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if Barry ran behind that line in that offense his numbers would have been outrageous  only if he ran differently
Emmett was a very good back that had a great line and offense  and with that, you'd expect him to have all-time great numbers, which he did
Barry was one of the all-time greats - no comparision   they were both all-time greats, which is why we can compare them, lol

Great post. Emmitt gets disrespected way too much. Yes his OL was great and he played with a HOF QB and WR, but he made all those guys better too. He did a lot of stuff on his own. Just watch the highlights.
Barry did a lot of short yardage diving over the goal line stuff in college at Oklahoma State. A lot. He did score like 40 touchdowns that junior year, and they weren't all 60 yard TD runs. For some reason whenever the Lions got into the goal line situations, Wayne Fontes' brilliant genius coaching idea was to pull him out of the game. I'm 100% sure if Fontes would've just lined Barry up in the I-form near the goal-line with a FB in front of him, he'd have plenty more touchdowns.
What makes what Barry Sanders did for 10 straight years so impressive is he didn't have a whole lot of help. Their OL at best was pretty good some years- not great just pretty good- and other years it was flat out terrible. He never had a dominant OL like the Dallas/Denver lines of the 90s. The guy played 80% of his career with Wayne Fontes as his head coach. Yuck. The guy played with 10 different starting QB's, and most of them were flat out scrubs. Andre Ware, Rodney Peete, an 89 year old Dave Krieg with a bum shoulder, Charlie Batch, Scott Mitchell, Erik Kramer, Bob Gagliano, Eric Hipple, Don Majowski, and Frank Reich. Seriously? No Troy Aikman's there. Scott Mitchell was probably the best he had, and Mitchell was a turd that had a couple good years and was hated by most of his teammates and often played his smallest in the biggest moments. Herman Moore and Brett Perriman were a really good WR duo, so Barry definitely did have some help there.
Barry probably had a lot more juice left physically. He never took the big hits, most defenders were content just getting a hand on to him to bring him to the ground. Most were afraid to try and give him the big lick for fear of Barry making them look stupid and having them tackle nothing but air. His 9th year in the NFL after Bobby Ross came in and took over the Lions and gave Barry a FB, Barry only ran for 2,053 yards- and the next year- his 10th year- he ran for 1,491 yards- less than a first down shy of 1,500. In year 10. Which by the way is the most yards a RB has ever had following a 2,000 yard season. The others following a 2,000 yard season: Jamal Lewis (1,006 yards), Chris Johnson (1,364 yards) , Adrian Peterson (1,266 yards), Terrell Davis (211 yards), OJ Simpson (1,115 yards), and Erick Dickerson (1,234 yards).
Emmitt was showing some signs of erosion in year 9 and 10. Emmitt had 4 seasons in Dallas where he'd averaged 3.7 to 3.9 yards per carry. Barry was still at the top of his game year 9 and 10, and he never averaged less than 4.3 yards per carry a season- even with the 0 or negative gains- remove those and his YPC probably sky rockets to something ridiculous.

Barry (10 yrs)

5.0 ypc

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Emmitt (first 10 yrs)


4.3 ypc-




Let's not pretend these guys aren't comparable.  I'm a whore for yards per carry, but the TD thing matters.  Either DET didn't think Barry would score in short-yardage due to his running style