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Simply the best

Pensacola native and former UF star Emmitt Smith retires with the most NFL career rushing yards.

By JOHN ROMANO
Published February 4, 2005

JACKSONVILLE - He just now walked away, and already Emmitt Smith seems hard to recall.

He wasn't exactly Walter Payton. He didn't run with the same elegance, he didn't change direction with quite the same grace.

He wasn't particularly Barry Sanders either. He wasn't built to go east to west, and he didn't make as many defenders grab for shadows.

And he wasn't at all like Jim Brown. Not in size, not in manner.

So how is it we should recall Emmitt Smith?

Ah, yes.

He was the best.

Oh, maybe not in ways we normally consider. He wasn't as fast as Gale Sayers, he wasn't as big as Earl Campbell. He wasn't the complete package that was O.J. Simpson, and he wasn't as versatile as Marshall Faulk.

There is a good chance, if you are scanning your memory for the most dominating backs of a lifetime, Smith might not qualify among the top five.

But in some ways, in ways that matter, there was never anyone better.

Hopefully, you remembered that as you watched Smith wipe tears from his eyes Thursday afternoon. Hopefully you will remember that this morning, as Smith's career settles into the past tense.

He never made you gasp. He didn't stop you in your tracks, or make you holler to a friend to hurry up and watch this replay.

All Smith did was move the line of scrimmage. Play by play, game by game, season by season. He may not have traveled as quickly as some, but he moved with greater consistency than anyone.

Payton? He was like a ballet. Sanders was a fire drill. Brown was fury. Smith? He was a quiet drive on a Sunday afternoon. He ran with balance, with vision, with economy. He didn't stretch the field like a Sanders or a Sayers, but he also didn't get caught foolishly behind the line of scrimmage.

When Smith was in the backfield, the Cowboys were rarely in second and long. And when Smith had the ball, there was never a play that didn't matter.

It was interesting to hear the words Smith chose when he began his retirement announcement at a convention center that serves as the headquarters for Super Bowl XXXIX. He started by thanking God. Not for his skills. Smith instead counted his blessings for his determination. His drive. His desire.

That, more than anything, explains the way he played football. Smith kept running. That's all he did. When others lost their way, he kept running. When others broke down, he kept running. If the Cowboys or Cardinals were willing to hand him a ball tomorrow, he would have kept running.

This retirement was not entirely his idea. The Cardinals informed him they were going to give younger players a chance to be the featured back.

Smith talked Thursday of other opportunities around the league, but they were never seriously considered. He wasn't going to do that to his family. And he wasn't going to do that to his legacy.

No, the time was right to quit. At 35, he might have stayed a little too long, but not quite beyond the point of sorrow.

The past two years in Arizona have been played in a vacuum, but they afforded Smith the chance to put some distance between himself and those on other pages in the NFL record book.

At 18,355 yards, the all-time rushing record is his, and will likely remain that way for some time. New York's Curtis Martin is closest among active players, and would have to average nearly 1,000 yards a season for the next five years, until he was 37, to catch Smith.

"That's not for me to determine," Smith said, when asked if the record meant he was the NFL's greatest back. "All it says is I've rushed for more yards than anybody in the National Football League.

"That doesn't necessarily mean I'm the best. We all come at different times, different points, different stages. My time was now, and I've done all I can do in my time."

And Smith probably did more with less than any back before him. Everyone agreed he was an effective runner coming out of the University of Florida in 1990, but many teams had doubts about his longevity.

Including, unfortunately, the Buccaneers.

Tampa Bay had the No. 4 pick in that draft, and could have had Smith in its grasp. Then-coach Ray Perkins was adamant about finding a running back, but the Bucs were concerned Smith was too slow and too small to be an impact player over the long-term.

So the Bucs traded for Gary Anderson before the draft, then chose Reggie Cobb in the second round. It was about a 14,000-yard miscalculation.

Not that the Bucs were alone. More than half the league let Smith pass in the first round before the Cowboys chose him at No. 17.

"I wasn't big enough, I wasn't fast enough, according to some folk," said the 5-foot-10, 216-pound Smith. "But they took a gamble. And, in my mind, that gamble paid off."

He had half as many rushing titles as Brown. His greatest single season mark was 1,773 yards, which doesn't crack the top dozen in league history.

He was more methodical than outrageous. More dependable than spectacular. If his speed and size did not measure up to backs of previous days, his heart more than made up the difference.

Few have departed with as many Super Bowl rings as Smith's three. And no one has left with more yards. His is a legacy of accomplishment, more than beauty.

So dry your eyes, Emmitt.

You've left nothing behind.

[Last modified February 4, 2005, 00:19:15]