Is Deion Sanders the best cornerback of alltime? (1 Viewer)

[sn0mm1s]

This sounds something like the Barry vs Emmitt talk. One guy is great at one thing, not so much at others. The other guy (or other guys) do everything quite well. I'd rather have Woodson or Blount than Sanders on my team.

Heh, if you think Barry was only good at one thing you haven't looked at the stats or watched him play.

 

[pecorino]

i'd take mel blount in a heartbeat. i think i'd also take woodson over deion as he was a more complete corner.

 

[kinglochness]

This sounds something like the Barry vs Emmitt talk. One guy is great at one thing, not so much at others. The other guy (or other guys) do everything quite well. I'd rather have Woodson or Blount than Sanders on my team.

Heh, if you think Barry was only good at one thing you haven't looked at the stats or watched him play.

Which guy could only do one thing well? Barry or Emmitt? Bad analogy.

 

[sn0mm1s]

This sounds something like the Barry vs Emmitt talk. One guy is great at one thing, not so much at others. The other guy (or other guys) do everything quite well. I'd rather have Woodson or Blount than Sanders on my team.

Heh, if you think Barry was only good at one thing you haven't looked at the stats or watched him play.

Which guy could only do one thing well? Barry or Emmitt? Bad analogy.

I can only assume he is referring to Barry.

 

[fsufan]

I remember Favre saying after one game with the cowboys when Sanders picked him off and returned it for a TD

Coach said not to throw too his side, I had to try him

 

[butcher boy]

If you take Jerry Rice's stats vs. Deion and project them over an entire season, it's something insane like 95 receptions, 1800 yards and well into double digit TDs. In other words, completely ineffective coverage. So either Deion was more flash than talent, or the WR position just wins out.

 

[Tau837]

If you take Jerry Rice's stats vs. Deion and project them over an entire season, it's something insane like 95 receptions, 1800 yards and well into double digit TDs. In other words, completely ineffective coverage. So either Deion was more flash than talent, or the WR position just wins out.

Assume you are talking about Rice's games against Deion's teams. When the 49ers mostly put Rice on the side of the field away from Deion. But don't let facts get in your way here.

 

[butcher boy]

If you take Jerry Rice's stats vs. Deion and project them over an entire season, it's something insane like 95 receptions, 1800 yards and well into double digit TDs. In other words, completely ineffective coverage. So either Deion was more flash than talent, or the WR position just wins out.

Assume you are talking about Rice's games against Deion's teams. When the 49ers mostly put Rice on the side of the field away from Deion. But don't let facts get in your way here.

No, it comes from instances when he lined up against Deion. There have been teams and CBs that have come close to shutting Rice down on a consistent basis, Deion ain't one of them.

 

[Tau837]

If you take Jerry Rice's stats vs. Deion and project them over an entire season, it's something insane like 95 receptions, 1800 yards and well into double digit TDs. In other words, completely ineffective coverage. So either Deion was more flash than talent, or the WR position just wins out.

Assume you are talking about Rice's games against Deion's teams. When the 49ers mostly put Rice on the side of the field away from Deion. But don't let facts get in your way here.

No, it comes from instances when he lined up against Deion. There have been teams and CBs that have come close to shutting Rice down on a consistent basis, Deion ain't one of them.

You're saying you have evidence that Rice when covered by Deion averaged 95/1800/10+ when scaled to 16 games? Let's see a link.

 

[jurb26]

If you take Jerry Rice's stats vs. Deion and project them over an entire season, it's something insane like 95 receptions, 1800 yards and well into double digit TDs. In other words, completely ineffective coverage. So either Deion was more flash than talent, or the WR position just wins out.

Assume you are talking about Rice's games against Deion's teams. When the 49ers mostly put Rice on the side of the field away from Deion. But don't let facts get in your way here.

No, it comes from instances when he lined up against Deion. There have been teams and CBs that have come close to shutting Rice down on a consistent basis, Deion ain't one of them.

