bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part ten)))


day ten: defensive line

chris: I will take "Mean" Joe Greene as my next Defensive Lineman. Revered as the greatest defensive tackle to ever play the game he will go perfectly on my team. Accolades are as follows:

NFL.com - 13th greatest player in NFL History

10 Pro Bowls

8 - first or second team All Pro

75 Anniversary Team

all 70's team

Defensive Player of the year in 72 and 74

Defensive MVP in 1972

HOF - 1987

He was the anchor of the greatest defensive line of all time. Need I say more!

good pick.

in my 3-4 scheme, I've been torn, because, truly, how many all-timers jump to mind when you are talking about nose tackles? not many, right?

if joe greene was available here, i was going to take him and ask him to be my over the center guy, but you selecting him made my mind up for me. if i am going to play a true 3-4, i am going to need a true nose tackle. a space-eater. a mountain among men. a guy that will require triple attention from your center and two guards because he's just that big.

i am taking ted washington.
 

the sporting news once called ted washington "the prototypical nose tackle of his era". in his prime (which, admittedly, was a small window. whatareyougonnado, though??? He was 6'5" and over 350 pounds. his body wasn't built to be elite for long), he was dominant. in a five year stretch between 1997 and 2001, washington made 4 pro bowls and as many all-pro teams. i remember seeing videos and highlights of him completely obliterating the insides of nfl offensive lines. when healthy, running up the middle wasn't an option and between the tackles was a risk. ted washington will free space for reggie white, derrick thomas and lawrence taylor to do their thing. you can only double-team so many guys.

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part nine)))


day nine: running back

this one should be fun. will it be another lesson in "old school" versus "new school" or something else entirely? the history of the nfl has given this position, maybe, more "greats" than any other. four will be picked in this draft. many others will have had deserving cases and careers.

chris is up first.

chris: I have thought about this one a lot. I am going to go with my heart and my wife's heart and take the Bear. I will select Walter Payton as my #1 Running Back. Like Jerry Rice for you, where do I even start with the stats and the awards.



NFL.com - #5 player of all time
9 pro bowls
6 first team all pros
3 second team all pros
1977 NFL MVP
1985 NFC Player of the Year
75th NFL Anniversary Team
1977 Pro Bowl MVP
HOF - 1993


Rushing:


16,726 yds
110 TDs


Receiving:


4,538 yds
15 TDs


All time leading rusher until Emmit Smith broke record in 2002
All time leader in yards from scrimmage until Jerry Rice broke record in 1998


For many years, Walter Payton was all the Bears had with regards to talent. And even with all of the talent around him in 1985, he still excelled. He was the leader of that team and the leader of that offense. I am proud to have him on my team!

this is the first position where i was legitimately worried you were going to take my number one off the board before i picked. thankfully, that didn't happen.

"while other people are stuck with joints, he seems to have ball bearings in his legs that give him a mechanical advantage." -si's paul zimmerman

what an excellent quote, right? i can't think of more eloquent way of describing the freakish nature with which my number one running back, barry sanders, played his position relative to his contemporaries.

there are many special running backs that have played in the national football league. walter payton makes that list, no doubt.

remember when i brought up the the "evolutionary" vs. "revolutionary" point with my lt pick? barry would slot in as the third (with lt and vick) revolutionary guy on my team. things he did on the field during his hall of fame and too short career were breathtaking.

in my opinion, barry's the greatest. he made the pro-bowl and first or second (6 first teams) all-pro's in all of his ten seasons. he rushed for over 2,000 (hitting the mark in his 14th game) in 1997 and shared the mvp of the league with brett favre.

obviously, i'm a big style guy, and i have never watched a football team with as much anticipation as i did a lions game during sanders' career. every touch carried with it the potential of seeing something obscene, something historic, something you may never see again. always lauded by john madden types for his spectacularly low center of gravity, more impressive was his athleticism. standing only 5'8", it's been reported that sanders could dunk flat-footed.

the nfl is a league of athletic outliers. barry sanders, though, was something altogether different, in the same pantheon of creation as his draft class peer, deion sanders, and a signal-caller that would follow in his highlighted footsteps, my quarterback, michael vick.

chris?

chris: i think i have the greatest running back ever. i think you have the 3rd greatest running back ever. i am certain mark will call it a draw.

