Gale Sayers - Extremely over rated?

[dlphg9]

So as I was in the middle of doing some research for a post I went down a rabbit hole and eventually found myself looking at Gale Sayers stats. I may be completely off base here, because admittedly I have never watched any Gale Sayers highlights and am basing this on stats, but how in the hell is he in the HOF? Hell USA Today had him ranked as number 21 all time, 247sports has him ranked as 48 all time.

He played for 7 seasons, but only played a total of 4 games in years 6 and 7 combined. He only had 2 1000 yard seasons and those were the only times he led the league in rushing. He only had 2 seasons in which he had double digit receiving + rushing TDs. He was amazing at punt and kick off returns, but that was only for his first 3 years.

His career accomplishments aren't really that great, besides being AP 4 times. He never even got to play in a playoff game, so he obviously doesn't have any SB championships. He isn't even in the top 100 for career rushing yards, hell he's barely even in the top 150 coming in at 145th. He had a massive amount of rushing TDs though... 39...

He was good at 1 thing when it came to carrying the ball and that was fumbling. He almost has as many fumbles (34) as he does rushing TDs (39). Hell in a couple of seasons he had significantly more fumbles than rushing TDs.

Yr/Rush TDs/Fumbles

1/14/9
2/8/2
3/7/8
4/2/7
5/8/7
6/0/1
7/0/0

Out of 7 years he fumbled more than he rushed for a TD in 3 of those years.

He does have a few things on his resume that are pretty decent. He averaged 5.0 ypc over his entire career, was a fantastic returner during his first 3 years, and his rookie season he had 14 rush TDs, 6 receiving TDs, 1 kickoff return TD, and 1 punt return TD. I think his rookie season may be the reason he is so highly regarded. He is just incredibly over rated and seems to get a boost from being injury prone.

Someone prove me wrong.

[Prison Bitch]

Do any of his peer coaches or players agree?

[Megatron96]

Can't quantify Gale Sayers through his stats. Go watch him play. Then you'll understand.

Note: Gale was Barry Sanders or Sweetness before Barry or Walter.

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

Can't quantify Gale Sayers through his stats. Go watch him play. Then you'll understand.

Note: Gale was Barry Sanders or Sweetness before Barry or Walter.

He has the least amount of rushing yards of any RB in the HOF. I don't care how smooth someone was if they were only productive for 5 years. Mother****ing Jamaal Charles may be the best damn running back I've ever watched, but he gets negative marks for his injuries.

[kgrund]

Originally Posted by dlphg9

So as I was in the middle of doing some research for a post I went down a rabbit hole and eventually found myself looking at Gale Sayers stats. I may be completely off base here, because admittedly I have never watched any Gale Sayers highlights and am basing this on stats, but how in the hell is he in the HOF? Hell USA Today had him ranked as number 21 all time, 247sports has him ranked as 48 all time.

He played for 7 seasons, but only played a total of 4 games in years 6 and 7 combined. He only had 2 1000 yard seasons and those were the only times he led the league in rushing. He only had 2 seasons in which he had double digit receiving + rushing TDs. He was amazing at punt and kick off returns, but that was only for his first 3 years.

His career accomplishments aren't really that great, besides being AP 4 times. He never even got to play in a playoff game, so he obviously doesn't have any SB championships. He isn't even in the top 100 for career rushing yards, hell he's barely even in the top 150 coming in at 145th. He had a massive amount of rushing TDs though... 39...

He was good at 1 thing when it came to carrying the ball and that was fumbling. He almost has as many fumbles (34) as he does rushing TDs (39). Hell in a couple of seasons he had significantly more fumbles than rushing TDs.

Yr/Rush TDs/Fumbles

1/14/9
2/8/2
3/7/8
4/2/7
5/8/7
6/0/1
7/0/0

Out of 7 years he fumbled more than he rushed for a TD in 3 of those years.