You're saying you have evidence that Rice when covered by Deion averaged 95/1800/10+ when scaled to 16 games? Let's see a link.

I too would love to see this evidence. I'm very skeptical that it exists.

 

[Tau837]

Here's an example from an old thread of why game logs don't show matchups between any particular WR (like Rice) and any particular DB (like Deion):

You have this completely backwards. Deion was a game changing defensive player. For much of his career, he covered one side of the field and allowed the defensive help to go elsewhere. If he didn't cover Irvin or Rice in a given game, it was because their teams chose not to line them up on Deion's side, not because Deion or his coaches didn't choose to have him cover those guys.

Great point. Here's an example from a 1995 regular season game:

-- Offensive coordinator Marc Trestman, who has taken more heat than he has deserved, used Rice imaginatively. Trestman devised an offensive game plan that often lined Rice up in the slot instead of his usual spot outside, and put him in position to work against a linebacker or safety instead of Deion Sanders.

Rice made all five of his catches against players who won't earn in their entire careers the $13 million bonus Sanders received just for signing with Dallas. Trestman figured the Cowboys would stick with their normal defense instead of putting Sanders on Rice all the time, and he was right. And you thought one of the reasons Deion was getting all that money was to cover Rice.

``You wouldn't understand,'' said Dallas coach Barry Switzer. ``It'd take too long to show you. We couldn't have (Sanders) on Rice because of the coverages we were playing. It would mess everything up.'' Oh, and that 81-yard touchdown pass on the second play of the game -- when Rice was covered by linebacker Darrin Smith -- that didn't mess anything up?

``You start to move Jerry around, and it screws up their whole defense,'' said Grbac.

 

[FavreCo]

If you take Jerry Rice's stats vs. Deion and project them over an entire season, it's something insane like 95 receptions, 1800 yards and well into double digit TDs. In other words, completely ineffective coverage. So either Deion was more flash than talent, or the WR position just wins out.

Assume you are talking about Rice's games against Deion's teams. When the 49ers mostly put Rice on the side of the field away from Deion. But don't let facts get in your way here.

1990. 13 catches, 225 yards, 5 TD's. Deion didn't cover because Deion couldn't cover him. You don't put your #1 CB on the #2 WR when the #1 is named Jerry Rice unless you know you can't cover him.Marvin Harrison smoked Deion so badly in 1999 career that you could say he retired Deion with a double move. It was so ugly that Deion had to fake pulling a hamstring on the beatdown.

 

[Chase Stuart]

In Rice's 5-TD game, 4 of them came against the other CB (not sure where the other 1 came, but it likely came against Deion).

 

[Tau837]

If you take Jerry Rice's stats vs. Deion and project them over an entire season, it's something insane like 95 receptions, 1800 yards and well into double digit TDs. In other words, completely ineffective coverage. So either Deion was more flash than talent, or the WR position just wins out.

Assume you are talking about Rice's games against Deion's teams. When the 49ers mostly put Rice on the side of the field away from Deion. But don't let facts get in your way here.

1990. 13 catches, 225 yards, 5 TD's. Deion didn't cover because Deion couldn't cover him. You don't put your #1 CB on the #2 WR when the #1 is named Jerry Rice unless you know you can't cover him.Marvin Harrison smoked Deion so badly in 1999 career that you could say he retired Deion with a double move. It was so ugly that Deion had to fake pulling a hamstring on the beatdown.

This post is completely wrong. As has been addressed in the thread already, there is tremendous value in covering (and shutting down) 1/3 of the field, even though it allows the offense to choose what receiver to put on that side. The 49ers rarely deployed Rice against Deion... see Chase's post after yours and my post before yours.

 

[VaTerp]

I'm a week away from my 33rd birthday and can only speak to the mid 80s on from what I've seen live and I have to agree with Troy Aikman here. Deion is THE ONLY TRUE shutdown CB I've seen. In his prime, many offenses simply did not throw the ball his way for entire games.

