The Privilege of Witnessing Greatness

Allen and Jackson and the fact that football has never been better

(SI.com)

Welcome to FreeForAll Thursday when, in an act of supreme generosity, Johnny Thinwallet sacrifices millions in revenue by offering today’s essay for nuttin’. If you like it, it’s $8 a month/$80 a year for five days a week of pure joy. Thanks

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Sometimes, I forget how good they are.

Swallowed up by the endless (and ironically needless) hype, I don’t take a three-step drop and behold the long view of the NFL. Which is this:

We’ve never seen a football Walk of Fame like the one we’re seeing now.

Just when we think we’ve seen everything, we get to see Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen on Sunday night at 6:30. It’s stunning that we’re able to watch the likes of Jackson and Allen compete in the same game, for the second time this year. What’s even more stunning is that similar matchups happen every week. Not just with quarterbacks. Everywhere.

Myles Garrett? Or Trey Hendrickson? Ja’Marr Chase or Patrick Surtain Jr.? The flow of Jayden Daniels? Or the assembly line of Jared Goff? The Lions QB completed 72 percent of his passes. Five times, he completed 80 percent or more. Once, he went 18-for-18 in a game.

It made me think of the all-time best barstool debates:

Players were better back then.

No, they weren’t. Not even close.

It’s a great debate because it has no definitive answer. It’s great because it skews along age lines. No one who saw Oscar Robertson play would suggest Michael Jordan was better. He’d have to be a fool.

Mahomes or Montana?

You like Shaq, because you are 40-something and don’t know anything.

I like Bill Russell, because I am 60-something and know everything.

And yet. . .

There is no debating Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen and the notion fact that football players have never been as good as they are right now. These two are hybrids that less than a generation ago, the league could only dream of.

Jackson: 4,172 passing yards, 41 passing TDs, 915 rushing yards. Four INTs.

What?

Allen: 28 passing TDs, 12 rushing TDs. 40 TDs total, just five fewer than Jackson’s 45.

Jackson is who you’d get if you mated Michael Vick and Dan Marino. There has never been a football player with Jackson’s versatility. Allen is so good, every team wants its own Josh Allen, a large, athletic man with a rocket arm, who is money at the goal line and skilled at running over defensive backs.

It wasn’t that long ago that the NFL’s ideal QB was a 6-foot-3 pocket passer with metronomic accuracy. We didn’t want him running. He’d get hurt that way. Think: Peyton Manning.

Vick was an outlier, same as Randall Cunningham before him and Bobby Douglass before Cunningham. Scramblers never win big, we experts decided. Too much risk in running around. Scramblers were freaks.

Jackson and Allen aren’t scramblers. Their runs have purpose. But back to the barstools:

If you had to pick any QB pre-Lamar you’d say is a better performer, who’d it be?

Answer: No one. Except maybe Allen.

This isn’t an Oscar-Michael discussion. It’s not Mays-Mantle or Mathis-Presley. (Neither. Sinatra.)

Jackson is better than any who have preceded him. A better runner than Steve Young, a better passer (this year, at least) than Manning. More versatile than Brett Favre. Only Tom Brady is in Jackson’s photo. Brady was as nightmarish a late-game presence as the NFL ever produced. That said, I’d still take Lamar over Tom across a 17-game regular season.

And, as stated earlier, the league is stuffed with great athletes. There isn’t one Jerry Rice. There are four or five, starting with Number 1 down at PayJoe.

John Mackey

I’m ancient enough to have seen John Mackey play for the Baltimore Colts. A great tight end, the prototype. Until Travis Kelce came along. Only one player retains a solid Old School argument for Best Ever. Jim Brown is undefeated at running back. That said, he reminds me of Derrick Henry.

Meanwhile, can you imagine those lunky loads of the 1960s trying to run down Josh and Lamar? Sam Huff, Gino Marchetti? Purple People Eaters, Fearsome Foursome? Great, in their day. Now? Um, no.

Johnny Unitas, high-toppin’ outta the pocket against Chris Jones? Child, please. Someone call the EMTs.

The NFL has never been better and it’s not close.

And on Sunday, we get to watch the best of the best, at their best, against one another, in their primes. Can’t wait.

Now, then. . .

THIS SOUNDS COOL. . . City Beat tells me there’s a board-game convention happening this weekend at the Woodlawn Community Center. This excites me. I’m a closet board-game nerd. But only for certain types of board games.

Frequent Perusers might recall my affection for Strat-o-Matic and APBA baseball. I recently finished playing with APBA the entire schedule of the 1973 Mets, because I’m a loser and I wanted to experience how ridiculously good Tom Seaver was that year (and how equally ridiculously bad the Mets were at hitting.)

Seaver was flawless for me, 23-7. 1.96, seven shutouts, 24 complete games in 34 starts. The hitting was terrible. And damned if my APBA Mets didn’t finish with the same 82-79 reg-season record that the actual Mets had. I’m playing the whole season of the ‘71 Oakland A’s now. Reggie, Catfish, Fingers, Blue and Blue Moon. They started 14-3 for me, but have been 2-10 since. This is a team that won 101 games in ‘71. I must be a terrible manager.

(Also, very strange. I mean, what kinda feckin’ loser sits around rolling dice at my age? I even keep stats.)

I also love war games, specifically the old Avalon Hill efforts. My dad and I played Gettysburg and Midway until the boxes split and the little cardboard unit counters began to fray.

Anyone been to this board-game event? Worth going?

FYI: AdamCon will be held Friday-Monday, Jan. 17-20 at Woodlawn Community Center. It’s free, but visitors are asked to have a badge, which you can get on AdamCon's website.

THIS IS RICH. FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING. Baseball uber agent Scott Boras, who has done more to raise the roof on player salaries than anyone, ever, is now complaining that teams aren’t spending enough money. USA Today:

“You’re seeing so many teams that are actually not spending,’’ Boras said. “They’re making more, but they’re not spending. They’re spending far less than they did two, three years ago. There’s a quadrant as many as 10 to 12 teams that are in that position. …

“The graduation of being an owner has a different definition that it did 10, 15 years ago, ironically because of the appreciation of the franchise value.’’

That might be true. I’ve long maintained that the true value of a pro sports franchise is on the back end, when owners sell their teams. That doesn’t exactly help the day-to-day bottom line.

I do like what a D-Backs owner said in the same story, reflecting on AZ’s signing of Boras client and very good pitcher Corbin Burnes for six years, $210 mil.

“We have the potential to be a championship team," Diamondbacks managing partner Ken Kendrick said. “Our job is to try and do everything we can to put the best team on the field possible that we can afford. We're stretching the budget. It won't be the last time we ever do it.

“But my view of investing money is you invest it when you have an opportunity to get a return.’’

That describes a certain scrappy local 9 we know.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Day 3 in the vinyl vault produced a pristine copy of Broooce’s great Tunnel of Love set. It’s my favorite Springsteen album. Smart, contemplative, human. Here’s my favorite tune from that disc. The Boss meant it as a comment on his relationship with his father. I saw it as a guide for raising my daughter.

I was young and I didn’t know what to do

When I saw your best steps stolen away from you

But I’ll do what I can

I’ll walk like a man.

Have a great day, everyone.