Wow!
We’ve all said it. We’ve all seen plays that make your jaw drop. The plays that require you to use your thumb and fore-finger to push the tongue back into your mouth. The plays that leave you struggling to catch your breath, as the previous gasp was stolen by an image that was indescribable.
Whether it is an amazing juke at the line of scrimmage to open up 50 yards in front of him, a smash-mouth play at the line, a gut-wrenching block, or climbing the ladder to snag a seemingly uncatchable ball, we have all said that magic 3-letter word.
Wow!
Any player can make a single play to give you this reaction. Marty Booker drawing a pass interference call while making an amazing one handed catch. A 5’7 running back knock an All-Pro linebacker on his ass . The man nicknamed All-Day pushing aside a cornerback to break a TD run. One of my favorites is still seeing Joe Jurevicius knock a ball up to himself for a touchdown (1:20 mark). Some plays are given names: The Catch, The Run, the Helmet Catch. Every week, there is a new play that shows the average armchair quarterback why they are sitting on the couch and these athletes are cashing cheques for big coin. These are the plays that keep bringing you back week after week to watch this sport, and it’s all summed up in one single word. Wow!
This was one of those weeks that we added another play to the collection of epic plays in the NFL database. Matt Stafford showed more guts in just his 8th NFL start (in a nothing game) as he came onto the field for one last play while his left arm dangled out of the socket. He passed the game winning TD, and immediately turned to yell at the trainers ‘It’s out! It’s out!’ referring to his non-throwing shoulder. NFL Films was fortunate enough to have Stafford mic’d up for the
A few times a season, we are given the gift of seeing a player at the top of his game put together an entire 60 minutes of perfection. We’ve seen Adrian Peterson set the single game rushing record with 298 yards against the Chargers in his rookie year. We saw Clinton Portis score 5 touchdowns against the Chiefs, and Randy Moss catch just 3 balls on thanksgiving for 157 yards and 3 touchdowns, also in his rookie year. Hell, I remember watching Warren Moon in 1990 throwing on almost every down to rack up 527 yards against a Kansas City Chiefs defence that had no answer for the run-and-shoot offense.
I love football. I have never hidden that fact. The game is amazing in so many ways, but it is the memories of these WOW plays, and these WOW games that make me come back for more. They are the reason that every August is like a new sun rising. It’s the reason why the first Sunday of the season is bigger and better than Christmas for me.
But with all of that said, very rarely are we fans treated to an entire career that WOWs you like a stunning work of art. In my 20 years of being a football fan, I can honestly say there have only been 2 players that can live up to these lofty expectations….and I believe we are on the brink of a third player that can once again treat us fans to an entire career of plays we will talk about decades from now. A new da Vinci to paint a master piece for us to admire.
A wise scholar once said that to see the future, we must first examine the past.
Unfortunately, I can only go 2 decades deep with my own personal intimate knowledge of football. There were players before I was on this earth that were wowing the generations before me. I can only witness and appreciate the highlights of the greats before my time: Jim Brown, Walter Payton, and Earl Campbell. These 3 players single handedly shaped future football fans in previous decades with their contradictory styles. Earl Campbell with his power and speed, Walter Payton living up to the name ‘Sweetness’ with moves that were so sweet it rotted your teeth, and Jim Brown, just an uncanny combination of elusiveness, speed, power, and aggression! I often watch the highlights of these three and wish I could have seen them live and in their prime!
Then in 1986, the next specimen came along. Hershel Walker was built in the same mold as Earl Campbell. He was one of those fast, elusive runners that wasn’t afraid to take on the biggest and strongest combatants. He would leave defenders scattered on the field like it was the scene of a natural disaster movie.
Along with Herschel Walker was a kid named Vincent Jackson. You may know him better as ‘Bo’, a guy so athletically gifted that he not only excelled at football, but also on the diamond with the Kansas City Royals. The kid was such an amazing athlete that he (at a reported 210 lbs) was clocked at staggering 4.12 in the 40 yard dash at the 1986 NFL Combine, a number that is still talked about like it was myth. Stories still circulate about a 3.9 second 40 yard dash that he ran in high school as well, but that rumour can only be confirmed as a tall tale, but few would be surprised if evidence surfaced proving it as fact. Bo graced us with just 38 NFL games before a degenerative hip ended his masterful football career.
Two athletes that are known by their first name, Herschel and Bo. Two players that electrified the league for a combined 15 years.
These are 5 players that every fan should look up on YouTube, and just admire: Brown, Campbell, Payton, Walker and Jackson. All were just plain fun to watch throughout their college and pro careers. If it doesn’t give you a new appreciation for the game, and add to the love affair with football, you can never be won over as a fan.
