Emmitt Smith able to hide gray, but not able to hide mediocrity

on 02 10, 2009

I am writing about this topic because a point has to be made, and the truth has to be uncovered. We spend all this time proclaiming his greatness and give him the title of the best running back of the modern age. We proclaim him for the records he holds and the championships he has won. What we don’t do is give the proper praise to the real source behind all of these accomplishments. Like any great athlete there are certain things you can’t take away. Now that is not the point of this article, my point is to simply state the facts that are often left out of this discussion. We are all products of a system, and some systems are better designed for certain products. The very fortunate will find themselves in perfect system, and no matter what the quality of the product is success will follow. In this case we are talking about a perfect system, formulated to give all these aforementioned achievements to the average product that is Emmitt Smith.

To make this very clear, no one has been as fortunate to fall into such a convenient scenario like Emmitt Smith. First take a look at his physical tools and tell me one thing that was above average. I might be willing to give away balance, but for a running back that is not saying too much. I might be willing to say vision, but then I think about the fact that during his tenure in Dallas there was not one time where he did not have at least three pro bowl quality offensive linemen blocking for him. Can we please give more credit to the names like Allen, Stepnoski, Tuinei, Newton, Adams, Williams, and Donaldson. Between these seven men that Emmitt had the privilege to run behind they have racked up 40 pro bowl appearances. To continue this point, in 2002, the first year Emmitt did not have the assurance of pro bowl caliber lineman blocking for him was ironically the first year (other than his rookie season) he was not able to eclipse the 1,000 yard mark. To continue the point further, in his most productive years from 1992-1995, there was only two blockers that started over the period of time for the Cowboys that did not have at least one pro bowl appearance. His 4.2 yards per carry put him behind other backs such as Faulk, Dickerson, Dorsett, Sanders, Simpson, Brown, Tomlinson and Payton, all of which averaged better than 4.2 ypc for their career. I would like to think that the greatest would make the most out of every touch he received, especially when surrounded by the amount of talent this guy had the privilege of playing with. Leading me into my next point, we have not even begun to talk about the skill position players that Emmitt had the opportunity to play with.

Players like Hall of Fame QB Troy Aikman, Hall of Fame WR Michael Irvin, Pro Bowl FB Daryl Johnston, and Pro Bowl TE Jay Novacek all of which made big contributions to the success that Emmitt was able to achieve throughout his playing days. All that being said, if your still not convinced that he gets more recognition than he deserves then let me ask you this, do you honestly believe that the likes of a Barry Sanders or a Ladainain Tomlinson would not only be able to duplicate the success that Emmitt had? And if your one of the ignorant people that says no, take a look at the statistics and the personnel that these players were surrounded by and try and tell me otherwise.