(ed: we shall see)

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part eight)))


day eight: linebacker #2


as we reach the second week of the "only draft that matters to us", our teams will start to feel very bill-ish and very tom-ish, respectively. no better place to start with that than quarterback, and my and chris' philosophical differences will become more and more transparent as we move forward, i am sure.

today, we both take our second linebacker.

in my 3-4, scheme, i want explosion off both ends, because the goal will be to get after system montana on EVERY play, not just passing downs. i don't know that i can think of a better word than "explosive" when my memory serves up pictures to me of the guy that will serve as a bookend to lawrence taylor, the late, great derrick thomas.

widely considered one of the best pass rushers of all-time, thomas' first step is one of legend. if taylor signaled to teams that an athletic left-tackle would be fundamental to the future of the national football league, thomas tested the new world order. there was no secret that dt was coming off the edge and he was coming fast. on the most prolific single day of his career, thomas sacked seattle quarterback dave krieg seven times!

over the course of his hall of fame career, dt, was selected to 9 first or second all-pro teams, as many pro bowls and was named to the 90's all decade team.

chris: With my second linebacker, I am taking the great Jack Ham from the Pittsburgh Steelers. He fits perfectly into my 4-3 scheme and will be my weak side outside linebacker. Often revered as one of the best outside linebackers to play the game, he was a ferocious hitter with great speed, quickness and smarts. Chuck Noll said he was the fastest guy he had ever seen for the first 10 yards. And that was on a team with Lynn Swann and John Stallworth. Many of the players on that Steelers dynasty defense have said that Jack Ham was the leader of that unit, including Jack Lambert and Joe Greene. Joe Paterno who gave the induction speech for Ham at Canton in 1988 said, he was the best player he ever coached! The best linebacker to ever come out of linebacker U is pretty good, but the best player that Joe Pa has ever coached.....that's a guy I want on my team.

8 pro bowls

8 all pro's

all 70's team

75 Anniversary team

HOF - 1988

it's almost too easy to come back at this pick with a "really??? TWO white linebackers???", but i'll admit that your case is a good one.

i've watched too many nfl films documentaries about ham's steelers teams to not know he was a good and tough player. I don't know that speed, per se, ever jumped off the screen when I saw him play, but he was always in the mix at the end of the plays I have in my head right now. all that i really hope for you is that paterno was more aware of his surroundings and his players when ham played for him than he is now. At this point, I would be terribly surprised if jeopa could name ten players on his current squad.

i like where we are getting in the draft, getting to second guys at respective positions. this one's a good example of where we aren't really drafting dt vs. ham, because we are drafting for two different schemes.

i'm glad i got dt. my guess is that you're happy with your pick.

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part seven)))

day seven: quarterback

the head of the snake.

it what seems like appropriate timing, we end our first week of picks by drafting our starting quarterbacks. knowing chris for as long as i have and knowing his undying love of the san francisco 49ers, if he picked first, chris was always going to take one guy. in contrast to other positions where the luck of a coin flip determined who got the consensus best player at a respective position, i would never have taken chris' quarterback. not that i would dodge him out of respect to team tom, but i am putting together a team for one game, a game where we will assume all of our draft picks will be playing at their highest level of potential. to that end, chris' "old school" and my "new school" philosophies were always destined to diverge most glaringly with this singular pick.

chris is up first.

Without further ado.........I will go ahead and take Joe Montana as my quarterback. He is without a doubt in MY mind the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. He did not have the numbers that Marino, Favre or Peyton when he is done will have, but he was the consummate general. It is often thought that if he didn't have the players around him that he did, we wouldn't be considered the same player. I disagree and so do those players. Jerry Rice has said that without Joe Montana the 49ers of the 80's were a good team. Not a great team. He elevated everyone around him and will always be considered a winner, because that is what he did best....found a way to win. And he did it on the greatest stage of all. Stats are as follows:

1989 and 1990 NFL MVP
1990 Sportsman of the Year
8 Pro Bowls
4 Super Bowl wins
3 Super Bowl MVPs
3 1st team All Pros
1980's team of the decade
75 Anniversary Team
Named by ESPN as the 25th greatest athlete of the 20th century

i'll take this guy (see video below)...

(ed: cue chris' head exploding)

there were three guys on my list that i was considering taking as my quarterback. peyton manning was one. his statistical numbers will end up as the best of all-time. while peyton's career has not been one that suffers from a dearth of talent on offense, his defenses have been consistently poor to downright bad, putting even more pressure on himself and his skill guys to perform at their highest levels. john elway, i've heard described as the best athlete ever to play quarterback, which is the most ridiculous statement ever, but i understand the sentiment. in an era where plodding pocket passers (montana, simms, theismann) were the norm that teams would build around and hope to find in a draft, elway was cut from a different mold. he was an all-everything athlete at stanford, his arm was a thing of legend, and, by the end of his career, his accomplishments stacked up nicely to his early potential.

the greatest athlete to ever play quarterback, though, is mike vick. bar none. end of discussion. vick took the skill-set displayed by guys like doug williams and randall cunningham and raised (and continues to raise) them to the 3rd or 4th power. from the time he stepped foot in atlanta, he was reality's equivalent to "tecmo bo". faster than everyone on the field. strongest arm in the league. literally unstoppable when he found his groove.

his numbers, admittedly, pale when placed next to a guy like montana or manning or elway. i get that. he's made four pro bowls. he's finished in the top 3 of the nfl mvp vote twice. he will eventually eclipse the aforementioned cunningham as the most prolific rushing quarterback in the history of the league. he's had a 1,000 yard rushing season from the quarterback position for god's sake! all of that, and he's becoming more efficient. the eagles' version of the west coast offense last season was as explosive as it has ever been under andy reid and only figures to become more dangerous.

as a pure playmaker, mike vick has no equal. in a one game and off scenario, there isn't a more difficult player to gameplan against. he's my guy.

