Showdown v2:Who is the Greatest NFL Running Back ever

• Brown's passing stats reflect an era when passing wasn't as common. Faulk put up his receiving stats in an Era where you go with the throw if you want to win.

• Faulk just recently retired. A lot of the post-career acolytes will come with their time.

His awards:

• 7x Pro Bowl selection (1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002)
• 6x All-Pro selection (1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001
• Super Bowl champion (Super Bowl XXIV)
• 2000 NFL MVP
• 2x PFWA NFL MVP (2000, 2001)
• 1994 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year
• 1994 UPI AFL-AFC Rookie of the Year
• 3x NFL Offensive Player of the Year (1999, 2000, 2001)
• 2001 Bert Bell Award
• 1994 Pro Bowl MVP

For playing on one the the greatest offenses of all time, plus, starting a career at the end of another great NFL RB (Terrell Davis), meaning just by being born when he was, he missed out on a couple of awards.

• For comparison's sake, I'll go get his stats and post them in the comments. I wasn't too keen on it (for reasons in the article), but if SSR wants to show stat accomplishments, I'll still show why Faulk is better.

• Stats are meaningless. Faulk would run all over Defenses in the 60s. You can look at neutralized stats, but as Davis will tell you, even those only go so far as to make things level

Faulk, albeit injured for his last 2 trips, played 13 seasons, as opposed to 9 for Brown.

Think about it, Brown never missed a game in his career, I believe he would've easily matched Marshall's records and more had he played the same amount of seasons as Faulk did, he already has the rushing TD's down, he would need just 10 receiving TD's, which means he basically needs 3 per year.

• Over 100 TDs Rushing and over 50 TDs Receiving.
• Over 10,000 yards rushing, and over 5,000 yards receiving.
• 7 years of 2,000 all purpose yards

Let's put his game changing ability into perspective. In SB XXXVI, the pats used 7 DBs to stop him. A lot of teams don't carry 7 DBs on their rosters. Faulk is praised by scouts who say no one in the NFL can go from standing to full speed faster. Teams couldn't lose a step on or he'd be gone.

Second, okay, I'll admit it, it's obvious he was the big part of the G.S.O.T, you make very good points, but he is not better than Jim Brown.

Third, I don't care what it is, power and speed and agility (and durability) will ALWAYS be better than just speed and agility.

1. Faulk would have broke virtually every RB record there is if he played when Brown did, and brown would be a good, not great back today. Hence, stats are meaningless.

1. Even if you want to look at stats, Faulk had more yards per touch than Brown. Don't look at pure rushing numbers because it devalues a lot of Faulk's body of work.

1. Brown didn't revolutionize the game as much as Faulk did. Power backs are, and always have been, a dime a dozen. It doesn't devalue Brown's career, it just shows that what he did wasn't all that spectacular in comparison.

1. SSR's best point so far is "durability and power", and unless you think Cal Ripken was the greatest baseball player of all time b/c he played in so many consecutive games, you know durability is bogus. I've said in like half the comments that Faulk's speed, vision, and agility more than make up for his lack of power (which I'm not even sure he is, as just because a back is more of a multipurpose back doesn't mean he can't run in between the tackles a la Tiki Barber for most of his career).

1. I've got an NFL Coach, an NFL scout, a prolific biographer/writer, NFL analysts, and an NFL QB on my side. SSR has what again?

Consistency. Jim Brown put up consistent numbers all of the time. Look at Jim Brown's rushing statistics, he failed to reach 1,000 yards twice in his career, and he would've done so in a 16 game schedule.

Marshall Faulk's peak started from 1998 and ended in 2002, he stopped running for 1,000 yards and stopped having his 80 catches a season. He was past his prime, Brown never got past his prime and put up amazing numbers.

And FP, you messed up big time. Marshall Faulk had 36 receiving touchdowns, which is nowhere NEAR 50 touchdowns. He had 100 touchdowns rushing alright, he had 100 on the nose. In 9 seasons, Brown had 106, Faulk, in 13 seasons, had 100.

2. Efficiency. Faulk gained more yards per touch than Brown did. You focus waaay to much on rushing stats. That's only half of the battle. On average, Faulk gained almost 9 yards/touch. That's crazy, and it proves my point.

3. Stats suck. a player like Marshall faulk probably could gain 4,000 all purpose yards when Brown played, and Brown would have had a worse career if he played today.

4. Powerbacks are a dime a dozen. Remember that. It takes true talent and a truly remarkable back to be a HOF caliber multi-purpose back, especially today when LBs are fast enough to keep up with the RBs.

5. At the very least, public opinion shouldn't matter. Otherwise, we might as well never have showdowns because they'd already be decided.

6. Consistency is nice. Putting up over 15,000 career Yards from scrimmage is better.

7. In the end, think of it this way: Who changed the game more? RBs before Brown, and RBs after Brown are practically the same. As are defenses. As are drafting tendancies.

After Faulk, RBs were expected to catch more passes, and be more versatile. You think LDT would have been drafted so highly if not for Faulk? How about Reggie Bush? Would teams be willing to commit basically the entire defense to one particular aspect if it weren't for the pats having to try it out against Faulk? The answer to all of these is a resounding NO. That's why Faulk is so great.

