Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

TanksAndSpartans wrote:Speaking of honoring players from every era - is it possible Dutch Clark is the only player from the 20s and 30s? That would be 1/100th of the focus on the first 20 years.

I think Hein and Hubbard will be on it. Maybe Fortmann, too....Hutson for sure. (3os-40s)

another "separator" or "difference maker"
Playoffs---Dickerson had one Super Game (Dallas 85)
but he also was a fumbler (158 yards vs Was, 3 funbles)
and got shut down (no passing game whatsoever vs Bears)
and got sut down vs Skins in 83

Faulk, running game was shut down in 99 playoffs
but was still a factor in passing game..

but was solid playoffs. Never fumbled.

TanksAndSpartans wrote:Speaking of honoring players from every era - is it possible Dutch Clark is the only player from the 20s and 30s? That would be 1/100th of the focus on the first 20 years.

I'm really puzzled by the selection of Clark. He was known as a great all-around player, but his career was rather short and he was probably more noted for his defensive skills than as a runner. If I were to pick the best RB of the 1930s, I'd take either Nagurski or Clarke Hinkle.

rhickok1109 wrote:

TanksAndSpartans wrote:Speaking of honoring players from every era - is it possible Dutch Clark is the only player from the 20s and 30s? That would be 1/100th of the focus on the first 20 years.

I'm really puzzled by the selection of Clark. He was known as a great all-around player, but his career was rather short and he was probably more noted for his defensive skills than as a runner. If I were to pick the best RB of the 1930s, I'd take either Nagurski or Clarke Hinkle.

I'm surprised he was even nominated looking at the 50 yr team, 75 yr team, NFL Films shows, etc. where I don't recall him being mentioned. Wondering if PFRA's own Chris Willis may have been an influencer. I had Nagurski, Hinkle, Clark, Driscoll, and Thorpe among my backs. I've always felt Grange shows up on these lists/teams for his historical significance and I personally prefer Clark, so I have no issue with Clark in and Grange out. I just thought HB was a chance to get multiple 20s/30s players and they only picked one. John mentioned Hubbard which would be nice, but lots of competition at tackle. I would guess best chance now would be Hein, Hutson, and Baugh for a total of 4. Ironically, the two-way players get cheated on defense. I doubt Hinkle or Bulldog Turner, etc. even get a thought at LB.

Back to Clark, I think he was known as a runner. Nagurski has a quote about trying to tackle him winds up in your grabbing air - something like that. Mel Hein also has him as an all-time HB.

In my opinion, including neither Nagurski or Grange indicates to me that many of the selectors either don't know or don't care about early NFL history.
I'm happy for Dutch, though.

TanksAndSpartans wrote:I'm surprised he was even nominated looking at the 50 yr team, 75 yr team, NFL Films shows, etc. where I don't recall him being mentioned. Wondering if PFRA's own Chris Willis may have been an influencer. I had Nagurski, Hinkle, Clark, Driscoll, and Thorpe among my backs. I've always felt Grange shows up on these lists/teams for his historical significance and I personally prefer Clark, so I have no issue with Clark in and Grange out. I just thought HB was a chance to get multiple 20s/30s players and they only picked one. John mentioned Hubbard which would be nice, but lots of competition at tackle. I would guess best chance now would be Hein, Hutson, and Baugh for a total of 4. Ironically, the two-way players get cheated on defense. I doubt Hinkle or Bulldog Turner, etc. even get a thought at LB.

Back to Clark, I think he was known as a runner. Nagurski has a quote about trying to tackle him winds up in your grabbing air - something like that. Mel Hein also has him as an all-time HB.

5 is a bit much... ok, a LOT much. But I like the ambition there. I'm assuming you're gonna be a hard Friedman booster when the QBs come around as well. You seem to be suggesting that the PFR stats for 1932 and later backs are still incomplete or missing something, is that what you're saying? If not, I'd go with Clark and Cliff Battles as the best of the 30s. Short careers are just extremely hard to avoid in this era, and none of the guys we're talking about threw much, so that isn't a factor. I also wonder why you didn't mention Nevers.

JameisLoseston wrote:5 is a bit much... ok, a LOT much.

I really couldn't make an argument for 20s and 30s players at any of the 11 defensive positions. I'm not sure the information is there - you could maybe argue Hubbard at DT or Hein or Nagurski at LB, but its even too unusual for me, so I didn't do it and as a result my back total was on the high side - it is a 100 year celebration though so I don't mind being the only one with anything close to 20% of the players from the 20s and 30s.