This is a f-ing (ed: chris means "fucking") joke! Thanks for making the greatest draft ever a f-ing (ed: chris means "fucking" again) joke!

Vick is a great athlete......this is not being argued. But if you believe that Michael Vick could lead a team to victory (even in a one game scenario at his prime) against a team led by Joe Montana.......you are crazy (ed: call me crazy). Vick will be known one day as the greatest running quarterback. Congrats. The position takes more than just running; it takes sound decision making and leadership. Oh did I mention that I agree Michael Vick has a rocket arm. To that point....he hasn't done DICK with it! When Michael Vick has four super bowl rings, a couple of MVP's and is considered THE BEST at his position of all time.....call me. In fact, take away the requirement of Super Bowls and MVPS and show me a list the day he retires that puts him in the Top 5 NFL quarterbacks of all time.....I will be waiting (ed: can i end the suspense and tell you he'll end up on mine???). The fact that you want to even argue this bothers me. The credibility of your team just got chewed up like a puppy in a dog fight.....of course you are the one that drafted Michael Vick as "YOUR GUY"! Good luck.

Since you are the king of throwing stats in peoples faces, I thought it would be fun to compare these two statistically. First I wanted to see where Michael Vick ranked on the NFL's Top 100 Players of all time.........and I was shocked he didn't make the list. I am sure you are just as bewildered. BTW....Joe was number 2. So then I thought, well that isn't really fair because Michael Vick is still playing and he did miss a few seasons (see note later). At this point, I decided to see where he ranked in the Top 100 Players of Today's NFL. Vick came in at number 20. He was the 5th Quarterback on the list behind Brady, Manning, Brees and Rodgers. I wonder if such a list had been completed in 1987.....(Joe Montana's 9th season) where he would fall. Of course, at that point he already had two Super Bowl MVP's so I'm pretty sure he would be pretty high. I guess we will never know.

I kept coming back to the fact that maybe I am just being unfair to Vick. So I went and did a little study on how his 2010 season (a great season for a quarterback) ranked in EAGLES quarterback history. He lead the other folks (McNabb, Cunningham, Jaws, Van Brocklin) in two categories: Rushing TD's with 9 and Fewest Picks with 6. Of course, Cunningham who was closest on the rushing TD's stat with 5 did have 9 more TD's passing and 400 more yards passing. And as you probably presumed, I found that while McNabb had two more picks in 2004 he did throw from 800 more yards and 10 more TD's. BTW...McNabb did get to the Super Bowl that year as well. I just thought that was an interesting side note.

You know I mentioned earlier that Vick has only played 8 years......yeah, I knew you were going to remember. I realize that I need to compare their stats based on their first 8 seasons. 8 of course because Michael missed 2 seasons due to the fact that he was doing hard time for being a complete waste to society....another topic for another day. Here is how he and Joe Montana stack up next to each other after their 1st 8 seasons in the league. It is important to remember that Joe went 13/23 for 1TD in his rookie year (1979) and that 1986 (his 8th season) was a season shortened by the strike and only had 8 games. Oh...you know what....that fact really isn't that important.

Vick

Passing - 55.3%, 14,609 yards, 93 TDs, 58 INTs and a rating of 80.2
Rushing - 4,630 yards, 32 TDs and 23 Fumbles
Awards:
4 Pro Bowls
2003 ESPY Best NFL Player
2009 Eagles Courage Award
2010 NFL Comeback Player of the Year

Montana

Passing - 62.4%, 21,498 yards, 141 TDs, 76 INTs and a rating of 89.3
Rushing - 905 yards, 10 TDs and 0 Fumbles
Awards:
2 Super Bowls
2 Super Bowl MVPS
4 Pro Bowls
3 - 2nd Team All Pro
1986 NFL Comeback Player of the Year

I repeat how I started my rebuttal.....this is a f-ing j (ed: you know what he means) joke.

so, it took a full week for you to wake up, huh? well, at least you're awake now.

first of all, i am not sure if you are truly offended, or if you dropping fuck-bombs all over the place is some sort of premeditated strategy. for the first six days of our draft, you've been downright pleasant about having your ass handed to you, even to the point of conceding on several days. but here, on the day we select our quarterback, you lose your shit at the mere thought of me taking someone outside of the conventional box of every all-time quarterback list and acting like it isn't worth having a conversation about. even after i've provided you with video evidence of what has been called quite possibly the best all-around quarterback performance of all-time. methinks thou doth protest too much. let me explain.

first, let's compare two very short and very simple lists.

