Outside of analyzing this sport, I’m also a fan as well as many of you are. I love the history of this game and reading up on the players who paved the way for the guys to come after them. Many great Running Backs have blessed the gridiron with their talents. The great Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell, the late Franco Harris and Emmitt Smith who happens to be the all-time leading rusher in NFL history. Then, before all the guys I listed, there was a pioneer by the name of Mr. James Nathaniel Brown, better known as Jim Brown. The world of football lost a giant in the sport on Thursday as it was announced that Mr. Brown had passed away at the age of 87.
I’ve always said in certain sports that you can’t discuss the history of certain positions without mentioning names. In basketball, you can’t discuss Shooting Guards without Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant being the first two names to come up in the conversation. The same logic can be applied to Running Backs and Mr. Jim Brown. He’s widely regarded as the greatest to play the position and has also been labeled as the best player in NFL history. Mr. Brown was drafted by the Cleveland Browns with the sixth overall pick in the first round in the 1957 NFL Draft. In his rookie season, he was named the NFL Rookie of the Year and won the first of his three MVP awards in the same season. Looking at film of him for many years, he was the definition of a rugged runner. Once he got the ball in his hands, he was downhill and never wanted to run out of bounds because he wanted to run through you and let you know this is what was happening all game long. It was the combination of the stiff arm, the brute strength, the power, field vision and quickness that made him so great. You mix all that I just listed about him, that’s exactly what you got. Mr. Brown was much quicker than people realized. He had a strong ability to power through lanes up the middle, then once he got to that second tier of the defense, he turned the jets on. Just imagine a 225-pound man coming at you with blazing speed. Mr. Brown could also catch the ball out the backfield and used that power to get up the field. He would go onto say himself that others may have had stronger abilities than he did, but when it was time to play football, he was always ready, and I love that mentality. If the saying a man amongst boys had a spokesperson, it was number 32.
Mr. Brown played nine seasons in the National Football League. In eight of those seasons, he led the league in rushing. He is the only runner ever to average over 100 yards per game and five yards per carry in a career. That’s incredible. When he decided to walk away from the game, he left with three MVP awards, a championship and was the leading rusher in NFL history when he retired. What impresses me the most about all I just listed is that he was able to do this and never missed a single game. Mr. Brown walked away from football at the age of 29. He’s a member of both the College Football Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame. After leaving football, he became an actor. Outside of football, he was one of the few athletes to speak out on racial issues as the Civil Rights movement was growing in the 1950s. As great of a football player that he was, Mr. Brown was an even better man. He was so respected by many people. I even remember during the NBA Finals in 2015, LeBron James paid homage to Mr. Brown who was sitting courtside. The football community lost a giant in the sport and the world lost a great man. My condolences go out to his family, Syracuse University, the Cleveland Browns and those who knew him and played with him.
