Lawyer Milloy - Respect or No Respect?
creepycoug
Member Posts: 23,956
Saw this on the 'Gram and immediately thought of this place.
My changes would be:
- If you can't put Easley on Tier 1 because of Advil-gate (fuck you Seahawks), then at least admit this is a joke. Because nobody ever lined up against Easley and didn't know where he was. Could be my favorite player of all-tim. It's between him, Marino and Montana.
- I would move Jack Tatum up a couple levels. When you get a nickname like 'Assassin' and it sticks, even if you gave it to yourself, you are feared.
- I might move the Honey Badger up a level too.
- I would move Milloy up at least to Tier 4, preferably Tier 3. Bump Meador, Scott, or Christensen for room at T4 or Lary (who?) at T3 (anti-white and recency bias clearly at play). I think Milloy has suffered some anonymity since retiring. Not sure why. He was a very good NFL safety. I've seen him up close. He could have been an NFL linebacker had he wanted to be. Would not want him hitting me.
Other observations:
Of course, I think Taylor would have eclipsed them all but; he dead so that's that. That he's even on this stack of players says something. @Whlinder
Another guy who is as good as many of these guys is Bennie Blades. Also a guy I saw up close and also a guy who could easily have played linebacker and was invited to the Olympic 400 meter trials. With all the great Miami DBs over the years, he's their only Thorpe. He was again that combination of ball hawk and thunderdome hitter … many guys are way better at one than the other. The elites are great at both. Blades only got one pro bowl, which made no sense, but he played in Detroit back when you tended to get lost if you played for perennial losers. He elevated that defense immediately and was a stalwart there. One of the OG bad-boy Canes who you needed to account for pre-snap. He was also a Notre Dame bully and for that he gets my love and admiration. He's easily as good as several guys on this pyramid but not mentioned.
Comments
Am I seeing this correctly that the Seahawks have more on the list than any other franchise? Who knew?
Tatum is too low.
McCourty and Weddle being on the list is laughable, and them being above Milloy is a joke.
Harrison Smith at Tier 3 is also a bit of an overreach, IMO. I could be wrong about that, but I don't recall seeing him make impact plays like Earl Thomas did. Probably a local tv market thing.
I also think Lynch is a little high, but maybe just by one tier.
I think I just shit on basically all of the white guys on this list.
I did too. I mean, if I care about any NFL franchise it's the Dolphins and their annual celebration of the '72 team that annoys everyone so much, and Scott was a part of that. But that No Name defense was the D line and Scott could not have played today IMO.
I agree about Lynch too. I think he was an enforcer but I don't remember him make the plays in the passing game the way the great ones do. He was a poor man's Atwater IMO.
Agree, Earl too low, but nobody likes him so he gets jobbed.
Where’s Tripper Johnson?
At your Mom’s house?
Matthieu is 3x first team all pro and 1x second team, 3x pro bowl.
Budda is 2x first team all pro, 2x second team and 7x pro bowl. Budda is 4 years younger. He probably belongs on the list.
Lawyer was 1x first team and 1x second all pro, with 4 pro bowls.
Because Sean was killed, my safeties start with Lott and Reed. I’m not sure I put Dawkins or Troy P there.
I'm a big Lawyer fan, but I will say that guys on the '91 defense did scoff at me when I suggested how good they would have been with Lawyer added in. They said Pahukoa was 50% better as a safety and yet Lawyer had the much bigger reputation. Probably from being a ferocious hitter.
How many of them actually played with milloy in his prime though? Of course they'd defend teammates first
Yeah….no.
No way in fucking hell is John Lynch on a higher tier than Kenny Easley.
To the task at hand
Dawkins is not Tier 1. Recency bias. Ronnie Lott is a favorite of mine. Troy isn't even the best Steeler safety of all time. Donnie Shell is. Failing grade for T1
Jack Tatum killed a man and is Tier 6? Bullshit. Easley too low. Motherfucker blocked a punt in 1978 giving UCLA a 10-7 win on prime time ABC in 1978 when UW was defending Rose Bowl champs and looking to keep big Mo going. Kenny was the first bigtime Seahawk
The rest is really personal preference.
A word on the white guys - when sports integrated there were still quotas on how many Blacks could play at once and in football it was by position
White positions were QB, O line, Middle linebacker, and Safety because those were the "thinking" positions. So Krause was the all time leader in interceptions so he had to be there. Same with Larry Wilson. But like baseball pre Jackie Robinson there is an asterisk involved. But John Lynch hit like a speeding locomotive
Some love for Ken Houston. Wish I had been alive to see him play but got to wear two of the all time jersey combos. 70s Redskins and Oilers. @WilburHooksHands weeps. Putting him on the graphic with a Commanders logo feels so wrong.
