Getty Chris Berman speaks at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.
Detroit Lions fans don’t need any kind of reminder about how excellent Barry Sanders was during his years with the team, and it was always easy to catch Sanders highlights all over television and re-watch them to witness his mastery.
Sanders was unlike any other player in the league, which is why he deserved a special kind of catchphrase. ESPN’s Chris Berman was just the man to give it to him as one of the top football voices of all-time. Berman has had some legendary lines through the years, but perhaps his best was actually inspired by Sanders himself.
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In a recent interview, Berman was asked about “whoop,” which is one of his go-to phrases during highlights. As he said, it was the way Sanders moved on the field which inspired it, given there was really no other way to describe his wizardry.
We can thank @BarrySanders for being the inspiration behind the Berman “WHOOP”.
“Whoop came from Barry Sanders. It came as a ‘woah, there is no other way to describe Barry.’ I think his ankles were bionic. Tom (Jackson) and I both think this because there is no way you can swivel as a human being like this. So that was the whoop. Barry’s moves. He is the impetus for that,” Berman said in the interview. “Now, it’s anybody who kind of does that. It started with Barry Sanders and of course a Lamar Jackson type of player you would do it with. That’s where it came from, out of respect to Barry.”
As far as facts go about the NFL, this is an interesting one. Through the years, Berman has come into millions of homes and entertained, and perhaps Detroit’s best player in franchise history inspired perhaps his best catchphrase ever.
Simply, it was a match made in football heaven.
Sanders Surprised With Berman’s Catch Phrase Admission
Though he played in the NFL for a decade and was around plenty of media and players, Sanders apparently never knew that Berman credited him with the creation of the catchphrase. When the story was shared on the internet, Sanders re-tweeted it and shared his surprise that Berman helped make the catch phrase possible. As he said, he was honored to learn that he helped inspire one of football’s top announcer calls.
Given how long Sanders has been around the game, it’s a bit shocking to learn that he did not know of this sooner given his status and clout around the league, but even such, it’s excellent to hear of this connection now. Truthfully, it was the best way do describe what Sanders did to defenders.
Sanders’ Career Stats & Highlights
As Berman and others know, seeing Sanders run the ball for the Lions through the years was akin to believing given the moves he was able to make. Sanders routinely had the quickness and deft ability to break plenty of ankles on the football field and remains one of the greatest highlight players in the game fans love watching even years after his retirement. Athleticism is something that came naturally to Sanders, something that was constantly proved with every big play he turned in.
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.
Even in spite of the exit, Sanders has re-connected with the Lions now and remains a force for good with the team and the community. Fans come together to celebrate him constantly, and this is simply another reminder of how deeply he touched the game that he loved in plenty of ways.