Bob Magaw
Footballguy
a few questions emerged from a recent thread that exceeded the scope and purview of THAT thread.
listed below... this isn't meant to be a general top 5 thread, but address a few specific issues in their relative place in the top 5 (or beyond?)...
was sanders a "quitter" for going out on top (& if so, was jim brown... for many #1 overall, & with a similar career arc by leaving unexpectedly at the top). do people think less of him for not chasing payton's record, and does it lower his stature relative to smith, as one of the all time greats?
does the fact that smith played longer, though not at as high a level in his last 3-4 seasons, and did get the record, raise him in your estimation, relative to sanders?
does the fact that smith appeared to have a superior supporting cast and surrounding talent to sanders weigh in your final analysis of sanders vs. smith (a lot, a little, not at all)? did smith draw three aces, a full house or a royal flush in his NFL destination hand of cards, and sanders a pair of twos?
prior to that... DID DAL have better OL & skill position players than DET during their respective peak years?
on running style, is sanders thought less of because he didn't always run the play as designed, take the positive yards or whatever was there, and sometimes (often?) got caught for a loss by trying to make something happen/break a long run, putting the offense under pressure. OR, is it accepted that while smith's physical traits and style made him perfectly fitted for DAL, that might not have worked as well with DET's OL, and sanders style was trying to make the best of a bad situation?
is sanders a loser and suffer in the comparison with smith being an integral part of a multiple super bowl dynasty, or is he cut slack for not having comparable talent arrayed around him?
there seem to be different takes. among smith proponents and sanders detractors, some may think that even if they weren't equal during the time they overlapped (roughly for a decade), smith's greater longevity pushes him over the top. others think smith was straight up better during said overlapping years (their respective primes), though by some measures, sanders numbers were better (except of course in wins - which i'm not sure is fair to chalk up to one person, in a sport so consumately a TEAM game as pro football).
* without becoming a top 5 thread, feel free to include your respective rankings of sanders & smith.
for the record, i have sanders at #4 (after brown, dickerson & payton - maybe i should move dickerson down, & payton, & possibly sanders, above him - i think he might have surpassed payton's record if he stayed with the rams?), and smith (who i'm in the process of revising my opinion of) #5 or #6.
listed below... this isn't meant to be a general top 5 thread, but address a few specific issues in their relative place in the top 5 (or beyond?)...
was sanders a "quitter" for going out on top (& if so, was jim brown... for many #1 overall, & with a similar career arc by leaving unexpectedly at the top). do people think less of him for not chasing payton's record, and does it lower his stature relative to smith, as one of the all time greats?
does the fact that smith played longer, though not at as high a level in his last 3-4 seasons, and did get the record, raise him in your estimation, relative to sanders?
does the fact that smith appeared to have a superior supporting cast and surrounding talent to sanders weigh in your final analysis of sanders vs. smith (a lot, a little, not at all)? did smith draw three aces, a full house or a royal flush in his NFL destination hand of cards, and sanders a pair of twos?
prior to that... DID DAL have better OL & skill position players than DET during their respective peak years?
on running style, is sanders thought less of because he didn't always run the play as designed, take the positive yards or whatever was there, and sometimes (often?) got caught for a loss by trying to make something happen/break a long run, putting the offense under pressure. OR, is it accepted that while smith's physical traits and style made him perfectly fitted for DAL, that might not have worked as well with DET's OL, and sanders style was trying to make the best of a bad situation?
is sanders a loser and suffer in the comparison with smith being an integral part of a multiple super bowl dynasty, or is he cut slack for not having comparable talent arrayed around him?
there seem to be different takes. among smith proponents and sanders detractors, some may think that even if they weren't equal during the time they overlapped (roughly for a decade), smith's greater longevity pushes him over the top. others think smith was straight up better during said overlapping years (their respective primes), though by some measures, sanders numbers were better (except of course in wins - which i'm not sure is fair to chalk up to one person, in a sport so consumately a TEAM game as pro football).
* without becoming a top 5 thread, feel free to include your respective rankings of sanders & smith.
for the record, i have sanders at #4 (after brown, dickerson & payton - maybe i should move dickerson down, & payton, & possibly sanders, above him - i think he might have surpassed payton's record if he stayed with the rams?), and smith (who i'm in the process of revising my opinion of) #5 or #6.
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)... i don't think leaving the way he has tarnished his legacy, or he is perceived in any way as a "quitter". obviously the same could be said if favre retires, nobody will think less of him, coming off one of his best seaosns... in his case, he is really old by ANY standard! 
, JWBBig John McCarthy-worthy!
)... and he had nifty feet for a nearly LB-like 215+ lb in-his-prime back... not sanders nifty, but enough to freeze and sidestep defenders... emmitt was hard to get a clean shot on, making him very dangerous, because he was rarely/never arm tackled.
)... i can only conclude they factored in and weighed the opportunity disparity, perhaps more than some here. were they just stupid and hoodwinked into voting for the more glamorous highlight reel generator? or was it a case, where people who played the game and knows what it is to compete at the highest level, looked at the two relative accomplishments, and found sanders more impressive, given his circumstances, and the lesser supporting cast, surrounding talent. another hypothetical. lets say you could put emmitt in a time machine and make him 21-22 again, and send him to the rams, where he would have to play for a franchise that is as bad in the next 10 years as it has been in the past three ( : shudder : )... how many super bowls do you think he would be winning?on sanders style - would picasso's* la guernica (the brilliant abstraction of the self-dismembering horrors of civil war) have been a better painting if done more representationally? it probably would have lost its evocative power. would dali's depiction of the changing nature of time in the modern era with melting clocks been as powerful if they were just plain, photo realistic time pieces? would kind of blue have been better if miles had just pre-written coltane's part? that would have precluded some of the most lyrical and haunting sax runs in jazz history.* a picasso anecdote - a stranger recognized and approached him one time, asking why he didn't paint more realistically? he showed him a wallet photo of his wife and said - something like this. he responded - oh, she is rather small, isn't she? and flat. 
)... i can only conclude they factored in and weighed the opportunity disparity, perhaps more than some here. were they just stupid and hoodwinked into voting for the more glamorous highlight reel generator? or was it a case, where people who played the game and knows what it is to compete at the highest level, looked at the two relative accomplishments, and found sanders more impressive, given his circumstances, and the lesser supporting cast, surrounding talent.
