Shaw66

No they don't think Zay is better than Beasley. Zay isn't their guy. But they didn't sign Beasley because the they think he is the answer. They signed him because they have a hole at receiver and they think he can fill it until they draft the guy they want. That's the EXACT same reason they signed Cotchery and Boldin. Same with Matthews and Maclin. And it's the same with Brown. If he is with the Bills five years from now, great, but I think if Beane were frank with you, he would tell you he doesn't expect Brown to be on the team. He expects Brown will lose his job to someone the Bills draft or sign as an undrafted free agent. Like Foster. I don't know why people have so much trouble internalizing what Beane says. He is NOT looking for answers in free agency. He is looking for stopgaps. Morse, I will grant you, is the exception. I think what McBeane expect of themselves is to have a good record drafting and signing rookies. They are not expecting to build a team with free agents. Would they like to have done better on their free agents? Sure. But other than Morse, is their a free agent they've really invested in? It simply is not their philosophy.

I think we all tend to misperceive what McBeane hae been doing. Beane tells us and we keep forgetting. YOU BUILD YOUR TEAM THROUGH THE DRAFT, AND YOU FILL HOLES IN FREE AGENCY. Benjamin and Boldin and Matthews and Maclin and Cotchery all were attempts to fill holes through free agency (or trades). If they find a keeper in the process, great, but that isn't their objective. So you can't conclude that McBeane thought any of those guys were good. They were guys they hoped would fill holes.

Well, I'd never watched that video. It's pretty bad. Now, to be fair to the receivers, no team's receivers makes ALL those catches. A lot of those catches were pretty well contested by the defenders. The real problem is that if someone put together a video of CONTESTED catches the Bills made, it would be a lot shorter than this video. Also, a few of Allen's throws were bad. Finally, the same thing happened to me that happens every time I watch 2018 plays - what I see is a really, really good quarterback.

Mostly I think what you say here proves none of us knows what we're talking about. Pro scouts, pro gms and pro coaches understand so much better than we who can make it and who can't. Yet we all still talk about it like we're experts. The press and most people here were convinced that Allen had great talent and was, at best, a project, if not a wasted pick. I'd bet that most, maybe even all, GMs knew otherwise. Whether Metcalf is Julio Jones, Megatron or Kelvin Benjamin, I don't know. By the end of April, McBeane will know.

Nobody except Brown. Nobody except Brown.

The primary way Brown was tackled was the first guy missed him, the second guy got stiff armed, the third guy grabbed one leg and got dragged three yards and the fourth and fifth guys jumped on Brown's back. Sure, it's an exaggeration, but there were more plays like that than you'd think.

I'm sold. I like that analysis, from Belichick all the way through. The guy has some monster skills. Drops are a concern. Can he respond to the process?

No, it isn't. Otto Graham was Paul Brown's Tom Brady. Oh, and the aforementioned Marion Motley running the ball. Brown was a genius on a par with Belichick, although playing a much simpler game.

It was a two-division league. Six teams in a division for the first 4 seasons in his career, seven teams for the last four years of his career. Over that span, the Browns won or tied for 4 out of 9 division championships. That's not bad.

Joe Cribbs reminds me: The Bills are definitely in the running for best all time stable of running backs. OJ, Thurman, Cookie, Cribbs, McCoy, Lynch, McGahee, Henry, Bush, Antowain Smith, and now Gore. Just about every team in the league would kill to have Fred Jackson be their EIGHTH best all time running back. Think of this: 32 teams in the league, each team should on average have four running backs in the top 128 all time. The Bills have 11!!! And that doesn't include Gilchrist, who could very well be in the top 10 best running backs in pro football history. Okay, drop out Bush and Gore and count Lynch, McGahee and Smith as one instead of three. That's still 7 of the top 128, plus Gilchrist. There is an incredible rushing legacy in Buffalo.

I don't agree in either case. But one of the most amazing things in the history of football is that those two guys just mocking defenders trying to tackle them played on the SAME TEAM IN COLLEGE!!!

Hemma's right - if you're interested in learning about Brown, read this article. Belichick, when asked how Brown would do in the modern, just says "oh, my God" or something to that effect. Adrian Peterson, the guy Brown thinks is most like him, looks at video of Brown in awe. Barry Sanders says he couldn't dominate a game like Brown. It's really an amazing article. I'd venture to guess that NO NFL coach would take Bettis in his prime over Campbell in his prime.

