In our day and age of thrills a minute and the short ride, it's almost time to ask the question.
What defines greatness?
Is it the career that lasts, with tons of stats, but no glorious moments?
Or a career defined by one or two great years, but mediocre points in between?
Is it the star receiver who's faded in his twilight years and is barely hanging on to any team that will have him?
Or the rookie who impresses for a short time and then is gone, leaving painful memories?
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In the older days, some would call guys like Jim Thorpe, Johnny Unitas, and Joe Montana great ones. As time would go by, we'd think of guys who put forth tons of effort, but failed to reach the ultimate prize; guys like Warren Moon, Jim Kelly, and Dan Marino.
We'd think of guys who had long careers, only to finally win near the end of a career, like Jim Plunkett and John Elway.
In this day and age, stats are looked on more gloriously than winning a Super Bowl. When a team starts the season, have you ever heard a QB say, on the camera, "Wow, I hope I have 50 TDs, heck with the Super Bowl?"
No, because for the longest time, every star who played the game all wanted the same thing. To know how heavy the Vince Lombardi Trophy is.
To me...keep the great ones where they belong. Give them credit for what they strived for and what they achieved.
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about 1 month ago
GREAT ARTICLE! not real sure how to define greatness but i do believe championships were more important to to players from a gone by era because of the money it paid the players most players until sometimes in the late 70's or so had a summer job to help with the income and for a lot of players the money won in the playoffs was as much as they made during the season in salary. As for what is greatness sometimes i think it just jumps out at you and you know it when you see it Walter Payton, Jim Brown, Montana, Rice, The Babe, Henry Aaron these players and others from different sports were great and you just knew it and they didn't have to brag about how great they were
about 1 month ago
Thanks for reading Mike.
Ya, in this day and age, I noticed the HOF committee had to make some adjustments. Guys like Marino, with all those stats, at least got to the Super Bowl....but guys like Dan Fouts....how did he get in there?
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