Besides the fact that you're a ****ing twat, what made LaDanian Tomlinson transcendent?

Why does he deserve to be canonized next to Walter Payton, Tony Dorsett, Marcus Allen, Emmitt Smith and Franco Harris?

Reed had the benefit of a better team and much better QB. Brown out produced Reed in Receptions,, Yards, Touchdowns and All Purpose Yards.
You are a MORON

Troll DaneMcDouche is an absolute ass. Giving negative rep. You're a F'ing infant.

He didn't win shit and he does not belong in the Hall of Fame with Jerry Rice, Lynn Swann and Michael Irvin BEFORE Andre Reed.

He wasn't a transcendent player. Get over it.

Reported for bypassing the language filter

If Curtis Martin got in, then Tomlinson will most likely as well. Their career numbers are close.

I wouldn't say either player was transcendent though.

I'm with you.

I think Martin got in because he was a Patriot and a Jet (read: East Coast Bias).

If he was a Charger or a Jaguar, he would have had no chance.

He was incredible and had about as impressive an 8-year span as you could imagine.

He had good size and the power and durability to handle 300+ carries a season consistently.

He could run between the tackles, he could beat the LBs to the outside, and he had fantastic vision- as evidenced by his insane TD production.

He was also one of the best dual-threat RBs in league history.

All of that combined in a guy that was good in pass protection and absolutely, incredibly reliable in terms of ball security.

There was no weakness in his game.

Agreed - Bettis was an animal.

My 5:

Greene
Bettis
Shields
Haley
Brooks

Take a look at the running backs currently in the Hall of Fame. Outside of Curtis Martin, who at least led his team to the Super Bowl and an AFC Championship Game with the Jets, they were transcendent players.

Tomlinson was a very good player that belongs in the Chargers Hall of Fame.

I would not vote for him on an NFL Hall of Fame ballot.

He's not a HoFer by any standards, IMO.

Sayers shouldn't have been either.

Sorry, but the Hall of Fame requires a great peak and significant duration.

Besides, I'm not willing to take Davis's raw production at face value anyway. As Rainman noted, the dropoff from Davis to Olandis Gary and Mike Anderson was pretty nominal.

Davis isn't anywhere close to a HoF runningback. 3 seasons don't get you into the HOF and the only people that think it should are Broncos fans.

Payton. Sure.
Smith. Yeah, can't argue with the numbers, even if his line did most of the work.

Allen - boy, it's getting thin there; I'm not sure I'd consider Allen a clearly more worthy entry to the Hall than Tomlinson.
Dorsett - thinner.
Harris - oh c'mon. Nope, that's where I can't even try to muster an argument. I'd take Tomlinson over Franco Harris 100 times out of 100.

Tomlinson's one of the top 10 rushers in NFL history (#5 by yardage) and was arguably the most dynamic RB out of the backfield in league history.

To use your argument - If Marshall Faulk is a HOFer, so is Tomlinson. And Tomlinson is a hell of a lot closer to Faulk in terms of performance than he is to a guy like Eddie George. I'm not real sure why you keep going to the Eddie George well; he's nowhere near the candidate that guys like Bettis and Tomlinson were, regardless of what metric you want to use. Bettis won a championship and was a more prolific runner (significantly so). Tomlinson never won a championship, but was better in every phase of the game, including the grunt work like blitz pickups.

Yes, Tomlinson absolutely deserves to be enshrined alongside some of the greats you've mentioned.

And ultimately, I'm absolutely confident he will be.

The difference between Franco Harris, Tony Dorsett, Marcus Allen and Tomlinson is that the former were transcendent players on Super Bowl winning teams.

The Hall of Fame should be about great players that either elevate or transcend and while Tomlinson was very, very good, IMO, he was neither able to elevate the play of his teammates nor transcend the game like a Barry Sanders or even Adrian Peterson (who has a long way to go to be HOF worthy, IMO).

Regardless of whether or not he gets in, I wouldn't vote for him.

That said, keeping a high profile on the NFL Network will certainly help him, as it did Cris Carter at ESPN.

Sense.

You're making it!

Transcendent is the definition you're using, so why don't you explain what makes it such.

Without the immaculate reception, Harris is not a transcendent player. Without a single incredible run against Washington, Allen isn't. Dorsett? Well he just isn't.

You're asking ThaVirus to explain what makes Tomlinson a transcendent player, meanwhile I see nothing to suggest that some of the guys you're holding up meet that test themselves. Franco didn't make his team better - the Steel Curtain did. And the Raiders weren't exactly hurting for success before Allen got there - they won the SB in 1980. Dorsett? During his best years, the Cowboys were largely also-rans. They won a SB with him as a rookie, sure - that's enough to offset the fact that Tomlinson was better than him at literally every conceivable measure of evaluating performance?

I think you're just calling guys that won rings 'transcendent' and in so doing you're doing a huge disservice to a guy like Tomlinson that simply outperformed pretty much every name you're offering.