I almost wrote a post about his run against the Cowboys. It's described in article. Most amazing three yard touchdown in history. As John Wooten described it, they started a sweep to the left and when Wooten, the pulling guard got out there he said "everybody is out there. The end, the tackle, the linebacker, the safety, the corner. Everybody.” Brown retreated to 10, Wooten says, and then somehow willed himself past everyone into the end zone. Simply incredible.

WOW!!! Haven't finished the article, but it's great! Thanks. It's worth it just for the photo of Ali, Bill Russell, Jim Brown and Kareem. Incredible.

I don't remember that. That would have been like Brown and Simpson in the same backfield, only better. There's only one ball to rive to your running back, but there are two paths to the quarterback. I mean, can you imagine that? If I'm on the team that starts White and Smith at the two defensive ends, I want to be a defensive tackle. With the constant double teams on the outside, I'm going to get a lot of good looks at the QB.

Yeah, I get it. All I can say is that if you'd seen them live, there's a chance you'd change your opinion. The thing I often though about Sanders is that he did things that didn't look humanly possible. Sometimes watching him was like watching some video game fantasy game. Nobody else has done that. As I've said, sometimes Shady gets vaguely close, but not really. I think that aspect of Sanders' play makes him unique among all running backs. But if you're drafting a team to play in the NFL, unique isn't necessarily the best. I think a team with Brown or Simpson (and maybe one or two others) has an advantage over a team with Sanders. All I know is I'd pay to see a game with the Brown and Sanders as the two starting running backs. Motley was another of those man-among-boys guys. I don't think it was an accident that he wore number 76.

Yes, Campbell instead of Bettis for sure. This discussion is repeated on message boards over and over, all over the country. You know what discussion DOESN'T appear nearly so often? Best RECEIVER of all time. That's a very short discussion.

It's funny, because it's an endless discussion. To you I'd say the reason it's Brown is that he needs to be in the speed category as well. He was the fastest man in the league. And I have OJ way up on my list because he belongs in the elusiveness category with Sanders (although they were elusive in different ways) and in the multipurpose category, as well (although because of the era the Bills didn't throw to him as much as some of the more modern backs). And to thenorthremember, all I can say is there is no way I put Tomlinson in the top five and leave OJ out. Tomlinson was great, but his best days were OJ's average days. And that's one of the things that makes the discussion hopeless. It's a team game, and any skill player's performance is a function of not only his ability, but all sorts of things both his teammates and his opponents are doing. Brown and Simpson and Sanders all had good offensive lines, and they all faced defenses stacked to stop them. For sure, some of them played in better total circumstances than some others, but it's impossible to determine that and factor it into the discussion.

Thanks. I'm amused that I never thought of it that way. I try in my mind to imagine Brown playing in a later era, and he'd do great, I'm sure. But I've never really tried to imagine later greats in an earlier era. Peterson is a great example. I think he would have been a monster in the 50s and 60s. He is like Brown in that he has an amazing combination of speed, power and elusiveness. Bo Jackson translated back to that era also would have thrived. And Simpson. with perhaps the best speed of the group and only slightly less power. Even I'm not old enough to have seen Thorpe, but I think he dominated because of his size compared to the rest of the league. I know people say that about Brown, too, but in Brown's era there were 300 pound defensive linemen (not as many, granted, but they were there). And in Brown's era there were other 230 pound running backs, but they couldn't do what Brown did. I like K-9's comment. It is a futile discussion, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun. His conclusion is correct - there are several guys who deserve a seat at the table, and it's a round table. It's true. The guys I'd invite to the table are Brown, Simpson, Jackson, Sanders, Campbell. Maybe Dickerson and Sayers. For some reason, my emotional response always leaves Peterson out, but my brain tells me he probably needs a seat. If, using your test - how would he do if he played in Brown's era, those guys all would have been devastating weapons. Sayers DID play in that era and WAS spectacularly good, and Simpson came shortly after. One thing about Brown is clear: he taught the NFL the value of a truly elite running back. Brown went 8th in the NFL draft. Only one year later, seven teams were wondering what they were thinking. Simpson, DIckerson, Sanders, Campbell all went right up near the top of the draft. And that's why the Giants took Barkley where they did. When there's a guy in the draft who looks like he deserves to sit at that round table, you gotta take him.

