How many Steelers fans are aware of the fact that Franco Harris is the most overrated thing to ever exist on planet earth?

[NFLExpert49]

Just now, Ward4HOF said:

https://www.profootballhof.com/players/franco-harris/

Oops... I take it all those who voted him to Semifinalists are clueless, but somehow, a football forum troll knows better... now, you may go back to my initial response for reference... I feel sorry for you...it must be hard going through life as yourself...

https://www.ajc.com/sports/football/the-hall-fame-case-for-hines-ward/aj6m93O1E94z5S7oNk1jDI/

But, since you've been proven wrong on multiple occasions throughout this Post...and, as Twain put it best...

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

Oh yes, sports writers are real experts. It's not like they just look at the box scores and the team accomplishments and vote based on those or anything. Oh wait, that's exactly what they do.

And what would actual NFL players like Pro Bowl safety Dave Duerson know about NFL running backs he faced? Surely nothing. 

Yeah, it really sucks being me - someone who actually grasps this thing called, "critical thinking. As Walter White once said to Jesse, "you never learned how to think."

[NFLExpert49]

5 minutes ago, Ward4HOF said:

https://www.profootballhof.com/players/franco-harris/

Oops... I take it all those who voted him to Semifinalists are clueless, but somehow, a football forum troll knows better... now, you may go back to my initial response for reference... I feel sorry for you...it must be hard going through life as yourself...

https://www.ajc.com/sports/football/the-hall-fame-case-for-hines-ward/aj6m93O1E94z5S7oNk1jDI/

But, since you've been proven wrong on multiple occasions throughout this Post...and, as Twain put it best...

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

And just to demonstrate exactly how clueless sports writers are...here's a look at the laughable "Ward for HOF" argument:

• Quote

  "He is No. 14 in NFL history in career receptions with 1,000. That’s more than 20 Hall of Fame wide receivers including Andre Reed, Art Monk, Steve Largent and Shannon Sharpe. At the time of his retirement, he was one of only 13 players all-time with at least 1,000 receptions."

   

That's more receptions than guys who played in a completely different era when passing was much more difficult. Also, receptions in and of themselves are worth nothing. You can catch a pass for negative yards and it's still a reception. Only yards and touchdowns matter. 

 

• Quote

  He is No. 25 in NFL history in career receiving yardage at 12,083. Nine of the players with more career yards are already in the Hall of Fame.

  25th in NFL history. How is that HOF worthy? Nine of the players with more career yards are in the HOF...and 15 aren't. 

• Quote

  He is tied for No. 15 in NFL history in receiving touchdowns with 85. He is tied with Hall of Famers Lance Alworth and Paul Warfield and just behind Hall of Famers Don Maynard (88) and Andre Reed (87).

  15th in NFL history. What exactly is an impressive ranking in history to them? Where do they draw the line? "He is 38th in NFL history in...HOF?!" Also, again tied with HOF guys from ancient eras. 

• Quote

  He was the MVP of Super Bowl XL in 2005 in which the Steelers defeated the Seahawks 21-10. Ward caught a 43-yard game-winning touchdown. He finished with five catches for 123 yards and also rushed for 18 yards. He was also a member of the Steelers Super Bowl XLIII winning team.

  A WR winning the Super Bowl MVP the year after the legendary Deion Branch did the same. 

• Quote

  He was a four-time Pro Bowler from 2001-05.

  Is 4 Pro Bowls supposed to be a HOF caliber impressive statistic? 

• Quote

  He was a three-time Second Team All-Pro selection from 2002-04.

  But never a First Team All Pro. I think the HOF can live without him. 

• Quote

  He had four straight 1,000-yard seasons from 2001-04. He missed the milestone in each of the next two seasons by a mere 25 yards each. The streak ended in 2005 when he missed one game to injury, the first of his career after playing every game in his first seven seasons. He also missed two games in 2006 to come up just short.

  4 straight 1,000 yard seasons is not that impressive in the era he played in. Derrick Mason had 5 straight and 8 out of 9. 

• Quote

  He is the Steelers all-time receiving leader in yards, receptions and touchdowns.

  That's a team record, and he's being compared to mostly vastly different eras of football for a team predicated on its defense for most of its history. 

• Quote

  He is tied for fifth all-time in NFL history with five 2-point conversions.