I'll be back tomorrow with my opinion, and also some additional ammunition in anticipation of FP's pointless personal attack on me.

You're a fool for trying to defend Marshall Faulk over Jim Brown.

FP, you can't compare two players from such a diverse timeframe without statistics, especially since the game has changed so much since Brown played. Yes, stats can be manipulated to prove your theory, or disprove SSR's, but that's our job as the audience to decide what, if any, credence we should give them.

Television money has had a significant impact on all sports in the last thirty years or so, and, next to the NBA, the NFL has seen the biggest change in the way the game is played. ESPN and ABC and their own channel won't pay billions of dollars for TV contracts so we, as fans, can tune in to a bunch of 16-13 games. Offense sells, and what sells offense is the pass.

In Faulk's prime seasons, his last two with Indy and his first five with the Rams, his teams passed 64% of the time, which is almost 10% over the league average. If Faulk was such a valuable tool, one would think the ratio would be lower, don't you? The truth is, Faulk was a secondary option to the Rams offense. He did not have much of, if any, impact on the opponent's defensive game plans. On the contrary, so much went in to stopping Warner and Holt and Bruce that Faulk often found himself the recipient of a broken play or an audible. His frequency of catching passes is more a reflection of one or more of the Rams receivers being double covered, with Warner dumping passes to Faulk in the seam instead of taking a sack.

Conversely, in Brown's nine seasons, in a run dominated era, his teams ran more than they passed in eight. Defensive game plans were designed with the sole purpose to deny Brown openings, or to force him to the sideline, and he still averaged over 100 yards a game for his career.

In Brown's era, the hashmarks were split, leaving to an unbalanced field of play. If the strong side was blocked, the only option was the middle. Now, the hashmarks are centered, leaving the opposite side as an option to finding an opening. If Faulk's first two options were blocked, he had running room on the weak side to find a hole, put in the same position, Brown had to make his own hole.

Your main argument FP seemed to me to focus on yards per touch. I'm not sure how you got your numbers, but the NFL defines a touch as a run attempt or a pass reception. It does not count yardage gained through any other mean, such as a punt return or a fumble recovery. In his career, Brown averaged 21.2 rushes per game and 2.2 receptions, with respective yardages of 104.3 and 21.2. That totals to 22.4 touches per game and 125.5 yards, or 5.60 yards per touch. Faulk averaged 16.1 carries for a (paltry) 69.8 yards per game, and 3.9 receptions for 39.1 yards per game. His totals then become, respectively, 20.5 touches for 108.9 yards and a per touch average of 5.31 yard per game. So, Brown, in fact, had a higher yards per touch than did Faulk. And while the sample isn't as big, Brown averaged 10.1 yards per reception for his career, Faulk averaged 8.9 yards per reception. The difference in eras led to more pass catching opportunities for Faulk, but when forced to catch a pass, Brown was much better after the catch than Faulk was.

I think it was FP who pointed to Faulk's career being longer in terms of years, but in terms of prime seasons, Faulk had ten to Brown's nine. Using this as a point of reference, and taking off the yardage in his four "non-productive" years, Faulk has just about 9000 yards rushing, which would rank him right now 29th alltime, hardly worthy of an all time great. Even so, when you look at Faulk's rankings individually, his numbers are not impressive, they only become so when you view them as a total, again, more of a reflection of the era and offensive scheme he played in, as opposed to him specifically as a great back. Faulk ranks 37th all time in yards per game, again, in an offensive era. Brown ranks first. Brown ranks 14th in yards per attempt, Faulk? 109th.

In twelve seasons, Faulk had two top five finishes in rushing yards, no top five's in attempts. He led the league three times in yards per attempt (yet ranks 109th for his career? What does that tell you), and had three top five's in yards per game.

In nine seasons, Brown led in attempts six times, (and had two seconds). He led 8 of 9 seasons in yards, five of nine in touchdowns, (8 top fives), six of nine in yards per attempt, and 8 of 9 in yards per game. He had 6 top five's in yards from scrimmage, (Faulk: 2), and was a perfect 9-9 in top fives, (Faulk: 4-12). Brown had seven top five's in touches, and led the league five times in yards from scrimmage, Faulk had two top fives in touches, which appears to directly shoot to hell your "touch" theory, he clearly wasn't considered the number one offensive option on his team.

I've rambled on long enough, so I'll leave with a couple final thoughts:

Faulk was not faster than Brown. Brown was 6'2", 232, was an All American lacrosse player, was offered a contract by the Yankees, went to the 1956 Olympic trials as a hurdler, (with Wilt Chamberlain, I might add), and played basketball at Syracuse. Brown, for his size, had world class speed.

As part of the experience at the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, visitors are given a survey to fill out, completed surveys are entered into a drawing daily for things like free passes, memorbilia, things like that. One of the questions on the survey is to vote for the greatest players, every year since the survey began, which I believe was after the Hall was remodeled in 1994, Brown has won the vote. Every year. This isn't a greatest RB poll, this is a greatest player poll.