For years, fans have debated and deliberated for hours about who’s the greatest player in the history of the National Football League.
Notably, most people will always rave about quarterbacks or offensive players, with Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, and now Tom Brady as the most common answers to that question.
However, former WR Brandon Marshall believes that’s a misconception, and he recently went on to explain why he thinks the GOAT of football should be a defensive player.
“I think the [NFL] GOAT resides on the defensive side.”
Do you agree or disagree with @BMarshall? 🧐
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Marshall cites that a guy like Brady needs an offensive coordinator to call a play, and then he also needs his receiver to complete the reception to get the job done.
A defensive player like Aaron Donald or Lawrence Taylor, on the other hand, could still find a way to make an impact even if the defensive coordinator calls a bad play, which is why he believes the GOAT breakdown should objectively have a defensive player at the top of the pyramid.
That’s a rather interesting take, and Marshall has become known — and sometimes infamous — for his outside-of-the-box thinking.
Taylor and Donald should most definitely be in the GOAT conversation, and not only when we talk about defenders, but perhaps that’s not the easiest way to explain his logic or break that argument down.
At the end of the day, it’s hard to put together an objective criterion to determine who’s the greatest player of all time, especially when we compare guys from different eras who played under different sets of rules and didn’t even play the same position.
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