#26

 

DEION SANDERS

As great a player as Deion Sanders was in the National Football League—he was a 10-time All-Pro performer—he could have been even better had he committed to football full-time. Instead, Sanders also pursued a baseball career and was good enough to last nine seasons in the major leagues.

There is little doubt that Sanders was one of the best athletes to ever play the game. When it came to the particular job of covering receivers, many NFL scouts, coaches, and general managers believe Sanders was the best ever. Sanders did not invent the term, but after he was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons in 1989, head coach Jerry Glanville (who came aboard the following year) said the team’s confidence was so strong in Sanders that they would simply “leave him on the island” against the opponent’s best receiver. That phrase has since become part of the NFL’s daily lexicon when it comes to a cornerback who can cover a receiver without any help.

Sanders came into the league referring to himself as “Prime Time” and boasting extreme confidence in his abilities. He didn’t think he would have any kind of adjustment period after his career at Florida State came to an end and the Falcons called his name with the fifth pick in the draft. “I have watched the NFL and they have talented receivers,” Sanders said. “But what do I have to be afraid of? Are they faster than I am? Are they more talented than I am? I don’t think so. From what I see, they have a lot more to be fearful of than I do. Go ahead and call me cocky or arrogant. But I’m being honest. I don’t see why I should have trouble covering the NFL receivers.”

This included San Francisco’s Jerry Rice, the greatest receiver in NFL history. While Sanders did not win every battle against him, Rice realized that when he had to face Sanders it was going to be a major test of his abilities. Rice never lost any of his confidence when he was going up against Sanders, but he prepared differently for him than he did other defensive backs. “He was so fast and he had so much ability that you couldn’t just go out and run against him,” Rice recalled. “I studied him and tried to learn his tendencies. I know that’s usually what defensive backs do, but when I had to go up against Deion or Darrell Green, I studied them. You have to get an edge somehow and that’s what I would do.”

Sanders put together remarkable numbers that spoke to his remarkable ability to turn a game around with his spectacular ability. Nine of his 53 regular-season interceptions were returned for touchdowns during his career, tied for second-best all-time. His career-high for interceptions in a single season was seven (1993) and that number is striking because it’s not higher. One reason it isn’t is because Sanders was so dominant in coverage that many teams wouldn’t even test him. They would simply try their luck with one of the other Falcons defensive backs—remember the luckless Charles Dimry?—and simply not even look at Sanders’ side of the ball. They knew he was too good to challenge.

Sanders always said that was one of the reasons he was interested in baseball. “I got bored sometimes,” Sanders said. “They wouldn’t throw to me or come to my side of the field. That leads to being bored.”

Sanders got quite a bit of excitement from returning kickoffs and punts, though. Glanville wanted to get Sanders as many touches as he could, so he had Sanders return kicks—especially when the game was on the line. He had six punt returns and three kickoff returns for touchdowns in his career and was considered the most dangerous return man in the league for much of his career. His 19 total non-offensive touchdowns stand as a league record.

Sanders’s game did have one glaring deficiency, though. From the time he was a college star at Florida State through his pro career with the Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, and Baltimore Ravens, he was never one who was going to stick his nose in the fray and make a big tackle. As the years went by his tendency to shy away from the physical contact became more and more pronounced. It was clear that Sanders did not enjoy that part of the game—when he was asked to evaluate his tackling, he said it was “lousy.”

That part of his game made many of his coaches ill. But it also speaks to how good he was in coverage. It was impossible to shake Sanders with a single move, and double moves only created the illusion that a receiver was open. “They might be able to get a half-step but that was a good thing,” Sanders explained. “I wanted the quarterback to think the receiver was open so he would throw to him and I could run in and get the interception. For someone to actually beat me, it had to be somebody like Jerry Rice or someone who ran the best route of his life. I was not about to let somebody say they got the best of Prime Time.”

Sanders was enamored with self-promotion and getting his name in the headlines. That kind of behavior did not make him one of the game’s most popular players. “There were fans who loved me and there were fans who hated me,” Sanders said. “There were players who felt the same way. I was aware of that. But I was just going to be me the whole way through. I played the way I thought the game should be played and I was going to dance after an interception or a big play. If somebody didn’t like it all they had to do was tackle me.”

Sanders won back-to-back Super Bowls with the 49ers and Cowboys in 1994 and 1995. He called those moments the highlights of his career and it validated him as a team player. However, it was Sanders the individual who impressed fans the most. Running with an interception was his forte and he had 303 interception return yards in 1994 when he was with the Niners. Sanders’s signature move was putting his hand on his helmet and then high-stepping into the end zone—with the cameras focusing on him and his opponents seething.