Curtis Vs. Thurman

[southhampton]

With the recent news that Curtis Martin's career is almost assuredly over, i thought this could be a good debate. Who was the better player.

Try to leave the homerism out of it and judge by team success, importance to team, numbers, etc....


Thurman Thomas

+--------------------------+--------------------------------+
| Rushing | Receiving |
+----------+---+---------------------+---------------------+
| Year TM | G | Att Yards Y/A TD | Rec Yards Y/R TD |
+----------+----+--------------------+---------------------+
| 1988 buf | 15 | 207 881 4.3 2 | 18 208 11.6 0 |
| 1989 buf | 16 | 298 1244 4.2 6 | 60 669 11.2 6 |
| 1990 buf | 16 | 271 1297 4.8 11 | 49 532 10.9 2 |
| 1991 buf | 15 | 288 1407 4.9 7 | 62 631 10.2 5 |
| 1992 buf | 16 | 312 1487 4.8 9 | 58 626 10.8 3 |
| 1993 buf | 16 | 355 1315 3.7 6 | 48 387 8.1 0 |
| 1994 buf | 15 | 287 1093 3.8 7 | 50 349 7.0 2 |
| 1995 buf | 14 | 267 1005 3.8 6 | 26 220 8.5 2 |
| 1996 buf | 15 | 281 1033 3.7 8 | 26 254 9.8 0 |
| 1997 buf | 16 | 154 643 4.2 1 | 30 208 6.9 0 |
| 1998 buf | 14 | 93 381 4.1 2 | 26 220 8.5 1 |
| 1999 buf | 5 | 36 152 4.2 0 | 3 37 12.3 1 |
| 2000 mia | 9 | 28 136 4.9 0 | 16 117 7.3 1 |
+--------+-----+--------------------------+---------------------+
| TOTAL | 182 | 2877 12074 4.2 65 | 472 4458 9.4 23 |
+--------+-----+--------------------------+---------------------+


Curtis Martin

+--------------------------------+-------------------------+
| Rushing | Receiving |
+----------+---+---------------------+---------------------+
| Year TM | G | Att Yards Y/A TD | Rec Yards Y/R TD |
+----------+---+---- ----------------+---------------------+
| 1995 nwe | 16 | 368 1487 4.0 14 | 30 261 8.7 1 |
| 1996 nwe | 16 | 316 1152 3.6 14 | 46 333 7.2 3 |
| 1997 nwe | 13 | 274 1160 4.2 4 | 41 296 7.2 1 |
| 1998 nyj | 15 | 369 1287 3.5 8 | 43 365 8.5 1 |
| 1999 nyj | 16 | 367 1464 4.0 5 | 45 259 5.8 0 |
| 2000 nyj | 16 | 316 1204 3.8 9 | 70 508 7.3 2 |
| 2001 nyj | 16 | 333 1513 4.5 10 | 53 320 6.0 0 |
| 2002 nyj | 16 | 261 1094 4.2 7 | 49 362 7.4 0 |
| 2003 nyj | 16 | 323 1308 4.0 2 | 42 262 6.2 0 |
| 2004 nyj | 16 | 371 1697 4.6 12 | 41 245 6.0 2 |
| 2005 nyj | 12 | 220 735 3.3 5 | 24 118 4.9 0 |
+--------+------+------------ ------------+---------------------+
| TOTAL | 168 | 3518 14101 4.0 90 | 484 3329 6.9 10 |
+--------+------+----- -------------------+---------------------+

[southhampton]

Thurmans teams had more success, but he was less important to those teams than curtis was to his. Curtis has the better numbers for a career as well as the best individual season. I think both of these guys are in the top 5 most underrated rb's of all time, but i think the edge has to go to Martin.