A lot of people have a lot of revisionist histroy going on in this thread. The Jerry Rice stats are BS, which can be proven for the most part. And even if they were true, we are talking about the greatest WR of all time by a mile, and the guy many consider teh greatest football player of all time. But again, those stats were not accumulated against Deion.

Secondly, I think people greatly overstate Sanders' liability against the run. In fact, I don't think he was a liability at all. As he would say, show me the tape of him hurting his team in run defense. No, he was not the greatest or most willing tackler out there but when he wanted to and more importantly, needed to, Sanders got the job done.

As I said, I can't comment on guys like Night Train or Blount other than highlights. But those guys played under different rules where they got away with a lot more contact on WRs than you could now or when Sanders was playing. IMO, it's really not even close.

Deion Sanders is the greatest CB, and of the greatest athletes, of all time.

 

[VaTerp]

If you take Jerry Rice's stats vs. Deion and project them over an entire season, it's something insane like 95 receptions, 1800 yards and well into double digit TDs. In other words, completely ineffective coverage. So either Deion was more flash than talent, or the WR position just wins out.

Assume you are talking about Rice's games against Deion's teams. When the 49ers mostly put Rice on the side of the field away from Deion. But don't let facts get in your way here.

1990. 13 catches, 225 yards, 5 TD's. Deion didn't cover because Deion couldn't cover him. You don't put your #1 CB on the #2 WR when the #1 is named Jerry Rice unless you know you can't cover him.Marvin Harrison smoked Deion so badly in 1999 career that you could say he retired Deion with a double move. It was so ugly that Deion had to fake pulling a hamstring on the beatdown.

The Rice thing has been proven wrong multiple times but don't let little things like facts get in the way of a good argument.The Harrison play is true and I distinctly remember watching it. Deion first acted like he had safety help, then faked the hamstring injury. At that point though, he was dealing with turf toe and was past his prime, being in the 10th year of his career.Again, in his prime, there was no better CB than Deion Sanders. You can throw "cover" in there if you want to remove any and all doubt.

 

[Tau837]

I'm a week away from my 33rd birthday and can only speak to the mid 80s on from what I've seen live and I have to agree with Troy Aikman here. Deion is THE ONLY TRUE shutdown CB I've seen. In his prime, many offenses simply did not throw the ball his way for entire games. A lot of people have a lot of revisionist histroy going on in this thread. The Jerry Rice stats are BS, which can be proven for the most part. And even if they were true, we are talking about the greatest WR of all time by a mile, and the guy many consider teh greatest football player of all time. But again, those stats were not accumulated against Deion.Secondly, I think people greatly overstate Sanders' liability against the run. In fact, I don't think he was a liability at all. As he would say, show me the tape of him hurting his team in run defense. No, he was not the greatest or most willing tackler out there but when he wanted to and more importantly, needed to, Sanders got the job done.As I said, I can't comment on guys like Night Train or Blount other than highlights. But those guys played under different rules where they got away with a lot more contact on WRs than you could now or when Sanders was playing. IMO, it's really not even close.Deion Sanders is the greatest CB, and of the greatest athletes, of all time.

 

[LHUCKS]

Deion Sanders is the greatest CB, and of the greatest athletes, of all time.

 

[valhallan]

I'm 30 and when I think about the greatest cornerback I've witnessed, my first thought is Rod Woodson. Fascinating debate though.

 

[Bracie Smathers]

Deon best corner of all-time?

How is Deon or ANY cornerback better than this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi_oYfGIFUQ

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Deon best corner of all-time?

How is Deon or ANY cornerback better than this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi_oYfGIFUQ

I love watching the Saints whip the Falcons even in a comedy skit.

 

[Kool-Aid Larry]

malcolm butler

 

[BassNBrew]

Don't forget Deon played on both sides of the ball one year.

 

[Freelove]

But on offense, he was completely useless as a cornerback.