Bryant Young entering the NFL Hall of Fame

Originally posted by WildBill:
The NFL didn't begin to officially count sacks until after Hardman's career-that number is supposedly unofficial which may be more or less from what I remember when they about sacks from players of that era

That's true but Pro Football Reference has gone back and tallied the sacks made prior to the official NFL count. The top 20 now includes greats like Deacon Jones (173), Jack Youngblood (151), Alan Page (148) and Carl Eller (133). Kudos to them for going back and reviewing film so these great players could get their just due.

How can you not have members of the Fearsome Foursome or the Purple People Eaters on the list?

Originally posted by jersey49er:
Man was his speech amazing ! RIP to his son Kobe, just goes to show you no matter who you are, how much money, fame, you never know what ppl are truly going through, cancer doesn't discriminate, I live by health, happiness, love and loyalty. United we stand divided we fall !

Colby not Kobe lol

Who ya got:

Justin Smith vs Bryant Young.

I got Smith.

Originally posted by pdizo916:
Who ya got:

Justin Smith vs Bryant Young.

I got Smith.

Going with BY. Justin had an incredible run with an elite defense. BY never truly had the same luxury. It's a close one though and gotta go with a lifetime niner.

Young over Smith

Loved watching BY

BY and it's not even close. BY got the ring in his rookie season.

cowboy was nice too

Originally posted by walker807:

Originally posted by pdizo916:
Who ya got:

Justin Smith vs Bryant Young.

I got Smith.

Going with BY. Justin had an incredible run with an elite defense. BY never truly had the same luxury. It's a close one though and gotta go with a lifetime niner.

BY got Stubby the DPOY. Stubby proceeds to go to Washington and falls off a cliff.

BY had as many sacks as Justin Smith as a DT.

Smith played in a few more games too and was a DE.

BY all day.

Originally posted by Young2Rice:
BY had as many sacks as Justin Smith as a DT.

Smith played in a few more games too and was a DE.

BY all day.

While BY was surrounded by great players early on, by 1998 that wasn't so true on defense anymore. I'll say its great we had such great DTs. If only Justin arrived a couple years earlier or if BY was a couple years younger and could've played with the Harbaugh teams.

Originally posted by CatchMaster80:

Originally posted by WildBill:
The NFL didn't begin to officially count sacks until after Hardman's career-that number is supposedly unofficial which may be more or less from what I remember when they about sacks from players of that era

That's true but Pro Football Reference has gone back and tallied the sacks made prior to the official NFL count. The top 20 now includes greats like Deacon Jones (173), Jack Youngblood (151), Alan Page (148) and Carl Eller (133). Kudos to them for going back and reviewing film so these great players could get their just due.

How can you not have members of the Fearsome Foursome or the Purple People Eaters on the list?

whoa. is this even possible? Is there tape of every game from the pre-national tv era? holy moly.

Originally posted by Young2Rice:
BY had as many sacks as Justin Smith as a DT.

Smith played in a few more games too and was a DE.

BY all day.

oh yah. before the injury BY was Donald quality, fk norton.

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:

Originally posted by walker807:

Originally posted by pdizo916:
Who ya got:

Justin Smith vs Bryant Young.

I got Smith.

Going with BY. Justin had an incredible run with an elite defense. BY never truly had the same luxury. It's a close one though and gotta go with a lifetime niner.

BY got Stubby the DPOY. Stubby proceeds to go to Washington and falls off a cliff.

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:
While BY was surrounded by great players early on, by 1998 that wasn't so true on defense anymore. I'll say its great we had such great DTs. If only Justin arrived a couple years earlier or if BY was a couple years younger and could've played with the Harbaugh teams.

This.

(1994) Rookie season, BY joins a eventual powerhouse Niners D that had loaded up on FA's that offseason—eventually 7 new players became starters, after the team cut loose/retired a lot of the familiar anchors from the late-80's/early-90's Niners defenses that were too old to stop the Cowboys or too expensive to retain in the inaugural salary cap season…a couple of the new starters (BY and Lee Woodall) were strong and surprising rookie contributors—it took time to gel, with some injuries early in the season to guys like Richard Dent (never really came back to contribute) and then trying to work Deion into the secondary (didn't take too long lol), and then after that blowoff loss to the Eagles, both the D and offense took off from there and never looked back.

(1997) BY is now in his 4th year and in his prime. The team looked to recapture and repeat some of the formula from 1994 in refitting their D: trading for Rod Woodson and signing vets like Kevin Greene…but age and the salary cap (whose new rules the team had "skirted" in '94) couldn't be eluded forever and the biggest nemesis for the Niners was no longer the Cowboys (who were dealing with their own growing pains in the new era of FA and the salary cap) but the Packers—a team that annoyingly had a HC from the Walsh tree, an eventual HOF QB that seemed to always beat the Niners…and a team that ran a carbon copy of the Niners' own offense. '97 the Niners also had a rookie HC (who had a disastrous first game against Tampa Bay), the offense overcame losing Young for a few games and Rice for essentially the season, Owens and Stokes broke out as WRs in the void of Jerry's absence, and the running game also finally revitalized after 2 years of malaise in Garrison Hearst's first season with the team. But the team wasn't as strong, as young and especially not as deep a roster as in '94 (had the same 13-3 record, but a lot of that was bloated from playing against a terrible NFC-W…team had 8 wins against the mediocre Rams, Saints, Falcons and Panthers, the latter being the strongest of the four). In the end, despite having the #1 seed and homefield, the team couldn't overcome the Packers.