  5 2-point conversions? Well, at least this is creative silliness. 

• Quote

  He is widely regarded as the best blocking receiver in NFL history.

  Wide receivers are paid to make plays as receivers. J.J. Stokes was a really good blocking WR for the 49ers. He was also one of the biggest busts in team history. 

[Dcash4]

10 minutes ago, NFLExpert49 said:

It has nothing to do with running north and south. It has to do with actually trying to break tackles and/or make would be tacklers miss. A good running back tries to get every yard he can. He tries to break every tackle, make every guy miss, drag and stiff arm and scratch and claw. He makes the defender actually bring him down; he doesn't go down like a sack of manure the moment a defender gets a hand on him. 

(The only exception would be situational things where you're running out the clock, of course).

Now, no running back is going to actually succeed in breaking the tackle of/juking every defender. But he's going to consistently try, and he's often going to succeed.

Harris never tried and never succeeded. That makes him utterly horrible. There have literally been hundreds of running backs better than him at this.

What was good about Harris? Basically, he had decent straight line speed for a 230 pounder in the 1970s...but it's not like he was a big breakaway threat. He had just 5 touchdowns of 40+ yards in his career and only 11 of 20+. He could catch a dumpoff pass out of the backfield, but so could everyone. Other than that...he at least wasn't Trent Richardson ignoring the hole and running straight into a crowd and getting stuffed. 

And that's it. 

You could find a bunch of undrafted free agents at any point in history who could do the same thing. 

One last thing I forgot to mention: The best runner on the team during the 70s was actually not Sidney Thornton as I said before. I mean, Thornton was the best running back, but the best runner on the team was Terry Bradshaw. Bradshaw broke more tackles in isolated games than Harris broke in his entire career. To be fair, Bradshaw had rare running ability...but the thing is, Bradshaw literally would have been a better running back than Harris. 

Not what I asked, stay on topic please.

You Said This:

15 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

This can be proven by the fact that he broke tackles at the lowest rate of any RB who ever lived. 

Now...prove it. Show us where he is the lowest percentage.

You also said this:

12 minutes ago, NFLExpert49 said:

Bradshaw broke more tackles in isolated games than Harris broke in his entire career.

Prove it, please.

Or quit talking out of your....well, you're an expert you know what. 

[NFLExpert49]

1 minute ago, Dcash4 said:

Not what I asked, stay on topic please.

You Said This:

Now...prove it. Show us where he is the lowest percentage.

You also said this:

Prove it, please.

Or quit talking out of your....well, you're an expert you know what. 

Go to Youtube and watch the games. You should enjoy watching games from your favorite team's dynasty years...right? 

And you'll learn a thing or two. 

[MOSteelers56]

Why is anyone even responding? He's trolling. You can't change his mind. He's doing it to get responses from us. Stop giving him responses and he will leave. 

[NFLExpert49]

Just now, MOSteelers56 said:

Why is anyone even responding? He's trolling. You can't change his mind. He's doing it to get responses from us. Stop giving him responses and he will leave. 

No. I'm doing it because I know that what I'm saying is true, and it disgusts me that a RB as horrible as Harris gets all this respect that he does not deserve.

For f's sake, the guy has even said in an interview that he doesn't have any pain from his playing days. A former NFL RB with the 14th most touches of anyone in NFL history...zero pain as he's pushing 70. If that doesn't say it all I don't know what does. 

[Dcash4]

1 minute ago, NFLExpert49 said:

Go to Youtube and watch the games. You should enjoy watching games from your favorite team's dynasty years...right? 

And you'll learn a thing or two. 

Lol. Outside of not understanding the definition of fact and objective this is my new favorite response. 

Please, continue. 

[Dcash4]

To be fair, I don’t have Franco in my top 10 All Time...he is firmly entrenched at 12, though. Third best power back I ever saw play in person. Top 3 all time in vision. Best evasion numbers in the 70s. Just really a runner with a plan, you know? 

[VigilantZombie]

 how has this anti expert morons threaded not been locked yet?

[VigilantZombie]

Let me educate you on something just because you have a screen name with the word expert in it doesn't make you want and in fact he makes you appear as far from one as possible otherwise you wouldn't have put the word in your screen name in the first place

[warfelg]

2 hours ago, NFLExpert49 said:

Being able to break tackles/gain extra yards when confronted with a tackler is what makes you a good running back.

