Smith Ready To Make Run At Payton

Football fans don’t follow numbers the way baseball fans do.

Football, for example, has no comparable numbers to 2,130, 56 and .367.

This explains why football fans couldn’t identify the number 16,726 the way baseball fans could identify 2,130 with Lou Gehrig’s consecutivegames playing streak - before Cal Ripken broke the record last season - 56 with Joe DiMaggio’s consecutive-game hitting streak and .367 with Ty Cobb’s lifetime batting average.

But football fans may soon start to recognize 16,726 - the career rushing yards total rolled up by Walter Payton.

Since Payton retired from the Chicago Bears in 1987, no one has made a serious run at it. Eric Dickerson is a distant second at 13,259.

That’s about to change. Emmitt Smith is ready to take a run at it.

The eight-year mega-buck contract Smith signed with the Dallas Cowboys last week guaranteed he’ll finish his career with the team and he already has 8,956 yards in six years for 13th place on the all-time list.

“That’s definitely one goal,” Smith said of the rushing record. “My body feels fine. I feel like I have another eight years in me.”

The odds are still against Smith because he’s averaged 334.5 carries a season. Payton, who played 13 years, averaged 295.2. Those extra 34 carries a year could cause Smith to burn out earlier than Payton did. Only six players in NFL history have had 1,000-yard seasons at age 31 or over.

Shooting for the record helps explain why Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones shelled out the money to ensure Smith plays out his career in Dallas. Jones is too much the showman to let Smith ever do it in another uniform.

Not that Jones paid as much as he made it sound he did. Jones made the grandiose announcement he was giving Smith a $15 million signing bonus.

When the contract was sent to the league office, the bonus was actually $10.5 million. In the fine print, Smith could take $15 million if it were spread over 20 years.

If Smith wanted his money sooner, he has to take $10.5 million, which he did. But the $15 million announcement gave Jones one more chance to annoy his peers.

Coach Vince Tobin of the Arizona Cardinals said, “It seems like some people have the same rules and tend to get around them. The league ought to be run where everyone is playing under the same rules. All you want as a coach is a level playing field.”