Where Is The Next AP/Barry/Dickerson/OJ, etc.

The last historically great pure runner was Adrian Peterson. And that's going back a fair bit since he was drafted in 2007. We haven't seen an all time great pure runner of the football come into the NFL in nearly 20 years.

And there used to guys coming into the league like that on the regular. Guys like Jim Brown, Earl Campbell, Gale Sayers, OJ Simpson, Barry Sanders, Eric Dickerson, etc.

My best guess is that the best athletes don't play RB anymore. At this point my guys are running backs because they are 5'10" and coaches just look at any short guy and say it's RB for you. A freak athlete who is 6'2" with long arms like Peterson was, would be steered away from Running Back. Coaches would have him play receiver or put on weight and try and play Edge Rusher. Because of positional value.

There is no way for example that a guy like OJ would be playing RB today. He was 6'2" and extremely athletic. Many coaches today would consider him to be wasting his talent at RB.