Cold Front Posted April 3, 2015 Share Posted April 3, 2015 (edited) While i agree OJ is the greatest pure runner in Bills history, he is not the franchise's greatest back. I realize rushing for 2003 yards in a 14 game season will never again be repeated. The 14 game 1974 season began on Sept. 16, the last game of the Bills regular season was Dec. 15. OJ's lone playoff game was Dec 22 @ Pittsburgh. OJ's playoff stats 15 att. 47 yards 3.27 average and no TDs.. Over the course of OJ's NFL career that's a lot of time off in the between each season to rest. Thurman played a 16 game schedule, Appeared in 21 playoff games over an 11 year playoff run from 1988-1999. He logged over the course of his career an additional 339 att 1442 yards 4.3 average and 16 TDs in the playoffs in addition to his regular season stats. Bills only. Thurman > OJ rush/att 2849 > 2123 rush/yds 11,938 > 10,183 yds/att 4.2 < 4.8 rush/tds 65 > 57 receptions 456 > 175 rec/yds 4,341 > 1924 rec/tds 74 > 12 also of note #of acls 1 > 2 Thomas tore his ACL during pick-up basketball game while a Junior at Oklahoma State, After it was discovered that Thurman Thomas had an ACL injury that wasn't properly repaired, many NFL teams passed on him when draft time rolled around. Despite rushing for about 1,600 yards with a torn ACL while at Oklahoma State, he fell to the middle of the second round where he was finally selected by the Buffalo Bills. 12,074 rushing yards, 88 touchdowns, and an induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, College Football Hall of Fame, 5x Pro Bowler, 4x AFC Champion, 2x First-Team All-Pro, NFL MVP (1991), NFL 1990's Al-Decade Team, Pro Football Hall of Fame, I guess it turns out he didn't need more than one ACL after all. Edited April 3, 2015 by Cold Front Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bookie Man Posted April 3, 2015 Share Posted April 3, 2015 I can't believe the lack of respect for Jonathon Linton in this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted April 3, 2015 Share Posted April 3, 2015 (edited) While i agree OJ is the greatest pure runner in Bills history, he is not the franchise's greatest back. Man, revisionist history is fun. The NFL was a running league when O.J. played and he was the greatest runner ever, aside from Jim Brown. To judge him by today's pass-happy standards is just plain silly, IMO. Here's one stat to put this whole debate in perspective: O.J. is the only guy in NFL history to have twice rushed for 1,000 yards in the first seven games of a season. Think about that. In Thurman's best season (1991) it took him 11 games to top the thousand mark... Edited April 3, 2015 by Lurker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buftex Posted April 3, 2015 Share Posted April 3, 2015 Thing that always sucks about these arguments is that to make your point, it almost seems like you are criticizing one guy, to elevate the other. Anyone who thinks Thurman was better than OJ...seriously? Thurman was awesome, no doubt...I would argue he played behind a better line than OJ, and played in an offense that was worlds more sophisticated than what OJ played. When OJ played, there was no trickery, no "no-huddle", no running out of the shot-gun, using your future HOF receivers as decoys...it was OJ, all OJ. If you are analyzing who was the best running back, you can't really include all the accomplishments of the team he played on, as evidence that one player was better than the other. As much as Thurman contributed to the success of the Bills in the 1990's, he was helped by playing on team with an excellent offensive line, and a top notch passing game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papazoid Posted April 3, 2015 Share Posted April 3, 2015 #1- thomas - best all around by far #2- oj - best runner #3- freddy - did it behind some bad O-lines #4- cookie - short career #5- marshawn - hate to admit it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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