49er's joe montana had the pleasure of playing with

dwight clark
randy cross
wendell tyler
roger craig
freddie solomon
fred quillen
keith fahnhorst
jerry rice
john taylor
tom rathman

falcons michael vick had the pleasure of playing with

warrick dunn
t.j. duckett
peerless price
bob whitfield
dez white
alge crumpler
michael jenkins
roddy white
brian finneran (ed: white guy skill player)
ashley lelie

from these two lists of ten, what do you see?

me? on one list, i see tens on top of ten pro-bowlers and all-pros. the other? a trash heap of has-beens and never will be's (one exception in roddy white, who played with vick only two seasons).

now, when i first read your fuck-bomb infused takedown of vick, i thought i'd respond with a similar takedown of system montana. but, really, what's the point? i won't argue your pick.

what i will argue (ed: i present the above lists as exibit a, your honor), though, is that your joe was put into a system and situation and surrounded with a cast of characters that gave him a higher than average chance of succeeding. vick, on the other hand, was taken by a falcons franchise that had tasted true success only once and their organization had no idea how to take the "dirty birds" and build them into the future, a future that was desolate and beneath decline when vick came to atlanta.

joe montana was allowed to develop underneath one of the more brilliant offensive football minds ever in bill walsh. mike vick? his "coach" was jim fucking mora, jr. excellent.

now, let's take a quick look at your numbers from the two quarterbacks. actually, let's just take a look at two. total yards. total touchdowns.

in montana's first 8 seasons (120-ish games, taking away the strike shortened games and not accounting for the games he missed due to ijnury), he led his team to 186 yards per game and 1.25 touchdowns per game.

in vicks first 8 seasons (128-ish games, also not taking away games he missed due to injury), he lead his falcons and eagles to 150 yards per game and .98 touchdowns per game.

hmm...the "greatest quarterback in the history of the game" was good for all of three first downs more and about a quarter-touchdown a game more than the guy that i chose and you claimed made this draft out to be a "fucking joke".

i am sure montana's pro-bowl teammates had nothing to do with those minor statistical differences either. i am sure they can all be accounted for because joe was such the fucking "general' on the field, right?

give me a fucking break, tom. if you don't like vick, fine. i am glad you slighted him so i could pick him to match up against your defense that was really good "for their time". you're telling me that white dick butkus would ever, and i mean FUCKING EVER stand a shot at tackling vick in the open field? really? how many times? 1 out of 50, when mike tripped over a divot??? please.

what this really is, your "this is a fucking joke" takedown of vick, is nothing more than the old baseball writer that votes the best player on the the best team mvp because it's easy and no one can really argue against it.

again, i am not arguing against montana. he's fine. we aren't building franchises, though. we are building collections of talent that we think could outplay the other's collection of talent. it looks like, according to your own numbers, i've spotted you about a 1.5 points.

you've still got some ground to make up.

chris:Let me respond with....you are right on one front....I have been pleasant and have conceded some picks. This pick makes the draft a fucking joke. That's right...a fucking joke. Vick had a great season last year. Slice it all you want, BILL, he is not worthy of this list. When he finds himself in the top 5 QBs of all time when he retires.....we can have this argument again. He won't....if he stays out of prison long enough to retire! Until then, my 2nd QB will out shine him. I have nothing else to say on this subject except fuck you and your BS strategy and fuck Michael Vick! Tom-out!

now i am starting to feel like i'm on foxnews and some pundit keeps saying the same line over and over again in the hopes that people start to believe it.

the ground rules of our little exercise did not include the mandate of having to choose players from every old nfl writer's best nfl players of all-time lists.

we've established that the great system Montana was worth about 1.5 points more to his team than michael vick over the course of their first eight seasons. we've also established that the cast of players and organizations around system and around vick were not even in the same ballpark. as bill walsh asked system to do what he was capable of doing (throwing 8 yard slants and almost over-throwing his tight-end in the end zone), we've established that michael vick's own coach often had no idea how to use vick.

is it coincidence, then, that the first year vick started and played with a capable coach and with capable players in a capable organization that he ran less, threw more and finished second in the mvp voting? this guy thinks not.

vick is the most dangerous weapon this league has ever seen.

you've already granted he's the best running quarterback in the history of the league. by the time i finish my backfield, we may never have to throw the ball anyway. 

chris: (ed: rests his case)

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part six)))


day six: safety

adrian wilson. ed reed. troy polamalu. today's great nfl safeties don't owe anything, necessarily, to ronnie lott. if aping a previous player's style and/or swag was a commodity worth paying royalties on, though, some financial recompense may, in fact, be in order.

ronnie lott came into the league as a corner, but his massive skill-set was worth more when given the keys to terrorhawk from the 49ers centerfield and strike fear into wide-receivers league wide. lott was an incredibly cerebral player and much like polamalu, these days, always seems to be around the end result of any play, lott set the precedent for that type of behavior coming from the safety position.

in addition to his awareness rating being a figurative "99", lott's other calling card was his toughness, with no greater example being that of asking a san francisco trainer to shave the top half of a pinky off so that he could re-enter a football game after smashing the digit into oblivion between two helmets.

his vital stats ring every bit as impressive.