JameisLoseston wrote:I'm assuming you're gonna be a hard Friedman booster when the QBs come around as well

I have Friedman on my list, but I'd be surprised if he's even a nominee. I thought Baugh would make it, but with Nagurski not making it, wouldn't be at all surprised to see Baugh left out too.

JameisLoseston wrote:You seem to be suggesting that the PFR stats for 1932 and later backs are still incomplete or missing something, is that what you're saying?

Not in the least. I don't get it?

JameisLoseston wrote:I'd go with Clark and Cliff Battles as the best of the 30s.

I can see Battles, but I went with Clark and the two FBs - Nagurski and Hinkle. All accounts point to both being strong on defense as well. On the actual list, Jim Brown was a FB, but probably wouldn't have been had he played a little later and they also had Motley arguably the only player who aligns with the typical notion of a FB. I get that its a position that's lost it's relevancy recently, but with 12 spots, I would have allocated some specifically for FBs - probably would have benefitted Taylor and Nagurski.

JameisLoseston wrote:I also wonder why you didn't mention Nevers.

I considered Nevers, but felt Paddy Driscoll was the better choice. And my 5th was Thorpe, technically 10s, but he was not only the biggest draw leading up to the formation of the league, but a dominant player as well - so he's not on my list just for historical purposes.

rhickok1109 wrote:

TanksAndSpartans wrote:Speaking of honoring players from every era - is it possible Dutch Clark is the only player from the 20s and 30s? That would be 1/100th of the focus on the first 20 years.

I'm really puzzled by the selection of Clark. He was known as a great all-around player, but his career was rather short and he was probably more noted for his defensive skills than as a runner. If I were to pick the best RB of the 1930s, I'd take either Nagurski or Clarke Hinkle.

I don't know -- Clark's rushing stats look pretty good from this vantage point.

Clark was a better all-around player -- possibly the best of the 1930s -- but just as a runner, I think I'd take Cliff Battles.

The reason I thought you were suggesting something was off about the stats is because you criticized my use of them in claiming Nagurski wasn't worth the pick (purely as a RB), and passed over Battles for Hinkle, whose published stats are much, much lower. Assuming that they are well recorded, however, the mid 20s-31 stats from jt-sw.com also seem to be mostly complete from what I'm finding, at least for passing. I recently did some compiling of 1927-34 league passing stats for the purpose of era-adjusted Friedman analysis, and many of the 27-31 years actually have higher counting stats leaguewide than 32-34, so they don't seem to be missing much if anything. I'm not sure if rushing stats are more difficult to find in full.

Oh, and spoiler, Friedman thus far is grading out to be the best QB in NFL history, if you compare him only against 27-34 passers. For example, I found one article that proposes a "dominance rating" that measures how far above the league average a QB was during their career in each of the 4 passer-rating factors. I ran Friedman through the formula and he rates an even 196, by far the highest in the history of football; Otto Graham is next with a little over 157, and 100 is league average. Using passer rating itself, Friedman's career is 73.2, and the 27-34 total is 33.2. He was literally twice as good as everyone else. These numbers definitely mean something, but I don't know what exactly. Does it mean he was just that good in an era when passing was incredibly hard? Or does it mean he was about as good as Baugh/Luckman, in an era when passing was equally difficult as Baugh/Luckman's era, but no one else had figured out how to be good at it yet except Friedman? What's your opinion?

Oh, and I'd love to hear about how dominant Thorpe was. Even jt-sw only has pedestrian stats from the tail end of his career to show; how was he in the Ohio league?

JameisLoseston wrote:Does it mean he was just that good in an era when passing was incredibly hard? Or does it mean he was about as good as Baugh/Luckman, in an era when passing was equally difficult as Baugh/Luckman's era, but no one else had figured out how to be good at it yet except Friedman? What's your opinion?

Oh, and I'd love to hear about how dominant Thorpe was. Even jt-sw only has pedestrian stats from the tail end of his career to show; how was he in the Ohio league?

Rupert has posted a lot on his QB research, maybe he will jump in, not my area.

For a Thorpe primer with statistics, check out Bob's article: http://www.profootballresearchers.org/a ... 02-396.pdf

As far as considering Nagurski as a pure runner, if that's actually a stated criteria of this thing, I think it's terrible - I assumed it was implicit that if a player is being considered then everything the player did should be considered - block, play defensive, kick, whatever.