenseless receiver policies reshaped passing offense, he played when offensive linemen weren’t allowed to use their hands, defensive linemen were allowed to use the head slap, and receivers could be hit anywhere on the field. He played with a single-bar facemask, on muddy and poorly-maintained fields, and all but a handful of his games in cold-weather stadiums. It was impossible to post modern passing stats under those circumstances, but Unitas led the NFL four times each in passing yards and TDs, also led four times in TD/INT differential. He led four times in net yards per attempt and three times in passer rating. He set career records for completions, yards, and TDs.

From 1956-67, Unitas passed for 252 TDs — the most in history to that point — and 189 INTs (his +63 TD/INT +/- was also the record). Following an injury in the 1968 preseason, ^[7]“In ’68 I tore muscles in my arm,” he told Paul Zimmerman. “Two nerves were dead. I lost feeling in my fingers, and I [never] completely regained it.” Later in life, … Continue reading he amassed 38 TDs and 64 INTs in his final six seasons, with more interceptions than touchdowns each of the six years. His other stats plummetted just as dramatically. ^[8]His NY/A, for instance, fell from 6.9 in the years before the injury to 5.7 in the years after. Would Unitas be a better player if he had retired in 1968? Does it diminish his greatness that he tried to come back from the arm injury, or that coaches like Shula still wanted him to lead the team? Of course not. Even in the context of his era, Unitas’ career stats don’t communicate his accomplishments, because they’re dragged down by those final seasons. No one rates Unitas among the all-time greats because of 1968-73, and anyone who fails to rate him among the greats because of those years doesn’t have a firm grasp of what makes players great. ^[9]If your list of attributes for a great QB is arm strength, accuracy, and knowing when to retire, you shouldn’t be evaluating the greatness of QBs.

While injury hastened the end of Unitas’ career, his ability to absorb punishment commanded immense respect. Hall of Fame DT Merlin Olsen believed that when the pass rush closed in, Unitas would hold the ball a split second longer than necessary, just to show he wasn’t afraid of getting hit. Nothing earned Unitas more respect than his leadership and toughness. Mackey said that playing with Unitas was like being in the huddle with God. Unitas himself probably never gave a more famous quote than the one asserting his own independence and authority: “You don’t arrive as a quarterback until you can tell the coach to go to hell.”

Unitas was an aggressive passer, but resented the idea that he was a gambler. “It’s not gambling if you know what you are doing.” The quarterback’s confidence was well-founded. His interception rate was very low for when he played, one of his distinguishing characteristics. He had a strong arm and he was a brilliant play-caller. Between his game management, decision-making, physical ability, and toughness, Unitas intimidated defenses rather than the other way around. Raymond Berry, Unitas’ favorite receiver, summed up his teammate’s excellence: “his uncanny instinct for calling the right play at the right time, his icy composure under fire, his fierce competitiveness and his utter disregard for his own safety.”

21. Bronko Nagurski
Fullback (Pre-Modern)
Chicago Bears, 1930-37, 1943
2,778 rush yards, 4.39 average, 25 TD; 11 rec, 134 yards, 0 TD
3 consensus All-Pro, 6 All-Pro, 1930s All-Decade Team, 50th Anniversary Team, 75th Anniversary Team

His given name was Bronislaw Nagurski, but like Clark Kent’s glasses, that name was a cover for the hero — the Bronko — beneath. He was a legend in his own time. There are dozens of unbelievable stories about Nagurski, and most of them are probably fiction. I think that’s to his credit, actually: this was a man of whom the unbelievable seemed plausible.

Nagurski was born in Canada and raised in Minnesota, a second-generation immigrant of Eastern European descent. He had a classic lantern jaw, and he was one of the biggest players on the field at any position. Bronko looked like a modern-day defensive end, a little like J.J. Watt. Nagurski was an All-American fullback and defensive tackle at Minnesota before playing his entire professional career with the Bears.