10 pro bowls
8 first team all-pros
4 super bowls
80's and 90's all decade teams

lott may have not only been the spiritual grandfather to the golden age of safeties we are currently living in, but he may be the the greatest defensive back to ever live (ed: eat that, primetime). period.

chris: Since you got the best FS ever, I will take the best SS ever. Ken Houston who played for Washington and Houston, spending most of his time with the Redskins.


12 Pro Bowls
2 All Pro Selections
1986 HOF
1970's all decade team
75th Anniversary Team


Before Lott, Ken Houston was the safety. At 6'3 200 pounds, he would be an avg if not small safety now. However in his day this was considered big and he like Lott was regarded for his big hits.
 
i'm just gonna have to take your word for it.


as I was looking around, ken houston's name popped up on every list of all-time safeties that i found, but he was one of the few guys at any position that i have ZERO recollection of ever seeing a highlight from or reading about. of course, after having that thought, I said to myself, "chris is going to pick ken houston."

i'm not against picking guys from previous generations. i'm not so naive to believe that there weren't really good football players relative to their competition in the 60's and 70's. that being said, you aren't going to see many, if any, of those guys on team bill. so, congrats on the ken houston pick. maybe you can introduce me to him before the big game.

chris: meet ken houston (ed: see below)

i'll commend the pick if for no other reason than the fantastic sideburns.

anything else or are we moving forward to you drafting joe montana?

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part five)))


day five: left tackle

chris: It comes as no surprise that I am taking Anthony Munoz as my left tackle. Considered the greatest offensive lineman to ever play them game, I like my chances of him holding off Reggie White. Pretty sure Anthony wasn't afraid of the dreaded "head slap".



11 time Pro Bowl selection
Offensive Lineman of the Year 1981, 1987 and 1988
Ranked 12 on the NFL's top 100 greatest players of all time (#1 lineman)
Hall of Fame 1998
1980's all decade team
NFL's 75 Anniversary team
7 rec for 4 touchdowns on the "Eligible Tack Play"..........You know how Tom likes the trick plays!

when in doubt, go contemporary. taking nothing away from anthony munoz, i would argue that players at every position this generation are bigger, stronger and faster than those of previous generations. munoz dominated his position in such a way in his twelve years in the league that it's hard to argue that he wasn't the greatest of all time. after all, no other left tackle in the 80's was worthy of challenging his throne.
 
but, what if two left tackles came along and played at the same time, challenging each other for first team all-pro every year of their career? what would munoz's stats and resume have looked like if he played in the league at the same time as walter jones and my left tackle selection, jonathan ogden?
 
things, likely, would have been different. both jones and ogden were dominant. every bit as dominant as anthony munoz. both mountains of men, ogden was something different altogether. standing 6-9, ogden weighed in at 345. he equaled munoz's 11 pro bowl selections and made first or second team all-pro 9 times. he made the 2000's all decade team and was the cornerstone of the line that allowed jamal lewis (ed: read that again...jamal freaking lewis) to rush for over 2,000 yards in 2003. 
 
ozzie newsome, himself a hall of famer, is quoted as saying, "there's not a player i've seen in my 30 years in the league play his position better than ogden played his."
 
another note, newsome's browns played in the same division as anthony munoz's bengals.

chris?

chris: ...

(ed: we move on.)

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part four)))


day four: defensive line

i don't want to say that i'm giddy over my first three selections, but let me say this. after three rounds, team bill has taken arguably the best offensive player ever and arguably the best defensive player ever off the board in rice and lt. team tom, on the other hand, has taken a guy that can't tackle and a white guy. granted, these are rather superficial observations, but i'm afraid i currently have the upper hand, no?

today, we stay on the defensive side of the ball and get deep into the trenches with our first defensive lineman selection.

given how much publicity my church gets on the blog, it makes total sense that i should have a "minister of defense" on my squad.

i'll take reggie white.