Chuck Knox used to say that a guy named James Harris was a tragic story. Would have been one of the greatest QBs in NFL history, Knox said
I recently watched the 78 Rose Bowl. Moon wasn't a first round pick but they had like 14 rounds. To get not get drafted was insane
John Brodie said Moon sucked his first two years, which he did, but gave James credit for sticking with him.
Moon had a tremendous arm. That alone gets you drafted
Actually I interviewed Ronnie Lott in 2016 and he said without a doubt that Kenny Easley was the best safety of all time, including better than him (Ronnie Lott)
I mean, the VERY LEAST you can say is that they are 1a. and 1b.
Kenny Easley is an all-timer. Only Seahawk jersey I ever owned.
Pfft. The '91 team just took a major hit in credibility with the public airing of that statement. And, yes, I will say it to their faces (if Lawyer is with me, that is).
But please. The '91 DBs benefited greatly from playing behind the D line they had. Everybody knows it. The best of them was a disappointing 1st round draft pick (Hall) and the others didn't even have a cup of coffee in the NFL. With all due respect, Pahukoa is not the equal to Lawyer Milloy, much less a hair better, much much less significantly better. The latter comment borders on retardation.
Boom! Facts.
One thing I'm coming to have at least a suspicion about is comparing players from different eras based on pro bowls. In this day and age of constant coverage of everything and the heightened importance of (often exaggerated and even misleading) image, I think players collect pro bowls once they reach a certain level more readily than did their predecessors. It's like, some guys just keep getting them based on name. I go back to the Blades example. If you look at what he did his ten years in Detroit, one pro bowl doesn't quite make sense relative to other accolades. But again, he was lost on a permanently shit-tier team that NOGAF about at all.
Whatever else one can say about the comparison between Milloy and Baker, I don't think Milloy's 4 pro bowls his entire career and Baker's 7 and counting is indicative of any kind of superiority that tally might otherwise suggest. Said another way, when / if Baker reaches 8 pro bowls, twice Milloy's haul, I will not agree that Baker is that much better than Milloy. Frankly, I'm not sure he's even better at all. Maybe he is. I do agree Baker ought to be on the list though.
Ah yes, back when this hellhole had a front page. The interview and Lott’s photo were posted before the Pac12 CCG vs the Harley Davidson of college football defenses.
The next morning, I had to rebook our flight because Mrs Nacho thought it was a good idea to pair a shot of Jack with each Coors Light throughout the game followed by a late night meal with another beer or two and thusly unable to remove herself from the hotel bed other than to pay tribute at the foot of the porcelain goddess.
Thankfully, I chose to be frugal and fly Southwest so a flight change was painless (other than the fact I was flying Southwest) and we got a flight around or after lunchtime.
While standing in the boarding line, I notice a black gentleman sitting by himself. Every so often a fellow UW fan goes over and says something, shakes his hand and walks away.
I think to myself, wow, who is this guy? I then remember seeing Ronnie Lott on the Pac12 network or Fox Sports or something and could that him? Is he traveling to Seattle to interview Jake the Cobra Browning? Wait, Stalin just interviewed him and his picture is on the front page! Compare the photo to the guy and I’m like yup, that’s Ronnie Motherfucking Lott right there! #myNiners
I explain this to Mrs Nacho but she’s worried about throwing up food from 3 years ago because she swore she threw up everything else.
My boarding number is A whatever but not the southwest business class. Ronnie stands up and gets in the business boarding line almost right next to me. I play it cool. Look at the front page photo and confirm, yeah, that’s Ronnie Lott.
He boards the plane and our group follows. He’s in an exit row which is where I’m headed and I sit across the aisle from him. A few more UW fans board and say hello to him.
I finally see a break in people boarding and lean over. I tell him I became a 49ers fan in high school watching the SB against the Bengals. He looks at me kinda funny. I go on to say I’m still a 49ers fans to this day. He keeps looking at me like I’m retarded. I finally say, it’s tough being from Seattle and not being a Seahawks fan and he finally smiles.
Whatever. I’m just excited I met Ronnie Lott. Mrs Nacho still doesn’t care; she’s busy asking the attendant if they have large sized vomit bags.
We land in Seattle and on Monday I’m back at work telling people I met Ronnie Lott. UW won the Pac12 and is going to the playoffs.
Later that day, I see a picture online of Seattle area sports legends ringing the bell for the Salvation Army and the caption says “Warren Moon is one of many sports legends…”
I think to myself, damn Warren Moon looks just like Ronnie Lott, he’s even wearing the same shoes…
Yup, I thought Warren Moon was Ronnie Lott.
AGREE.
You get pro bowl credit if 5 players better than you got hurt and as the 6th you got called up.
Which is why my primary for comparison is All-Pro voting. Those are the real relevant ones. The pro bowl counting is more of an FYI. In the olden times it meant more.