I love Gale Sayers as much as the next guy. I’ve seen the movie. I admire what he did for Brian Piccolo. While I’m wayyyyy too young to have actually seen Sayers play during his brief but wondrous career, I have seen the highlights over and over thanks to cable television. Sayers is a top notch act on and off the field. Gale Sayers, Mr. Sayers to me, deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
Question is… If Sayers is in, how can you keep Terrell Davis out?
There are so many parallels between the two. Both were brilliant running backs. Both played only seven season in the NFL. Of their seven seasons, both were really factors in only four and half NFL campaigns. Both fought injury problems, which ended their careers prematurely and tied them together forever. Spooky, right?
So with such short careers, how do we evaluate their hall worthiness?
Let’s start with Sayers, who was elected to the NFL’s Hall of Fame in 1977. Given his career accomplishments, the highlight film, Brian’s Song, his legacy is clear. There’s no serious debate Gale Sayers doesn’t belong in the Hall.
In Sayer’s all too brief career, he made countless highlight plays. He was a game changer out of the backfield or returning kicks. He led the NFL three times in total yards. His career rushing average clocks in at a gaudy 5.0 yards per attempt. He was a four time Pro Bowl pick and made First Team All Pro five times. He was a star in every sense of the word.
As for Terrell Davis, he was a Pro Bowl and All Pro pick three times. His rushing average was a healthy 4.6 yards per attempt. He led the entire NFL in rushing yards once while breaking the exclusive 2000 yard barrier in 1998. He was second in rushing twice and went over 1,500 yards in three straight seasons. Finally, Davis led the league in rushing touchdowns twice and in overall touchdowns once. The man could flat out play. He wasn’t nicknamed TD due to his initials…
Give Sayers the edge in yards per carry, breakaway ability and his return skills. However, there’s a big category that Sayers trails TD in. Sayers never played in a championship game. Unfortunately, his Bear teams never even got close. So, we never got to see what highlights Gale Sayers would have come up on the biggest stage of all.
As for TD, we know all about him and championships. Remember that Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway? You know, the guy who won back to back Super Bowls and then rode off into retirement? Well, Elway won exactly ZERO championships before Terrell Davis showed up in the Broncos’ backfield. Elway and the Broncos had done nothing but get killed in Super Bowls prior to TD’s time.
It’s clear that come crunch time Terrell was money. He was the MVP of Super Bowl XXXII scoring three TDs, which no RB had ever done before. Throughout the playoffs that year, he railed off four straight 100 yard games in a row helping Denver go from wild card entrants to Super Bowl Champs.
The following year, come playoff time, Davis was once again on top of his game. In his second straight championship game, TD ran for over 100 yards while gaining another 50 or so through the air. Along the way, Davis set the playoff record with seven straight games with 100 or more rushing yards.
John Elway still sends TD thank you cards for giving him the story book ending to his great career.
As time has gone by, we’ve forgotten how big a factor Terrell Davis was. His brief career leaves us asking how we judge him. Should we go on what was or what could have been had he not been forced out of the game way too soon? Looking back at his record of achievement during the regular season and playoffs, it’s clear Terrell Davis belongs in the Hall of Fame.
No slight intended at Mr. Sayers, but Terrell Davis would belong in the Hall of Fame even if Sayers hadn’t already gotten in.
He was that good.
Tags: Brian Piccolo, Brian's Song, Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos, Football, Gale Sayers, Hall of Fame, John Elway, NFL, sports, Super Bowl, Terrell Davis
its retarded that Sayers is in but TD isn’t, TD had more yards, more touchdowns, more championships, a league MVP and a super bowl MVP, all of this when TD wasn’t starter for a year. and also people say that TD got to play in 16 games and Sayers didn’t but that’s not true, Terrell sat out of 2 games in 1998 so TD has more yards and td in a single season in the same amount of games. if 60% of broncos players of the last 50 years played for the bears instead of Denver they’d all be in the hall right now. I mean seriously, 4 broncos in the hall of fame? really?