Bronko’s statistics are incomplete; individual yardage was not calculated in his first two seasons. Nonetheless, he is credited with four 500-yard rushing seasons. Cliff Battles and Nagurski were the only Pre-Modern players with at least three 500-yard seasons. But Nagurski wasn’t just the most feared ball-carrier of his day. He was also an above-average passer, whose game-winning touchdown pass in the 1932 NFL Championship Game led to the rule that legalized passing from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage. The following year, he threw another two TD passes in the Championship Game to help the Bears defend their title.

He was an intimidating defensive player, and today the Bronko Nagurski Trophy recognizes the best defensive player in college football. But most of all, Bronko Nagurski was the greatest blocker of his generation, possibly including linemen. “Bronko could open up the whole defensive line,” shuddered Mel Hein. ^[10]Hein also reflected on the impossibility of tackling Nagurski. “If you hit him low, he’d trample you to death; if you hit him high, he’d take you about 10 yards.” The best way … Continue reading Nagurski was 6-foot-2 and 225 pounds, almost 240 toward the end of his career. He was bigger than most linemen of that era, and he primarily played tackle in his final season. He wasn’t a running back the way we think of them today — if he came along now, he’d probably play defensive end — but he was the greatest RB of the 1930s. When the Hall of Fame opened in 1963, the vote to induct Nagurski was unanimous.

In addition to his size, Nagurski had a very quick takeoff that allowed him to rapidly generate momentum, and punish opponents. No one on the field wanted to block or tackle him, and frequently, no one could. He wasn’t shifty, but he had good straight-ahead speed, and with a head of steam and 1930s equipment, defenders were frightened of even attempting to bring him down. “You were always a little afraid he’d kill you,” remembered Hall of Famer Benny Friedman. Head coach George Halas recalled a game in which Nagurski knocked out the same player three times. “My biggest thrill in football,” reported Packers Hall of Famer Clarke Hinkle, “was the day he announced his retirement.”

During the player shortages of World War II, the Bears talked Nagurski out of that retirement. He was almost 35, and he’d been out of the sport for six years. He was too big and too slow to play fullback any longer — he’d been rejected for military service — so they put him at tackle. He played well, and heading into the final game of the regular season, the Bears were 7-1-1. The finale matched them against the crosstown Chicago Cardinals, and the Bears needed a win or tie to avoid a playoff with Green Bay for the Western Division title. The Bears were ravaged by injuries, especially in the offensive backfield, and rumor was that Nagurski might have to fill in at fullback.

The Cardinals led 24-14 heading into the fourth quarter, and the Bears’ top two fullbacks had been knocked out of the game. William Goldman, in his novel Magic, wrote a moving (though, like all good Nagurski stories, largely fictionalized) account of the 35-year-old Nagurski’s return to the backfield:

“The word was whizzing all around the stands. ‘He’s comin’ in. The Bronko. The Bronko.’ And I sat there thinking, omijesus, what a great spot for a legend to be in, coming back after so many years, one quarter to play, the title on the line and ten points behind. You lead your team to victory, you can’t ever die after that.

And then the crowd started screaming like nothin’ you ever heard because on the bench, he stood up. Nagurski. . . . They gave it to him and he put it under his arm and just kind of ran slow, straight into the Cardinal line. They were all waiting for him. All these big guys and Nagurski tried, you could see that, but they just picked him up, the Cardinals did, and for one second they just held him on their shoulders.”

“And then they threw him down?”

“Not exactly, they all fell backwards and he gained four yards.”

The whole scene is magical.

Nagurski rushed for the first of three consecutive Bears touchdowns, and they beat the Cardinals, 35-24. Two weeks later, they defeated Washington for the NFL Championship — Nagurski scored in that one, too — and the Bronko retired for good. “And then he was gone again, back to the North where he came from.”

* * *

This series will continue here next Tuesday and Thursday. The best way to reach me with comments and questions is via Twitter (@bradoremland), where I’ll also offer some brief bonus material on most days there’s no new article. Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this piece, you may also want to check out my column archive here at FP and at Sports Central, as well as the all-time pro football roster that inspired this project. Next article: Best Players in History, 11-20.