This passing deserves more than just a mire mention on an offseason page.

We're talking about one of the greatest, or THE greatest, depending on who you ask, players ever to lace up, and play football.

An NFL Champion, retired in his peak, as the game's all-time leading rusher, enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973.

The Ultimate Brown.

That football team up in the sky just got a whole lot greater.  Imagine he and Walter Payton in the backfield.  Just can't be beat.

The most dominant offensive force in the history of the NFL

It’s pretty clear cut he was the single greatest player in the NFL’s entire first 50 years 1920-1970(even though retired in 65, he was widely considered the GOAT well into the 80’s before people finally started to forget). I think after that it can get debatable but at least up to that point, few who know would argue that. Me being a 90’s kid I will always remember him for being UFC commentator for my favorite fights ever.

Looking deeper into Brown's stats paints an interesting picture. All 9 of his seasons were played when the NFL played a 12 or 14 game schedule. He had 2-3 seasons where he would have had well over 2,000 yards had he played 16 games. The 1962 or 63 season one of the first years under Blanton Collier he led the Browns in receiving yards and receptions so he had the hands. Like I posted earlier he was hands down almost unanimously accepted as the NFL's Gretzky/Jordan for the entire first 50 years of the league history maybe the first 60 years, his records started coming down in the 1980's with the 16 game seasons and generations passed that had never seen him play. For a combination of different reasons over time Jim Brown's status as the Gretzky/Jordan level deity of the NFL just didn't hold, his black and white highlights just kind of faded with time, Payton broke his record, Franco and Montana won 4 Super Bowls, Barry Sanders in living color.  

Overwhelming amount of posters I've seen on internet/facebook would say Barry Sanders is the GOAT running back. I can't subscribe to that, having watched Barry's career I can't help but feel like he was a tier below a select few guys with Brown being one of them.

I can see the argument against Brown as the all time great running back or NFL greatest of all time debate was the quality of competition he played against in the NFL from 1957 to 1965. Seeing some of his epic highlight runs looks like he was on the field with like 2A level high school teams. But then also consider his greatest rival was the NY Giants defense that had Sam Huff and Emlen Tunnell in their primes, one of the all time great defensive units in history. They battled each other 2-3 times a year during that stretch usually for the top spot in that division. The Giants usually had Cleveland's number through that whole Brown's dynasty but Jim Brown did have some big games against them. His very first game in his NFL debut as a rookie was against the Giants team that was defending NFL Champs and he was the only offense Cleveland had that day in a 6-3 win. 

Never getting injured or getting knocked out of a game or getting carried off the field in all 9 years of all those games where that team rode on his back, with every defense trying to take him out every time he touched the ball, that is really man's man tough guy shit right there. It really should be appreciated as one of the toughest feats ever pulled off, that Jim Brown was legitimately one of the toughest motherfuckers that ever walked the planet. For that I have really grown to love and appreciate his insights on commentary in those early UFC vhs tapes. Having him on commentary was a nice added effect to put it all over. 

Honestly, football was probably the least interesting part of Jim Brown. His work with gangs was amazing, but he had a lot (a LOT) of problems with women. Bomani Jones has a really good obit about Jim Brown in today's podcast. open.spotify.com/episode/0kPSiffAplB7NMvlRHKoNb?si=hYigZlNdTGOivhgw4fBdZg

May 22, 2023 19:05:50 GMT Gyro LC said:

Honestly, football was probably the least interesting part of Jim Brown. His work with gangs was amazing, but he had a lot (a LOT) of problems with women. Bomani Jones has a really good obit about Jim Brown in today's podcast. open.spotify.com/episode/0kPSiffAplB7NMvlRHKoNb?si=hYigZlNdTGOivhgw4fBdZg

I've found it pretty difficult to comprehend pundits I listen to who went super hard on Deshaun Watson suddenly turn around and gloss over what Brown did. Just because he died doesn't make the pretty horrific things he did evaporate, it doesn't seem hard to reflect on him as an all time great athlete but an awful dude.

May 23, 2023 6:15:19 GMT @admin said:

May 22, 2023 19:05:50 GMT Gyro LC said:

Honestly, football was probably the least interesting part of Jim Brown. His work with gangs was amazing, but he had a lot (a LOT) of problems with women. Bomani Jones has a really good obit about Jim Brown in today's podcast. open.spotify.com/episode/0kPSiffAplB7NMvlRHKoNb?si=hYigZlNdTGOivhgw4fBdZg

I've found it pretty difficult to comprehend pundits I listen to who went super hard on Deshaun Watson suddenly turn around and gloss over what Brown did.

I couldn’t agree more.

What did Jim Brown do to women? Bill Cosby stuff? I listened to a great podcast interview with Brown from like 1999 on Amazon music then the host started to talk about his troubles with women and like the whole segment was cut out.

I looked up Jim Brown's video game like stats the other day and still think he has a strong case as the GOAT running back. Check this out...

Played 9 years. Led the league in rushing 8 of those years. Runners up are a handful of guys with 4. Brown doubled that. Also holds the NFL record with 5 straight rushing titles. Nobody else has 4. Four players have 3. Brown is among them. Led league in rushing touchdowns 5x. Another record. Only player to average over 100 rush yards per game. Only player to average over 1 TD per game. Never missed a game in 9 seasons. Still only played in 118 of them because 12 & 14 game seasons. Yet still ranks 11th in all time rush yards and 6th all time in rushing touchdowns despite having only played the equivalent of 7-8 modern seasons. If you extrapolate his 1963 season to 16 games he breaks Dickerson's single season rushing record which has stood for nearly 40 years. Yep. Still the GOAT RB in my book. RIP.

1 of the most unstoppable players in NFL history. RIP

Damn just now reading about all of his female troubles for the first time. They did a good job of covering that stuff up. The one case with the 18 year old he got out of definitely sounds like he was able to skirt it all with money and good lawyers.