Earl Campbell can barely walk

Damn right, Sam. Franco, Dickerson and Dorsett were the great skip out of bounds guys from that era, but never Payton.

Payton and Campbell always chose contact over voluntarily going down. Those two treated every carry like it was the most important ever, and they both had their health come apart tragically early after retirement. Coincidence?

 

For a period of two or three seasons, and for shitty teams with no ends in sight, James Wilder was pretty recklessly used.

 

What happened in 1984 when the Bucs laid down to allow the Jets to score a TD in the last minute of the finale to get Wilder a few more carries? Was it the carries record? Or was it 2,000 combined yards?

If I recall correctly, it didn't even work and he didn't get to the record or accomplishment.

 

I don't think Payton's issues were FB-related though.

But yeah, growing up a Bears fan Campbell was my second favorite NFL player after Payton. And Payton is still my all-time favorite professional athlete.

Those Oiler-Steeler games in the late 70s were sites to behold. And Campbell's Monday Nighter against the Dolphins is still one of the best NFL games I've ever watched.

 

bucs.tbo.com/bucs/top25/bucs12game.htm

I remember watching that game as a kid. Lance Mehl and Klecko and all those guys were going apeshit. It was for Wilder to pass the all-time combined yards. So the next year the Jets and Bucs played and the Jets ran it up, 62-28 final.

 

How in God's name is James Fing Wilder being talked about on an Earl Campbell thread?

Yes, Franco did run out of bounds when contact was coming. This was not lost on Steeler fans. I know there was the Italian Army and all that crap, but in popularity Franco is a far distance behind Lambert, Greene, Ham, Blount and even Bradshaw because he was not looked at as a tough player.

He always limped back to the huddle.

But he does have four rings, and he was fast. He ran like Dickerson before Dickerson.

But Campbell was better.

 

What really got ME about Franco is that he really was NOT like Dickerson. Dickerson was a sleek mustang (SMU and otherwise) and fans sort of expect those Lamborghinis to not risk getting dinged up.

But Franco? He was built more like a fullback... and he played for the PITTSBURGH Steelers, not the tootie-fruity Los Angeles Rams.

 

I look at Dickerson and Franco in runners that pretty much wanted to go north/south and avoided tacklers by twisting their hips to avoid full contact from the tackler. I can never remember Franco getting hit hard even though he ran between the tackles. When you do that, you are always falling forward.

Plus, once Franco and Dickerson got into the secondary, they were too fast for many DBs to take a decent angle on to tackle.

Too many runners today want to dance like Barry Sanders and make guys miss. You get a lot of guys with a 5.0 ypc, but it looks like 10, 0, 9, -1, -1, 11, 35, 2, -5, 0 on their stat line which is a killer because they cannot sustain a drive.

 

Well, we were talking about Earl Campbell being worked like a dog. and Lee Jackson mentioned that Wilder was worked relentlessly for a horrible team going nowhere. And it reminded me of the story I'd heard/read about the dogass Bucs laying down to get Wilder some meaningless record at the end of another 2-14 season. And Lee confirmed my recollections. And then we went back to talking about Earl Campbell.

Of course you didn't mind when the jack was Franco Harris-related.

 

Dickerson had much more speed than Harris.

 

At least we were staying in the division and the Hall of Fame.

Campbell had two big things going against him when he played - playing in the same division as the Steelers and playing in the same state as the Cowboys.

If he played for Pittsburgh, Chicago or Dallas, he would be remembered a lot differently.

Isn't Campbell State Hero of Texas? Huge, huge honor if I remember correctly.

 

It's SportsJournalists.com. Threads take tangential turns all the time.