He does have a few things on his resume that are pretty decent. He averaged 5.0 ypc over his entire career, was a fantastic returner during his first 3 years, and his rookie season he had 14 rush TDs, 6 receiving TDs, 1 kickoff return TD, and 1 punt return TD. I think his rookie season may be the reason he is so highly regarded. He is just incredibly over rated and seems to get a boost from being injury prone.

Someone prove me wrong.

What you should be focusing on is how great he had to be to not only be the HOF, but the NFL's All Time team. Do yourself a favor and go watch some Sayers' highlight reels and get back with us. He was truly special.

[kgrund]

Total rushing yards is a big nothing burger. Nobody thinks Curtis Martin, Frank Gore, or Jerome Bettis are greater than Sayers. You can be really good for a long while and rack up yards. Sayers, by his peers and historians of the game, know he was not good but great.

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by kgrund

Total rushing yards is a big nothing burger. Nobody thinks Curtis Martin, Frank Gore, or Jerome Bettis are greater than Sayers. You can be really good for a long while and rack up yards. Sayers, by his peers and historians of the game, know he was not good but great.

Just got done watching some highlights and I would take Jamaal Charles over Sayers. God I hate watching old highlight vids. Everyone looks so god damn slow. Sayers was a great athlete back then, but if he played now he wouldn't be shit.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by dlphg9

Just got done watching some highlights and I would take Jamaal Charles over Sayers. God I hate watching old highlight vids. Everyone looks so god damn slow. Sayers was a great athlete back then, but if he played now he wouldn't be shit.

Younger fans always think that the players from the previous generations weren't as fast or as athletic, because they watch these clips on YT and think that stuff was filmed and recorded at the same speed as the stuff today. Which is completely false.

The problem with watching highlight videos on Youtube or whatever of old games is that the games were filmed at 32 fps and then for some reason on YT they replay at 24 fps, which makes everyone look slower than they really were, or even looked when the game actually aired.

Meanwhile, today everything is aired at 60fps.

If you want to get a better idea of Gale's real speed run the YT video at 1.5x speed. It still not quite right, but it's a lot closer to what it probably really looked like when the game aired. When I did this I had the benefit of actual VHS tape, and my player could be adjusted by 0.1X increments, so I could get it to playback at about the actual game speed.

I realized that there was a problem with replay speed because I watched guys like Walter Payton, Roger Craig, Hershel Walker, Marcus Allen, Tony Dorsett, and Eric Dickerson in their prime years, and I knew that they were faster than the replay.

I got my answer when I asked an old A/V guy (God, he was probably about the age I am now) at the library about the problem, and he told me the issue about 32 fps vs. 24 fps, etc.

Btw, Gale ran a 4.38 sec 40 yd time, faster than Damien Williams by about a tenth, and a 9.70 sec or so 100 yd time.

And unlike Damien (and most humans), Gale could change direction almost 90 degrees while going full speed, and not lose any speed.

As for his stats, again, I don't believe that you can look at his stats and say much of anything, because it was a different time, a 14-game schedule, etc. But if you only look at his first 5 years and extrapolate his numbers if he'd had a 16 game season, you find that he'd have run for over 1,000 yards for each of his first five seasons, would've scored more than 10 TDs per season, would've averaged more than 5.0 yards/carry, etc.

Note: Gale Sayers did all of that while never averaging more than 17 rushes/game in any season. Also, Gale is the only NFL player to ever average more than 30 yards/carry as a PR/KR (30.6).

And finally, if you look at his stats from an all-purpose yards stand-point, in his first five years, Gale Sayers accumulated 9,434 yards and 50 TDs. Extrapolate those numbers for a 16-game season, and well, he'd have some pretty gaudy stats for his first five seasons. Or what they might've been had he just averaged around 20 rushes/game instead of just 15.

But again, I think Gale Sayers is a HOFer because of how he ran more than the whatever stats he earned. Watch him run at 1.5x speed.

[Ubeja Vontell]

Originally Posted by Megatron96

Younger fans always think that the players from the previous generations weren't as fast or as athletic, because they watch these clips on YT and think that stuff was filmed and recorded at the same speed as the stuff today. Which is completely false.

