Exultate Justi

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Hey Avery...

Yeah...we miss this.

There's another Bronco in that video (well, besides Elway...) who was The Truth, too. Simon Fletcher. 97.5 sacks over 11 years (including 10 straight games - still an NFL record), and the guy was never once voted to the Pro Bowl. Total travesty.

Now, this one here...

This one's fun because it's got some nice shots of pretty much every Bronco standout of the past 30 years, but I especially like the clips of Dennis Smith and Randy Gradishar - two guys who should be in Canton right now. Gradishar was probably the best all-around LB of his era. From Pro Football Weekly's Joel Buchsbaum:

The highest honor an NFL player can receive is to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, which team a player plays for and how that team is perceived often means almost as much as how well the player plays.

...there are quite a few scouts who will tell you that former Broncos MLB Randy Gradishar was almost as good, even as good, as Jack Lambert, and that ex-Broncos CB Louie Wright was an even better player than Mel Blount.

While Lambert was considered a cinch pick, and Blount went in pretty quickly, Gradishar and Wright really haven’t received serious consideration, although they were the two best members of the Orange Crush defense, with apologies to Bob Swenson, Tom Jackson and Rubin Carter.

Unlike Lambert, Gradishar was not a flashy headhunter, just a great anticipator who was a deadly tackler and great short-yardage defender. As for Wright, he could cover with the best of them and was the type of big, physical corner everyone wants, but he had bad hands and did not intercept many passes. Also, both Gradishar and Wright disappeared from the spotlight after football.

In 2002, Buchsbaum authored a piece wherein he took at shot at defining the 25 best LBs in NFL history. He put Gradishar at #10:

Maybe the smartest and most underrated ever. Had rare instincts, was faster than Lambert and very effective in short-yardage and goal-line situations. The fact he is not in the Hall of Fame is a shame and may be attributed to the fact he was a sure tackler but not a lights-out hitter or look-at-me type of player.

Gradishar retired in '83, with over 2,000 tackles, and 20 interceptions - returned for four touchdowns.

Smith was voted to the Pro Bowl six times in his career, and was an all-pro four times. His USC defensive backfield included himself, Ronnie Lott, and Joey Browner - not a bad group, eh?

I remember that Thurman Thomas used to be terrified of Dennis Smith, and always accounted for him on the field before the snap - this stemmed from a goal-line hit by Smith on Thomas in the '91 AFC Championship. Thomas claimed that he was partially paralyzed momentarily after the hit, and that his body tingled for the rest of the game. He would say later that he had never been hit that hard before or since.

We need a little more of this stuff, and a lot less of today's model of Bronco D. We'll see if the shift to 3-4 helps, longer-term, but that's a pretty massive change to make in week 4.

(permalink) Posted by Jared @ 10:07 AM |

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