"country strong". i am not sure i had ever heard that term before i heard it directed toward white. what a great term. ndamukong suh, in the present nfl, is the only guy that currently comes close to doing to offensive lineman what i remember seeing white do to offensive linemen. white had this "club" move that he'd use on guys where he'd position himself in a way to get his right arm under a guard or tackle's left shoulder and he'd just throw him, literally toss aside another 300 lb. human being, away from the proceedings on his way into the backfield. it was unreal.

on his way to the hall of fame, white made 13 pro bowl teams and 10 first-team all pro teams. he won 2 defensive player of the year awards from the d-line. and he was named to the all-80's and all-90's all-decade teams. he was also rated the #7 player of all time by nfl.com.

whaddya think, tom?

chris: I am going to leave the "white guy" comment alone. My team will speak for itself when this is all said and done. As my first Defensive Lineman, I will select Bruce Smith. See stats below:



112 Tackles for Loss
200 Sacks - 2 more than Reggie
46 Forced Fumbles
15 Fumble Recoveries
2XNFL Def Player of the Year
4XAFC Def Player of the Year
11 Pro Bowls
12x All Pro
1987 Pro Bowl MVP
1980's All Decade Team
1990's All Decade Team

sorry. i meant to say "white guy that doesn't play quarterback or offensive line".

solid pick. in the 4-3, i don't know if i can discredit this selection without my tongue firmly planted in my cheek.

two things, though, that i will say since these two guys are standing next to each other on our draft podium. to your stat of his 200 sacks being 2 more than reggie, let's also acknowledge that those 2 sacks came in forty-seven more games played. it's probably unfair to compare them in that way, since white was more of a tackle and bruce smith a more traditional rush end, but it was bruce smith's primary job to rush the passer, and, per game, reggie still did it better than he did.

also, you could run at bruce smith. in fact, teams purposefully ran at bruce smith because his tendency was to fire upfield leaving massive running lanes on his side of the line. on the other hand, teams ran away from reggie white. his ability to swat linemen away at will was too disruptive to consistently run in his direction.

bruce smith was a great defensive end, a hall of famer for sure. reggie white was a freak.

another note. i sold reggie white short in my first blurb. he actually won three defensive players of the year, one more than bruce.

chris: Jesus Christ.......I never said Reggie wasn't good. You got the first pick, I took the second best pass rusher out there.

(ed: that sounds like another concession. i'll take it.)

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part three)))

day three: linebacker

after getting two cornerstones of our teams out of the way on the first two days, we'll get into the nuts and bolts of what will make these two teams tick moving forward on defense. along with the first (of 3 or 4, depending on the scheme each side chooses) linebacker selection for each squad, we'll give you a brief look into what type of defense these two all-time teams will line up against.

chris, you're up.

4-3 scheme is what I have chosen for my team. And my first pick is Dick Butkus. 6 time (first team) all-pro, 8 time (second team) all-pro, 8 time pro-bowler, 2 time Defensive Player of the Year (69 and 70), 75th Anniversary Team, 60's Team of the Decade, 70's Team of the Decade. There were a few great MLBs before Dick, he took the position to a level that folks like Mike Singletary and Ray Lewis later played it. Everyone that has ever played the position after him has said, he was the bench mark!

it comes as no surprise that chris and i are going with different defensive schemes. our styles often conflicted with each other when we were picking our teams for our many bill and tom tournaments. chris liked to think of his teams as "tough" or "rugged" or "manly" because that is what nfl films told us real football players should look like and play like. jack lambert with no teeth. jack youngblood playing with a broken leg. ronnie lott ripping off a finger to go back in and finish the game. me? i couldn't give a shit about any of that. i mean sure, that nfl films footage was awesome. don't get me wrong, but i wanted fast teams. pretty teams. finesse teams. strategy teams. "greatest show on turf" teams. my style will come across loud and clear as this draft forges onward.

chris, i'll be playing a 3-4 against you, and in our imaginary game, my ass will be efforting to penetrate your backfield (ed: that's what she said) every stinkin' play. the quarterback on team tom is not going to have to bother reading cover 2 or cover 3 or any of that bullshit. we'll be manning you up, and my linebackers are coming to get you.

i was listening to a podcast yesterday and shannon sharpe was being asked about guys in the hall of fame. he talked about some guys being "evolutionary" and some guys being "revolutionary". i loved that delineation.

without a doubt, my first linebacker would fall into the "revolutionary" category. i'm taking lawrence taylor.

10 pro bowls in his first 10 years in the league
10 all-pro teams in his first ten years in the league
3 defensive players of the year
2 super bowls

"lawrence taylor, defensively, has had as big an impact as any player i've ever seen. he changed the way defense is played, the way pass-rushing is played, the way linebackers play and the way offenses block linebackers." - john madden

yep.

chris, got anything to add to our first lineback pick???

chris: yeah...i better get a damn good left tackle! that is all! (ed: fair enough)

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part two)))


day two: wide receiver

the pick: jerry rice

my turn to go first. this may be the least contentious of any post we have in this series, because it's the one pick i can, without a doubt, predict that chris would have made himself. the stats that chris poo-pooed on day one are essential to this conversation, though, because athletically, "the greatest wide receiver that ever lived" doesn't wow you with any one thing he did. his numbers, though, and his measurable successes are unparalleled and they are as follows:

