Getty Barry Sanders and Emmitt Smith at the NFL Honors ceremony.
The NFL’s rushing record book saw a change over the weekend, and Detroit Lions legend Barry Sanders was impacted.
Frank Gore, a running back for the Buffalo Bills, passed Sanders on the career rushing yardage list, bumping Sanders down from the third position to fourth. Gore now has 15,289 yards to his credit, while Sanders has 15,269. It’s a spot Sanders had held for a long time. To nobody’s surprise, however, Sanders was classy to the end in congratulating Gore for accomplishing the feat.
After Gore managed to run into the record book, Sanders as well as other NFL legends and friends of Gore lined up to give him the love for what he was able to do on the field.
“Hey Frank, this is Barry, congratulations on becoming the No. 3 all time rusher in the NFL. Keep up the great work,” Sanders says in the video.
Congratulations to an all-time great from these all-time greats.
Perhaps Gore’s former teammate Clinton Portis sums it up best in the video when it comes to what Gore has accomplished during his NFL career.
“Passing Barry Sanders? We all idolized Barry Sanders,” Portis says.
That’s true for a ton of people let alone running backs, so it must have been surreal for Gore to actually pass Sanders.
Barry Sanders Stats
To see Sanders run the ball for Lions fans through the years was to believe given what he was able to do with the team on the field. Sanders routinely had the quickness and deft ability to break plenty of ankles on the football field and remains one of the greatest highlights in the game fans love watching even years after his retirement. Athleticism is something that came naturally to Sanders, no matter whether he was on the grass or the hardwood, something that was revealed recently.
With the Lions, Sanders rushed for 15,269 yards and 99 touchdowns. He was routinely thought of as the best running back in the league, and would have shattered plenty of NFL rushing records had he decided to keep playing. Sanders, however, walked away from the game in 1999 on the eve of training camp, which stunned the Lions and all of their fans. The parties then went through a frustrating split for multiple years, based mostly upon the fact that the franchise made him pay back part of his contract amid retirement. It is a situation not unlike what is happening with Calvin Johnson currently.
Barry Sanders a Lions Legend Forever
Since, time has healed all wounds and Sanders has patched things up with the Lions and has become engaged in their alumni group. He also makes several visits a year to games the team is playing in, and was recently named to Detroit’s All-Century team, which is a major feather in his cap given what he was able to do as a team leader and a dominating force in the franchise.
As a result of his early retirement, Sanders maintains his health and vitality and looks phenomenal. It’s not a stretch to say that he could possibly still grind out some tough yards in the league at this point in time.
Even though it might be frustrating to see someone pass Sanders, it’s neat to watch him continue to be humble and awesome along the way to Gore, who is now a part of the special fraternity of great running backs in NFL history.