Every Thanksgiving, I look forward to football. Now that may seem like a surprise to most of you, but it’s true. While most people are thinking about turkeys, I am thinking about GOAT. Now not just any GOAT, one GOAT in particular and that GOAT is Barry Sanders. Barry Sanders isn’t just any GOAT, he’s THE GOAT. Barry Sanders, a GOAT you say? No THE GOAT as in THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME! I don’t care what anyone else says, to me, he was the greatest. I never had a chance to watch Jim Brown or Walter Payton other than on classic videos or interviews with Jim Brown in his stupid hat telling people how great he was or how different it was back in the day. But I digress. Growing up, every Thanksgiving was extra special because that meant I was going to get to watch my second favorite player (1st was Jerry Rice at the time) live on TV. Now this was before DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket, so I only got to watch Sanders about 2-3 times a year and every time I did, I was enamored. I had never seen anything like it and still haven’t although I’m starting to believe Chris Johnson may be the second coming of Sanders.
I was disappointed that Sanders ended his career in the way that he did, but hey, I understand. I only have 2 regrets about Sanders career. One, I only got to have him on a fantasy team for one year. The first year I played fantasy football was the last year Sanders played in the league. I was lucky enough to have him and Steve Young on the same team in 1998 and won my first fantasy football title in my first year at age 15. Albeit it was a free Yahoo! league, but for my first year, I couldn’t have been happier and it was a pleasure to have one of my all time favorite players on my team. The other regret that I have is that my younger brother didn’t get to grow up watching Barry like I did, I’m sure he would have loved watching him just as much as I did.
In 10 seasons, Barry ran for 15,269 yards and had 352 career receptions for another 2,921 yards giving him 18,190 total yards from scrimmage. He also amassed 109 TDs in that time which is good for 15th all time. In a points per reception (PPR) league, Sanders would have scored 2,825 fantasy points and in 153 career games that was good for an 18+ point per game average. Man, I bet he made a lot of fantasy owners happy. This Thanksgiving, I have a lot to be thankful for and will always be thankful of the great times I had on Thanksgiving watching Barry with my dad and grandpa. Barry, thanks for all the memories buddy, you are THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME!
I hope everyone has a great holiday and God bless.