1549 receptions - first all time (447 ahead of second place)
22895 receiving yards - first all time (almost 8,000 yards ahead of second place)
197 receiving touchdowns - first all time (45 ahead of second place)
13 pro bowls
12 all pros

also, i found this to be fairly significant to the overall goal of this series of posts (for my team to beat chris' team)...from 1989 to 1996 jerry rice faced off with deion sanders' teams 10 times. rice had 60 catches for 1,051 yards and eleven touchdowns in those games. not too shabby. we have already established that if rice caught the ball with deion on the cover, there would be little to no chance that sanders could tackle him after the catch, which i am sure accounts for some of these inflated numbers against perhaps "the greatest athlete to ever put on a professional uniform."

who you taking, tom?

chris: there is no comparison. jerry rice is the greatest. it took me a long time to decide who i would take as my first wideout as i knew jerry would be off the table. i figured that i would try my best at having an overall receiving corps that could beat yours.


my first wideout taken would be cris carter.


receiving touchdowns: 131 (8th all time)
receptions: 1,101 (3rd all time)
only player to record 120+ receptions in a season twice, 1994 and 1995
most touchdown receptions on thursday games (9)
most 12+ reception games in a single season (4) in 1995
one of 3 players (clarke gaines and jerry rice) to record 12+ receptions in back to back games
most consecutive games with at least 3 receptions (58)
most 1 yard touchdown receptions in nfl history (9)
most touchdown receptions 2 yards or less in nfl history (16) - tied with jerry rice
most touchdown receptions 4 yards or less in nfl history (28)
most touchdown receptions 5 yards or less in nfl history (36) - tied with jerry rice
most touchdown receptions 6 yards or less in nfl history (44)
most touchdown receptions 7 yards or less in nfl history (48)
most consecutive games with 2 touchdown receptions (4)
most consecutive seasons with 5+ touchdowns (11) - terrell owens, jerry rice, marvin harrison, don hutson, cris carter, tim brown
most consecutive seasons with 5+ touchdown receptions (11) - terrell owens, jerry rice, marvin harrison, don hutson, cris carter, tim brown
first player to record a 150 yard receiving game in 3 different decades (jerry rice is the only other player to do so)

jesus h. after giving me shit about using numbers in the woodson/prime debate, you just went and had a stats-gasm all over my blog. shame on you. if luke had been this easy to pull over to the dark side, the rebels never would have had a chance.

that being said, his 2 all-pros to jerry's 12 is the only stat that matters on this day. carter was really good. from everything you read, he may have had the best hands of his generation, maybe any generation. if you have a chance at having a better wideout tandem than team bill, though, your second option is going to have to be pretty damn strong.

chris: whatev! it is impossible to compete with jerry rice. i'm not gonna get caught up in the numbers for that reason. i went with my gut. cc was a great receiver for teams that had (for the most part) nothing around him. he will go down as one of the best ever. i stand by the decision. are you ready for my mlb?

well, i suppose i can't ask for much more than a concession, so we'll move on. i do hope your "for the most part" caveat had in mind a teammate that i have ranked higher than carter on my board. you may be hearing from him later.

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(an origin story)

from chris hicks:

The Bill and Tom reference stems from a decision we made in spring 1996 to take on commentator personas when we were playing sega\playstation. At first it was funny, but then we just embraced it. However it wasn't fully embraced until the June 1996 NBA Action Finals between the Knicks and the Rockets where "Mad Max" Vernon Maxwell and the Rockets beat out the Knicks in a 7th game thriller! As we did it more we got nerdier about it. We went from just commentating on the games to pre-game interviews with the coaches (Chris Hicks and Kevin O'Kelley) as well as post game interviews! Not really sure where we got the names Bill and Tom from, but they seemed to stick.

(ed: - nerdy is just the most perfect word for what bill and tom became for us, for me. i mean, jesus, look at the date chris mentions...1996. we were 19 year's old for christ sake! this wasn't something brainstormed and played out by 2 12 year-olds that weren't into dungeons and dragons. it was two, bordering on grown men playing out fantasies of calling nfl (and nba) and college games in our respective rooms/apartments/houses. at some point during this series, i'll try and articulate what bill and tom (and by "bill and tom" i mean chris) meant to me as a foundational element of my maturity. looking back, bill and tom were nothing less than a bridge from my childhood to the adult that i would end up becoming. bill and tom and the countless hours of our lives we wasted playing video game football??? man, i wouldn't trade that shit for the world. and every year i get older, the more i miss having that kind of time and those opportunities to be a kid at heart with chris. until i get around to that post, proper, i'll keep kicking his ass in this draft.)