Which brings us to the two modern day (read: during my life as a fanatic) players that changed the football landscape for the future of greatness…
Let’s rewind to a personal story of mine. In November of 1991, at the age of 11, and my parents decided to pack up the family car for a ten hour drive to Minnesota to see the Detroit Lions play the Minnesota Vikings in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. I vividly remember saying to my mom as the teams entered the dome ‘I don’t even know who I want to cheer for!’ Well, my mind was made up for me as I saw one of the most magical players of all time rack up one of his biggest and most impressive games of his oh-too-short career. Barry Sanders rushed the ball 23 times for 220 yards and 4 touchdowns in a winning effort. This was the WOW game that would engrain the game of football in my young, impressionable mind for eternity.
Sanders was the pinnacle of ‘wow’. The things Sanders did were inhuman. He raised the bar from the level his predecessors, from Jim Brown to Herschel Walker, had set to an almost unreachable height. His 5’8 frame could change direction on a dime, accelerate like a finely tuned Ferrari, and shed tackles like a snake shedding its skin. All of this from one one the quietest, most modest players to play the game.
I remember seeing an interview with one of the best defensive ends of the time, Kevin Greene, and his comments were something along the lines of ‘I don’t know how he does it! His ankles are not normal! They break, they heal…They break, they heal…’ Explaining what Barry Sanders did on the field to someone that didn’t see him play is like explaining a color to a blind person, or a sound to a deaf person. He simply left you speechless with the things he did.
…and then, much like Bo Jackson, he was gone way too early. If only the Detroit Lions could have built a team around him and given him the championship that a player of his caliber deserves.
Every two or three years, you hear about a new, fresh young stud coming out of college that has a ‘swagger’ to him. These players are often referred to as being moulded in the ‘Sanders-esqu’ ilk, but rarely….Nay, NEVER live up to these high expectations. Only one has come close to providing the non-stop excitement that Sanders could.
…I first saw Michael Vick as a freshman at Virginia Tech in 1998 (Watch that clip! His acceleration is mind-boggling!), and he was routinely doing things that I hadn’t seen since Sanders. I could see a new dawn of unbelievable plays coming, and for a few seasons, Vick electrified the NFL with his feet. Once again the wow factor was back, and placed squarely on the shoulders of a 22 year old punk with a pot habit, and a propensity for dog fighting. As time wore on, the cockiness, and lack of work ethic got the best of him, not to mention the fact he had deep ties to a dog fighting ring in his home state of Virginia. Soon after, in a story we all know too well, Vick was indicted on federal charges, and was removed from the NFL in the prime of his career. How could a player with such 1-in-a-billion talent take it for granted, and rob an entire fan base of years of held breath and dropped jaws? It was just selfish, and unfair. It was the end of the ‘Vick Wow Era’.
But I saw Sanders, and his bar was higher…
That entire preamble to get to today. The dawn of this new ‘Wow Player’. The Tennessee Titans second year running back Chris Johnson.
Who knew that when the Titans took Chris Johnson out of East Carolina with the 24th pick of the 2008 NFL Draft, they were potentially getting that next special player in the NFL? Who knew that the speedster would electrify a fan base that so desperately craved a wow player since the indictment of Vick two and a half years prior? Who knew the Titans were going to get a player that potentially could break ANY run and turn ANY game with every carry. Who knew they were getting a player that would routinely turn 2 yard gains into 12 yard spectacles.
I haven’t had this much fun watching a running back cut through the line of scrimmage since the days of Sanders dropping 200 yard rushing games in the 90’s like it was going out of style.
Chris Johnson is a speedster, but that is not his only attribute. He can quite easily drop his front shoulder, and crash into linebackers, pushing them back another 2 or 3 yards. He can make a key block in the backfield, only to slip outside the tackle and catch a dump pass and turn it up field for a massive gain. He can read the block. He has the vision. He has the speed to outrun defenders like they are lions attempting to chase down a gazelle on the Serengeti plains.
It is really the first time since the November afternoon in 1991 that I have been excited to see a career unfold in front of me. I know every week, he could change the outcome of a football game, whether it is Nashville, or in fantasy leagues across the globe. All I know is that there is a good chance I will be sitting at home, with my jaw on the floor muttering that amazing word that keeps me coming back every fall.
Wow.
Please comment on your favorite ‘wow’ plays, games, or players.
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LT in his prime was fun to watch.
Who knew?
I KNEW !!
The Michael Vick performance in the Virginia Tech – Florida State game so many years ago was easily one of the biggest WOW moments I've watched.
Marvin Harrison is my football guy, mainly because I've watched just about every snap he's ever played. Check out this highlight catch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLGIxMaca9o&feature=related
Or this one. Start watching at the 2:10 mark of the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZHaKGDYspE
For other sports, here are some opinions off the top of my head.
Vince Carter had the potential to be a WOW player, but too bad he was such a pouting sissy.
Another one was the Jaromir Jagr "repeatedly spinning" goal in the playoffs back when Mario was still with the Penguins.
If you want to see some crazy soccer plays, looks back at my Ronaldinho article a few months ago – he was the epitomy of WOW.
There is also a Kaka goal in the 2006-07 Champions League against Man U in which he embarrasses 3 defenders.