[kcbonnies]

I can't stand either of these teams, so there will be no bias in my answer. You have to give it to Thurman. His teams actually did something and his skills opened up the entire "K-gun" attack. Martin, while he did not have the same talent around him, was not able to open up his team's offense. I make the comparison with what LJ and the Priest were able to do for the Chiefs over the last couple of years. There is little skill postion talent besides those backs, but the threat of them lead to some real high scores with play action, making Trent green a probowler and Eddie Kenison a decent WR. Thomas was able to do the same thing, except the guys he made better were good to start off with.
You can't look just at the stats, you have to look at the team result when arguing something like this.

[s dot carter]

Thomas' Super Bowl appearances - 4
Martin's Super Bowl appearances- 1? (with NE in '96, right?)

Thomas MVP awards- 1
Martin MVP awards- 0

Both were great players, but Thomas was better

[mikenice]

Thomas' SuperBowl fumbles?

[kcsbu03]

I dont care for the Bills and pretty much hated them in the early 90's ( except for Norwood of course) but I have to give the edge to Thurman but not by much. He played on better teams and in SB XXV he gashed the Giants pretty good and would have been MVP had Norwood not missed the FG ( wide right! I still say that to Bills fans and they still get pissed off. Never gets old) Martin was greater for a longer period of time though which does weigh into things. They were pretty much the same type of back. The Bills' succes puts Thomas just ahead

[southhampton]

Thomas may have gotten to more superbowls but he was terrible in two of them, bad in another, very good in the last. Curtis also played poorly during his superbowl, but it was due to lack of touches. He only got 11 carries, but still averaged just under 4 per.

Carries/Yards

Curtis
11/42

Thurman
15/135
11/13
11/19
16/37
total: 53/204
for just under 4 yards a carry

edit: rereading this i have no idea what it says

[thebonabus]

southhampton said:

Thurmans teams had more success, but he was less important to those teams than curtis was to his.

I am going to have to disagree with this statement. While I agree Curtis was a MAJOR part of carrying his team's offense, without Thurman, the Bills were screwed. Not for the sure dynamic of him as a running back, but as a RB who could catch the ball as well. When the Bills were going to the Super Bowls, he averaged over 500+ yards a year in receiving and added and 16 TDs from 89-92 alone (Martin posted 10 for his career). He was the original receiving RB and added an entirely new dimension to the position and without that, the Bills would have been very much a normal team during those years. As a pure runner goes, Martin possibly is better by a hair, but as an overall RB and vital player to his team, #34 holds the edge.

Not to forget, I'll always remeber Thurman losing his helmet in SB 26. Martin didn't do anything so memorable during his career!

[vinnypunditsheros]

You gotta give it to Thomas. He led the league in yards from scrimmage for four straight seasons. He would have had more TDs, but Kenny Davis took it over the top or Carwell Gardner bulled through the goal line. I don't know though, maybe not using him at the goal line is a knock against him.
He'd also line up as a wide receiver.

[mikenice]

Is Cosmo going to ask why Terry Kirby, Bernie Parmalee or the second Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are not part of this debate?

[CosmonautLaunchPad]

mikenice said:

Is Cosmo going to ask why Terry Kirby, Bernie Parmalee or the second Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are not part of this debate?

Nope. I can understand why they aren't mentioned. The running game was never a big part of Miami's offense in those days, although Bernie Parmalee was the man. Guy drove a UPS truck before becoming Miami's running back. Then went on to have a pretty good special teams career. I think he finished up with the Skets.

My vote went to Thurman. These types of things really aren't that hard. You don't even have to look at the numbers. The players that usually were the best are those that you remember the most. And I remember Thurman having more big games than Curtis.

[mikenice]

Bernie is now the running backs coach/assistant special teams coach at ND.

Curtis Martin was an extremely quiet star on mostly average-to-pretty good teams. I voted for Curtis because I saw pretty much every Jet game of his career. Not flashy, but a great runningback.

Not to take anything away from Thurman, because I saw him enough to know how good he was.

Completely off topic, but I had a game one night with a buddy at Bonaventure that whoever ran out of names of running backs from Tecmo Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl had to pound their Sparx. Not a huge bet, but after a full day and night of drinking it was sure to be tough to swallow. He pussied out when he lost.