The problem with watching highlight videos on Youtube or whatever of old games is that the games were filmed at 32 fps and then for some reason on YT they replay at 24 fps, which makes everyone look slower than they really were, or even looked when the game actually aired.

Meanwhile, today everything is aired at 60fps.

If you want to get a better idea of Gale's real speed run the YT video at 1.5x speed. It still not quite right, but it's a lot closer to what it probably really looked like when the game aired. When I did this I had the benefit of actual VHS tape, and my player could be adjusted by 0.1X increments, so I could get it to playback at about the actual game speed.

I realized that there was a problem with replay speed because I watched guys like Walter Payton, Roger Craig, Hershel Walker, Marcus Allen, Tony Dorsett, and Eric Dickerson in their prime years, and I knew that they were faster than the replay.

I got my answer when I asked an old A/V guy (God, he was probably about the age I am now) at the library about the problem, and he told me the issue about 32 fps vs. 24 fps, etc.

Btw, Gale ran a 4.38 40 time, faster than Damien Williams by about a tenth, and a 9.7 or so 100 time.

And unlike Damien (and most humans), Gale could change direction almost 90 degrees while going full speed, and not lose any speed.

As for his stats, again, I don't believe that you can look at his stats and say much of anything, because it was a different time, a 14-game schedule, etc. But if you only look at his first 5 years and extrapolate his numbers if he'd had a 16 game season, you find that he'd have run for over 1,000 yards for each of his first five seasons, would've scored more than 10 TDs per season, would've averaged more than 5.0 yards/carry, etc.

Note: Gale Sayers did all of that while never averaging more than 17 rushes/game in any season. Also, Gale is the only NFL player to ever average more than 30 yards/carry as a PR/KR (30.6).

And finally, if you look at his stats from an all-purpose yards stand-point, in his first five years, Gale Sayers accumulated 9,434 yards and 50 TDs. Extrapolate those numbers for a 16-game season, and well, he'd have some pretty gaudy stats for his first five seasons. Or what they might've been had he just averaged around 20 rushes/game instead of just 15.

But again, I think Gale Sayers is a HOFer because of how he ran more than the whatever stats he earned. Watch him run at 1.5x speed.

There are no players today or never has been who were faster than Bob Hayes who ran a 10.06 on a dirt track over 50 years ago.

Curtis Dickey back in the 70's still the fastest RB, ran a 10.10.

Yes, Sayers was a 9.7 guy in HS?

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by Ubeja Vontell

There are no players today or never has been who were faster than Bob Hayes who ran a 10.06 on a dirt track over 50 years ago.

Curtis Dickey back in the 70's still the fastest RB, ran a 10.10.

Yes, Sayers was a 9.7 guy in HS?

According to the Chicago Tribune, Sayers ran a 9.7 sec 100-YARD TIME, not meters.

About half-way down the article:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...049-story.html

[lawrenceRaider]

Originally Posted by dlphg9

Just got done watching some highlights and I would take Jamaal Charles over Sayers. God I hate watching old highlight vids. Everyone looks so god damn slow. Sayers was a great athlete back then, but if he played now he wouldn't be shit.

You sir have invalidated any opinion you put forth at any point in the future as well as everything you've said in the past.

May God have mercy on your soul.

[Nickhead]

Originally Posted by lawrenceRaider

You sir have invalidated any opinion you put forth at any point in the future as well as everything you've said in the past.

May God have mercy on your soul.

Yeah. He’s gone full reerun fer sure.

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by lawrenceRaider

You sir have invalidated any opinion you put forth at any point in the future as well as everything you've said in the past.

May God have mercy on your soul.

You dont think old highlight videos make the players look slow?

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by dlphg9

You dont think old highlight videos make the players look slow?

They look slow because the playback is slower than actual. Go to settings and speed it up to 1.5x. That's about actual speed.

[MatriculatingHank]

Emmitt Smith still sucks!