Because Bettis and Franco weren’t better than Curtis Martin. Also, the list doesn’t include Walter Payton which is a joke. This list is garbage and should be immediately disregarded
I disagree that the list is garbage. Just because you disagree with one or two choices doesn't make the whole list garbage. Walter Payton definitely belongs on that list. So does Thurman Thomas. I disagree about Curtis. I think that both Franco and Bettis were better than Curtis. For that matter, so was Freeman McNeil as a pure rusher.
How was Bettis better than Martin? Because he had 1 more career Rushing TD than him? Martin had 400 more yards and played 25 games less. Martin averaged 83.9 YPG vs 71.2 YPG for Bettis.
I loved Freeman and you can make the argument when healthy head to head he was better than Martin. A lot of people make an argument against Gale Sayers based on length of career. Sayers was a unique talent. If you saw him you were watching greatness period. Freeman was great but he wasn't uniquely great and he didn't have the iron man quality that in a league of attrition is arguably a great quality. Martin had that.
Curtis played 11 seasons. He rushed for over a thousand yards in 10 of them (only his injury shortened final season did he post 735 yards). Bettis played 13 seasons and only rushed for a thousand yards 8 times. So Bettis played 2 years longer than Curtis and had 2 less thousand yard seasons. Curtis averaged 4 yards per attempt over his career. Bettis averaged 3.8. Curtis was better than Bettis. They were both better than Harris.
I was going on memory. I looked up both of their stats, and Curtis was better than Bettis. I just remember how many rushes Curtis had for negative yards.
Harris was better than both of them. He was a big game player. The guy had 17TD's in 19 playoff games. He also averaged 4.1 for his career better than both Bettis and Martin. Martin disappeared in the GB SB and in the Jets/Denver game to get to the SB. Davis had a 167 yards against the Jets in the same playoff game where Martin had 14 yards on 13 attempts. When I think of a big game player Harris is on the list.
Thanks for saving me the time. Any list that does not have Walter Payton and Curtis Martin in favor of an obvious Steeler bias is not worth reading.
Bettis was a platoon player the last four years of his career and was also a relative zero in the passing game. He caught 54 passes for first downs to Martin's 141. Rusher first downs for Curtis Martin was 746 vs. Bettis' 661 which is important when noting that Bettis was known for being this great short yardage back. Martin averaged under 4 YPC 4 times in his 11 years. Bettis 9 times in 13 years. But I think these two statistics proves why neither belong on the list. They were steady. They produced every year and came with their hard hat and lunch pale. But relative to the absolute greats and dominant players they really don't compare.
I think just about every RB can aspire to be compared stylistically to either Jim Brown, Walter Payton or Barry Sanders. They set the standard, and are the clear top 3 to me. fwiw regarding Curtis Martin, he falls into the Payton lane. A super smooth, versatile, and complete back that made it look easy. Very similar style, and any list that doesn't have him is garbage imo.
Glad to see LaDainian Tomlinson on there as we. I thought they missed him. Did Marshall Faulk make it? He should be on there. He changed the position and was the center piece behind basically two of the best offenses ever.
Marion Motley is the reason the Draw Play was invented. His teams won 5 championships in the 9 years he played. A lot of players from the 1940's and 1950's think he was better than Jim Brown. I take issues with a lot of the guys on the list, but Motley is one of my top 5 ever at the position.
That points back to this: every time Curtis was on a great team, he was the main focus of that team's entire offensive philosophy. When other great teams were able to key in and take Curtis out of the game, there was nothing for those teams to fall back on. Those Pats/Jets teams had very good, not great defenses, and pretty good passing games, but they were all about running up the gut. Harris's Steeler teams had dominating defenses, and if all else failed, maybe the HOF QB could get it to one of his two HOF WRs.
One of the guys I used to work with who was about 20 years older than me swore that Motley was the greatest he ever saw which included Sayers and Jim Brown's entire career. Can't argue it I didn't see him but those that did absolutely agree with you.