I stopped reading right here. Doesn’t matter how you avoid the tackler. Whether it bet taking the contact, or going around it doesn’t matter. 

 

Edit:

What makes a good running back isn’t this. It’s hitting the hole, pad level, protecting the ball, pass protection, pass catching, vision. Things like that. 

Its funny that you knock Franco for a great line, but no comment on 90% of the other guys. Bell played 3 years behind the best OL in football but you use him as a counter example. Ditto for 90% of those guys. Barry Sanders is the only one I’ve seen be able to gain the yards he did with a crap line, and at that he leads the league in negative rushes for a career. 

[VigilantZombie]

I got this stupid good for nothing troll on ignore.

[NFLExpert49]

1 hour ago, Dcash4 said:

To be fair, I don’t have Franco in my top 10 All Time...he is firmly entrenched at 12, though. Third best power back I ever saw play in person. Top 3 all time in vision. Best evasion numbers in the 70s. Just really a runner with a plan, you know? 

Power back...hahahahahahahaha. That's like calling Drew Bledsoe a scrambling speed quarterback. 

 

[NFLExpert49]

20 minutes ago, warfelg said:

I stopped reading right here. Doesn’t matter how you avoid the tackler. Whether it bet taking the contact, or going around it doesn’t matter. 

 

Edit:

What makes a good running back isn’t this. It’s hitting the hole, pad level, protecting the ball, pass protection, pass catching, vision. Things like that. 

Its funny that you knock Franco for a great line, but no comment on 90% of the other guys. Bell played 3 years behind the best OL in football but you use him as a counter example. Ditto for 90% of those guys. Barry Sanders is the only one I’ve seen be able to gain the yards he did with a crap line, and at that he leads the league in negative rushes for a career. 

But Harris didn't break tackles nor elude them. That's the point. He got what every other back would have gotten (provided they ran to the designated hole) and absolutely nothing more. There were college RBs who never even made it to the NFL who were better than him.

I don't knock Harris for a great line; I knock Harris for never breaking a tackle and seldom juking a guy. I knock Harris for going down to the first guy who was in position to tackle him, over and over again. 

When your RB gets one-on-one with a DB, you'd like to think the odds are pretty high he's going to either break the tackle or make him miss. Not so with Harris. With Harris, he was going down 95+% of the time.  

"What makes a good running back isn't this"

Yes it is.

Also, Hue Jackson agrees with me, as you can see in my signature. 

"It's  hitting the hole." Every running back who makes it to the NFL can do this. That does not separate one RB from another, aside from a few incompetent egomaniacs who are out of the NFL in a year or two.

"Pad level." Pad level doesn't mean anything if it doesn't lead to power. And Harris's pad level was awful.

"Protecting the ball." This is somewhat of a requirement for getting the ball, a la not being an incompetent who ignores the hole (and doesn't have freakish talent to succeed anyway). But here's the thing: Harris wasn't exactly great about protecting the ball. Even taking era into consideration, 7 seasons of 8 or more fumbles is nothing to write home about in terms of ball security. 

"Pass Protection." 1. That was far less important in the era in which Harris was in, as it was a running league. 2. Harris was nothing special in that regard. 3. You can get a specialist to do that.

"Pass catching." Basically every RB who ever made it to the NFL can catch a dumpoff pass (Bo Jackson would be the only one who genuinely had horrendous hands to where you didn't want to use him as a receiver in the flat). There have been numerous RBs over the years with actual downfield receiving skills, but Harris was not one of them, Immaculate Reception be damned.

"Vision." This is the same as, "hitting the hole." When fans try to talk about "vision" to explain how an unimpressive RB is putting up numbers, you know that what they are actually looking at is a product of the blocking scheme. Nobody ever talked about Adrian Peterson's "vision" because his physical talent was obvious. 

[Dcash4]

29 minutes ago, NFLExpert49 said:

Power back...hahahahahahahaha. That's like calling Drew Bledsoe a scrambling speed quarterback. 

 

Look up his stats for once. He was actually 2nd during the 70's in broken tackles. He is also 10th in NFL history in successful 3rd and 1s. Also had the best YPC average inside the 10. 

Sounds fairly powerful to me.