Jim Brown Dead at 87

I personally think Jerry Rice is the greatest football player of all time for the reason you listed out.

But the reason I think Jim Brown in particular holds this kind of reverence in a way. Jerry Rice does not comes down to the position he plays.

Football Is marketed as the ultimate tough guy sport. And running backs have that unique position of receiving punishment and doling out punishment.

Add to the fact that wide receivers are compliments to the quarterback at least in terms of narrative. So Jerry Rice's production is always tied to Hall of Fame quarterbacks whereas at least in that era, Jim Brown's production was perceived to be of his own making. 

IMO, Jim Brown stands farther beyond his positional peers, at least as a rusher, than any other player, at any position.  His rushing YPG of 104.3 is just 4.5 above that of 2nd-place Barry Sanders, but compared to his contemporaries in his rush-heavy era, there's no real comparison.  Gale Sayers' average YPG was 72.9 but only 1965 saw both players in the NFL.  Steve Van Buren averaged 70.6 a decade-plus prior to Brown's career.  Top contemporaries are Cookie Gilchrist at 66.0 for only 6 years (62-67), all AFL/AFC, and Jim Taylor (58-67, probably closest contemporary) had 64.6 YPG.  No other contemporary rusher topped 60.

As a (then) NYG fan, I feared Brown far more than any other opposing player.  Therefore, I treasure the 2 games against Cleveland that brought the Giants to the championship game with Baltimore.  The first game was the season finale, with the Giants needing a win to force a playoff.  First play from scrimmage, Brown broke through the middle and outran everyone for a 65-yard TD.  The Browns could only score 3 more points that day, with Pat Summerall's 49-yard FG in the snowy dusk giving NY the 13-10 win.  A week later, Sam Huff and company held Brown to almost nothing (10 carries, 12 yards, IIRC) in the 10-0 win.  (Other than those two, Brown/Cleveland ate the Giants' lunch game by game.)

I think that's mainly because of his nickname. "Sweetness" is just a better one than "O.J." or "Barry." 

Believe it.

Jordan is far more admired than loved.

I'll try to keep this to one comment. I was completely ignorant of Brown's past. But Brown's checkered history of acts that continued for decades is stunning to me.

Sadly, Brown didn't "defy social norms with women".  He was raised in an era when his behavior was not outside the norm.  

The argument against Jim Brown as the 'greatest football player ever' is that he was the worst ever at blocking, as he refused to do it. He was the worst ever at running fakes (play-action or other types), as he refused to do it.

Jim Brown was the greatest runner of the football ever, in some part greater than others like OJ/Sweetness/Barry Sanders/Adrian Peterson/etc because unlike them he wasted no energy blocking for teammates or running fakes for teammates. Which made each of them, along with additional guys like Ladainian Tomlinson and Marshall Faulk, better football players than Jim Brown. Whatever their team needed them to do on whichever particular play, they tried their best to do it.

I'm a firm believer in innocent until proven guilty. He went on trial, he was found innocent. In three other incidents, no charges were filed. In one, the officer said his wife only called to have a report filed in case something ever did happen, ie. nothing actually happened. In the "threw a woman out a window" case, the woman said she fell. In the third case, the woman dropped the charges.

He never backed down on his innocence.

You can choose not to believe him or think the women lied, but you don't get to assert with authority that he's guilty.

I disagree. 

Most men behave well. Thats why the ones that dont stand out. 

Or I live in a very different society than yours. Could be. 

And with "this site" I meant the FO editors. 

I meant FO writers/editors, not "we" as commenters. 

My bad. 

There is nothing to argue about with his on-field play - the man was virtually an unstoppable force of nature, refusing to block or not.

His off-field behavior was troubling at times, and inspiring at times. Doing what you feel is right and being good at football doesn't remove your faults.

Marshall Faulk goes on my very very short list of players who transcended the sport and revolutionized what you thought was possible from the position.

For me, that short list also includes Randy Moss, JJ Watt, Rob Gronkowski, and Aaron Donald to rattle of some names off the top of my head. Maybe Darrell Revis too.

Quite honestly, if I had to pick the most impactful non QB offensive player ever that I have personally seen(I only saw late career veteran Jerry Rice for the record) it would be a really hard choice between Moss and Marshall. Probably Moss has the bigger upside but Marshall fits more types of rosters and is far less of a headache.

What is shocking to me is the difference from Faulk to Smith and Sanders. It's 1000 of total DYAR, almost 40% more. That's worth of another all-pro RB career: Gurley had 1085 total DYAR (and he was good at receiving, not just running). Faulk, Smith and Sanders were contemporaries. Faulk didn't have some super long career. His stats were great on both the Colts and the Rams.

A great receiving RB such as Kamara has total 1569 DYAR in 6 years and a pure rushing RB Henry has 1341 total DYAR in 7 years. They are much closer to each other and close to Peterson.

Only Rice has such a distance to all other players at his position (5398 receiving DYAR Rice, 17.8/game, total DYAR 18.8/game; 3944 receiving  DYAR Moss, 18.1/game; 3480 DYAR Owens, 15.9/game)  like Faulk does. Shocking.

I guess his receiving DYAR plummets down (he had 6.8 yards/target compared to someone like Wes Welker  7.8Y/target) and running DYAR skyrockets.

There were pro bowlers and all pros on 90s Cowboys o-line: Allen, Newton, Tuinei, Stepnoski, that's a lot. They were really big. For comparison Broncos o-line was smaller and used in Shanahan outside zone scheme where they had to move, run more.

It's just left as implied that Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, and Jim Brown had a bunch of stiffs blocking for them.

I don't think this is implied. There is a difference between a "normal" above average o-line and one full of pro bowlers.

Offensive line play much like the secondary is so difficult to measure and I'm not convinced it was done properly in the past either.

This site has adjusted line yards and RB yards. You can compare that for late 90s Cowboys and Lions and Broncos and Rams. Lions o-line wasn't that good. Sanders and T. Davis are ahead of E. Smith by a considerable margin in RB yards.

Emit has always gotten the, "ya but context" treatment around his numbers more so than other players.

Running DYAR takes RB and o-line together in their offense and Smith on Cowboys is about equal to Sanders on Lions career-wise. See comments above. No context there, pure numbers. To me E. Smith is similar to Fitzgerald among WRs. Very long career which aided in stats volume. Both are HOFers. There were only  a few players better than them, no shame in that.