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part one)))


at some point in the next 25 or so posts in this series, i am going to ask chris hicks to give you a detailed origin story behind the characters known almost exclusively to us as "bill" and "tom". i could give you a very surface level re-telling, but one thing that my oldest friend has always had on me was a knack for remembering things the outside world would consider useless. one of the many ways we bonded, however, was that much of that "useless" knowledge had to do with the sports and the sports history that we loved. more specifically, we both loved football history and incorporated that history into almost every "water cooler" conversation we ever had in his duster, at my house, at his house, or wherever we happened to have a gaming station set up to play video-game football.

what is relevant to this particular series of post, though, is this. my oldest friend, whom you all know as chris hicks, and i both think we know more about football than the other. this series of posts will serve mostly to entertain each other, since, deep down, we are still very capable of being the kids that would talk endless trash whilst creating brackets on top of brackets of video-game football tournaments.

what this series of posts will finally settle is, left to our own devices and based on rules that we've both agreed to, which human, kevin o'kelley or chris hicks, could create the best football team made up of the best players (in OUR estimation) to have ever played the game.

the rules are these:

- the entire universe of current and former players are available to be drafted.
- we will draft one position per post and provide intelligent (sometimes) rationale for our pick
- we will be able to deconstruct each other's picks and call each other funny names to poke fun of each other's picks without ever acknowledging that our competitor may have gotten the best of us on a given day
- at the end of the series, we will ask you, the three or so people that frequent this blog when i am not talking about humc, to judge the worth of our respective teams and crown a champion, once and for all.

we will strongly encourage feedback from whomever would like to join in the fun. tell us how ignorant we both are. tell us who you saw with your own eyes back in the 60's that could eat ray lewis for lunch. the more commentary, the more fun we'll have with it. we'll even call you pet names, too. what could be better, right???

so, there's the gist. we'll give you more as the series rolls along, but i will close this introduction with the fact that both of us are so excited at the prospect of this draft, that each day's draft choices may end up being 5,000 word head-to-heads and we might run everyone off by the end of day three. we'll see. it's not likely that we'll care. this is, after all, the only draft that matters to us.

-----------------------------------------

to the picks!

day one: corner

chris won the coin flip to get us started. his choice and his (ed: fairly weak) reasoning:

deion sanders:  very simply...the greatest shutdown corner ever. perhaps ...the greatest athlete ever to put on a professional uniform. as a side note: he would also return punts for this team.

my choice:

rod woodson: i will tip my hat to chris' first pick and admit that deion would have been my second corner taken had he been on the board. operative word, my second pick. he was a brilliant, mind-numbing, freak of an athlete, and his reputation scared coordinators from throwing in his direction. he was exciting on special teams, also true. his failing, and my victory on day one of this draft comes from prime's inability to perform one of the most fundamental elements of defensive footballing, that is to say he couldn't tackle. scratch that, he was afraid to tackle. i have no room for fear on my team, so i thank chris for saving me from myself and taking prime first.

to woodson. in a word, he was a prototype. big size, big speed, covered the other team's number one. later in his career, he reinvented himself as a missile of a safety in the mold of ronnie lott, blitzing every time dick labeau would allow him. let's look at his numbers compared to mr. sanders. career interceptions: woodson - 71 prime - 53. interception return yards: woodson - 1,483 prime - 1,331 fumble recoveries: woodson - 32 prime 15 tackles: woodson - 1050 prime - i'm not sure he ever recorded one.

woodson also tallied 11 pro bowls, a 1993 defensive player of the year and a super bowl ring.

prime was elite, no doubt. every player picked will be. he wasn't as good as woodson, though. that's just a fact.

mr. hicks?

chris: my rebuttal to your comments? the masses will agree that deion sanders is the best. the fancy internet search for stats impresses one person...you. primetime was the best. it was a simple decision. round 1 - Tom Next???

yes, yes, tom. what a ridiculous idea for me to cloud our debate with actual, measurable data. if you are not a fan of stats, this is going to be a loooong draft for you. there will be plenty of room for highlights, romance and revisionist history when it comes to drafting our teams. i get that. i will, no doubt, throw around any number of "he was the best i've ever seen"s as well, but, when it comes to separating the best from the best, stats are bill's best friend. i won't spend too much time on the tackling thing, but, seriously, how can you be the best at any position on a football field when your idea of full-contact is two hand touch? woodson, for the win!

last word?

chris: regarding deion and his tackling...ask any of the receivers that he played against (ed: i'm not sure how i can do that), and they will tell you he was a physical corner. ask those same receivers who was the best corner they ever faced (ed: i'm still not sure how i can do that), they will say deion. by the way...those same receivers faced woodson. if hall of fame receivers who went against him say he was the best, i can't disagree. however, if you have ever lined up and beaten him on a skinny post, maybe you can (ed: i have not.). i would venture to say you are in the same boat as me. was he a great tackler? no. did he need to be? no. he took away one side of the field (ed: so did woodson) in the passing game. he did his job better than any corner in the history of this game. that is my final word.