You're like me. It was the Browns and Giants on TV every week in the late 50s, and we were a Browns family. The Browns were my first team until the Bills came along. One of the greatest weekends of my liife was going to War Memorial Stadium on Saturday to see the Bills beat the Chargers for the AFL championship, then sit at home on Sunday and watch the Browns beat the Colts for the NFL championship. Gilchrist and Brown would have made for a GREAT first Super Bowl. I was crushed when Brown announced from England that he was retiring. LeRoy Kelly had been returning punts for the Browns, and Brown said the Browns will be fine without him, because they have LeRoy Kelly. I remember wondering what he was talking about - a punt returner replacing the greatest back ever, but Brown was right. Kelly was amazing.

I love this discussion every time it comes. Obviously, there's no right answer to the question, but looking at the posts, I've clarified my thinking about it. I've seen them all. I've always said Brown is the best, and I'm still there. I've also always said that if I had to watch one running back play, it would be Sanders. It sort of comes down to you standard of measurement. If you want the most exciting running back, it was Sanders. Sanders has the best highlights. He did stuff on the field that no one else ever has done. (In fact, one thing I like about Shady is in his prime, he was about the most-Sanders like of any back I can recall. Start stop, change direction, amazing acceleration. But in that category, Sanders is in a league by himself. However, Sanders isn't my greatest back ever. Football is about production and making plays, and if you want a back to make plays for you, consistently, it isn't Sanders. I know it sounded like heresy, but whoever said OJ made Sanders look like a gadget back was correct. May have overstated it, but he had the right point. OJ was elusive in a different way than Sanders was, but he had an astounding ability to make people miss. OJ had better speed than Sanders; Sanders regularly got caught from behind on long runs, but no one caught OJ. And Sanders simply was not a good receiver. He didn't catch well, and he never seemed to produce in the passing game, even though the Lions tried for years. OJ was devastating in the passing game. Bills fans don't like it when I say it, but OJ was a better receiver than Thurman. THe Bills didn't throw to him as much as to Thurman, because it was a different era, but he was deadly as a receiver. Excellent hands, and give him the ball in the open field - wow! And Brown was better than both. He was the fastest guy in the NFL. He may have been the best pure athlete to play in the NFL, ever. (He was so good at lacrosse that they actually had to rewrite some of the rules to neutralize his style.) He had incredible strength and amazing balance. He beat you with speed, with power and with finesse. And HE was an excellent receiver, too, although in those days running back routes were primarily swing passes in the flat. Brown retired at age 30, in 1965. Brown was the league leading career rusher for about 15 years, when Walter Payton closed in on him and passed him. Brown, who has a big ego, didn't like the fact that someone was taking his record, especially a guy who, as great as he was, was a compiler, not a back breaking, power back or a great break away threat. (I'm pretty sure it was Payton, but it might have been Franco Harris, who ultiimately didn't pass Brown.) Brown was 45, and he said he was still better than anyone in the league. He said he was going to come out of retirement to preserve his record. Now, the interesting thing about that was not that Brown was being a loudmouthed egomaniac, like TO or someone. The interesting thing about that was that Brown was so good, so dominant that FIFTEEN years after he retired there was SERIOUS discussion in the press about how good Brown would be if he came back. NOBODY in 2013 could suggest that Barry Sanders at age 45 could come back and do what he did. Brown may have been the greatest athlete of the century. The only guy I can think of who could challenge him was Bo Jackson.

Loved Thurm, but he wasn't even the best back in BILLS history.

It's so hard to compare them. I was going to mention Sayers if no one else did. Sayers was unbelievable. His style was different from Sanders, but he was the only guy other than Sanders who week after did things that you'd never seen anyone else do. And Dickerson, like Campbell, had a short career but was spectacularly good in his prime. Still, it's Brown. People can day he was playing against smaller guys than now, but it doesn't matter. Jim Taylor was the second best in that era, he was as big as Brown, but there was no comparison. Brown was the most punishing back in the league and he was the fastest player in the league. He would be as big a star today as he was then.

Oh, and the season he didn't lead the league, he played most od the season with a broken wrist. Brown had a vicious stiff arm, and with a broken wrist he lost that weapon. He was the best.

Love that guy. What a hoot!