It's hard to say that someone is the consensus greatest running back of all time. Many old sports analyst think that Jim Brown is the best ever. He averaged 5.22 yards per carry, and an NFL record 104.34 yards per game. He did play in a weak era. At 230 lbs he was bigger than most of the linebackers, and many of the defensive linemen he played against. He also played in the weaker of 2 NFL divisions. That being the NFL east. If you were to have a poll on ESPN on who the greatest running back of all time is, I think that Barry Sanders would win, though it would be close between him and Walter Payton. No doubt, Barry Sanders' highlight reel is amazing. He juked, spinned, and embarrassed NFL defenders during his 10 year career. I wanted to take another look at his career.
One misconception is that he did what he did without much help. It is constantly done in comparisons between him and Emmitt Smith. The quality of Sanders' teammates is diminished in order to help the argument for his own greatness. The fact was that the lines he ran behind weren't terrible. It wasn't like he constantly had guys in the backfield as soon as he got the ball. I've looked at the highlights looking for full runs, and while it is not a good idea to measure the quality of an offensive line by a highlight reel, Barry often had a hole to run through. I noticed that he would hesitate when he got the ball, as if he were looking around for an opening. This was part of his style. He was a home run hitter, who was constantly looking to make the big play, and sometimes because of his incredible physical ability, he would make that play happen, and sometimes he would lose yards. It wasn't that he had a poor offensive line, it was his style of running. Detroit's offenses were a mixed bag during his career. Sometimes they were good, with their best year being 1995, sometimes they were bad, and sometimes they were around average. While Detroit had trouble finding a number 1 quarterback, Herman Moore was a really good receiver. I think Barry had an average group of players around him during his career.
Then there is the fact that he was a boom or bust running back. To look into that, I'll look to Football Outsiders, and their metrics. Two important statistics they have are DYAR (Defense Adjusted Yards Above Replacement), and DVOA (Defense Adjusted Volume of Attempt). I don't t know their full formula for getting DYAR, but they are seen as a dependable source. Their advanced metric statistics value consistency. Sure you get more credit for big runs, but it is not linear. The value for each yard is less past a certain point. In football when you get a first down, you start a whole new sets of downs, where you usually have to gain another 10 (unless it's goal to go). So it's important to be able to consistently move the ball. That is something that you can depend on to score points, more than depending on a big play. Let's look at a hypothetical situation. A team gets the ball at their own 20 yard line. Let's say the running back gains 20 yards on the first play, but then he loses 4 on the next play. His team throws the ball on the next two downs. They then punt. The back was successful in getting his team in better position to punt the ball, but that's about it. He had 2 carries for 16 yards, which is good for an 8 yard average, but his 4 yard loss helped kill the drive. While Sanders gained 15,269 yards in his career, he lost yards on a lot of carries. Now let's look at Barry's career in terms of DYAR. Despite winning 4 rushing titles in his career, he led the league in DYAR only one season. That was in 1990. That was the year he had the second lowest total for rushing yards in his career (1304). Though he did average over 5 yards per carry that season, and led the league in rushing. That season he had a 55% success rate. It is hard to explain success rate, but it is based on down and distance to go. Obviously a 3 yard gain on 3rd, and 10, isn't the same as one on a 3rd and 1. 55% is uncharacteristically high for Sanders. During his two biggest seasons, he finished 2nd in DYAR. In 1997 when he gained 2053 yards, he was behind Terrell Davis in DYAR, while Davis gained 1750. Even more surprising is that Emmitt Smith gained 1484 yards in 1994, and finished over 100 yards ahead of Barry Sanders who gained 1883 yards. I'm am going to look at Sanders DYAR, and DVOA, and Success Rate for each season, as well as where he ranked among running backs with at least 100 rush attempts.
Season DYAR Rank DVOA Rank Suc Rate Rank
1989 239 3 12.1% 5 50% 15
1990 330 1 21.7% 3 55% 6
1991 254 5 8.7% 15 55% 8
1992 93 19 0.3% 23 43% 35
1993 70 22 0.7% 20 44% 34
1994 348 2 18.5% 2 46% 19
1995 200 7 6.8% 12 44% 32
1996 380 2 22.7% 2 51% 10
1997 447 2 25.3% 2 46% 16
1998 15 29 -6.4% 28 39% 35
In 1998 Sanders had a negative DVOA, but a positive DYAR. Football Outsiders does give some extra credit to a back that carry the ball a lot. Now I want to compare him to Emmitt Smith in terms of basic running stats, and in DYAR. To make it an apples, apples comparison I want to compare Smith's first 10 seasons to Sanders' career
Attempts Yards Avg Rush TD DYAR
Barry Sanders 3062 15269 4.98 99 2376
Emmitt Smith 3243 13963 4.31 139 2900
Smith led the league in DYAR 4 seasons, which is the same number of seasons he led the league in rushing. He led in both for the 1992, 1993, and 1995 seasons. Smith led the league in rushing yards during 1991, and was 2nd in DYAR in 1991. He was second in the league in rushing yards, and 1st in DYAR for the 1994 season. Barry Sanders had the advantage in basic run stats. He ran for more yards over 10 seasons, and averaged almost 0.7 yards more per carry than Smith. Smith did score 40 more rushing touchdowns, and was the better short yardage runner. It's hard to factor in teammates and offense. The Cowboys offense was usually good during Smith's first 10 seasons, but that wasn't always the case. They peaked as an offense from 1992-95, but had mixed results in the other 6 seasons. It's hard to know how much his teammates contributed to Smith's success, or how much he contributed to the greatness of their offense when he was at this best. My feeling is that he contributed greatly to the team's offensive success during those years. He may have been the most important player on the team.
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