This column, by senior writer Paul Attner, first appeared in the Dec. 15, 1997, issue of The Sporting News, under the headline “The man who saved the season” as Detroit icon Barry Sanders was drawing close to rushing for 2,000 yards that season.
It was one of those ideas that seemed so sexy, so very right on, at the time. The Sporting News was producing a preseason television special on the NFL and we had to identify some grabbers — ideas that would reach out and catch viewers and tantalize them enough so they would have absolutely no reason to surf to another channel. We already were doing a profile on Barry Sanders, so why not tease everyone with this prediction: He would make a run at gaining 2,000 yards this season.
It made perfect sense. Sanders already was a great running back at the peak of his magnificent career. And, for the first time since joining the Lions, he had a coach, Bobby Ross, who believed in actually running first and passing second. He would supply Sanders with a fullback to serve as a lead blocker, and he wouldn’t abandon the running game if it foundered in the early minutes. Under former coach Wayne Fontes in the gawd-awful run-and-shoot, Sanders had managed 1,883 yards in 1994. So why not believe he could make the not-so-improbable leap to 2,000?
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Then he gained just a small chunk of yards the first two weeks of the season, in part because Ross ran from the run faster than Fontes ever did. I could only hope everyone who saw the show quickly forgot everything they were told.
But not anymore.
People, please remember. You heard it from TSN first about this season and Barry Sanders.
He surely will smash the 2,000-yard mark in the final game of the season against the Jets. I’d run him 40 times if I were Ross, just to make sure he doesn’t come up short. Sanders deserves as much considering what he has meant to the Lions not only this season but for his entire career. Only two players — O.J. Simpson (1973) and Eric Dickerson (1984) — can claim a 2,000-yards-plus season, so this is a special achievement. It could be made more extraordinary if Terrell Davis can join him the same weekend; to have two 2,000-yard rushers would turn this into a season to remember.
Something has to because otherwise this has been mainly a year to forget in the NFL. Unless you enjoy general mediocrity and average teams contending for playoff berths and quarterbacks who weren’t even somebody in college trying to be stars in the pros. The Buccaneers have been impressive, for sure, and the Chiefs didn’t fold when they could have, and Mike Ditka has been as entertaining as we could have possibly hoped, but those nuggets aren’t enough to offset the scars inflicted by free agency movement. Players are richer, but we are poorer because of a case of the blahs produced by parity.
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But, with apologies to Davis, Sanders has saved the season. Just watch a highlight tape of his best runs, and I dare you to view it without shaking your head in amazement at what transpires before you. He has become our football joystick.
We love to see runners barrel over tacklers, which is what makes Jim Brown so special from the past and Jerome Bettis so impressive in the present. But we react differently to someone such as Sanders, who has never met a tackler he wouldn’t love to twist into a human pretzel with his assortment of fakes and flinches. We hoot and holler and draw attention to ourselves with all the noise generated from exclaiming over one of Sanders’ masterpieces. And that is just on one of his 2-yard gains. The longer stuff is emotionally draining.
How can anyone stop, start, turn, move, reverse, hop, sprint, slow and spurt so effortlessly and naturally in the tiniest of spaces, in the quickest of moments without a hint of hesitation — and do it again and again and again? A tackler’s nightmare has to be coming face to face with Sanders in an open hole. He won’t run over you; instead, he will do a 180-degree degree spin that will embarrass you in full public view.
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This embarrassment factor is big. Most defensive players don’t care who they have to tackle; it is just part of their job. But that changes with Sanders. He can leave them humiliated and shamed, and they know it. Panthers linebacker Lamar Lathon talks of the first time he encountered Sanders in a game. He was faked out so badly that he, in tum, faked a hamstring pull so he could use it as an excuse for missing the tackle. And leaving the game. No wonder. "Like grasping for soap,” Packers safety Eugene Robinson says about trying to tackle Sanders. Imagine trying to grab a slimy bar for three hours, in front of thousands in a stadium and a few million more on television
Davis knows the company he is keeping. “I’m nowhere close to being Barry Sanders,” he says. “I compare myself with my peers, people like Curtis (Martin) or Napoleon (Kaufman). But not someone like Barry. He is on a level somewhere way up there. I’ve got such a long way to go to get anywhere near him it’s ridiculous.”
Barry Sanders is the NFL’s happy face. See him work and you smile. But I see him work, and I see a prediction. Thanks, Barry, for making my year. In more ways than one.
TSN Archives: Barry Sanders, 1997 NFL Player of the Year (Jan. 26, 1998)
We finally have an answer to the lingering Barry-vs.-Emmitt debate. While Dallas’ Emmitt Smith is starting to show signs of wear and tear, the Lions’ Barry Sanders had the best season of his career.
In 1997, Sanders, 29, became the third player in NFL history to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season as he gained 2,053 and blew away his previous best of 1,883 in 1994.
Sanders had to share the NFL’s MVP Award with Packers quarterback Brett Favre, but a TSN survey of NFL personnel directors wasn’t nearly as close. Sanders received 19 of 24 votes (Favre got the other five) to become The Sporting News’ 1997 Player of the Year.
Under new coach Bobby Ross, Sanders worked with a pure blocking fullback for the first time in his career. After he gained 53 yards on 26 carries in the first two games this season, that didn’t look like such a good idea. But Sanders rolled up exactly 2,000 yards in the last 14 games.
Along the way, Sanders passed Marcus Allen, Franco Harris, Jim Brown, Tony Dorsett and Eric Dickerson to move into second place on the NFL’s all-time rushing list.
Going into the regular-season finale, Sanders needed 131 yards to reach 2,000. He did it with a 2-yard run late in the fourth quarter, and Ross tried to pull him out of the game to make sure he didn’t get tackled for a loss and fall below 2,000.
But Sanders refused and broke a 53-yard run on the next play. — Chris Jenkins