This past Sunday wasn’t an easy day for me to handle. I called in sick to work so I could relax and watch a little football. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was the day Emmitt Smith was probably going to break the rushing record.

Considering the fact that Smith is one of the most overrated running backs of all time and doesn’t deserve all the accolades, I did my best to ignore the Smith talk all day.

But it never stopped. They showed his lame, stumbling run that got him the record over and over again.

They showed his former teammate Michael Irvin on the sideline in tears. Then the talks of whether Smith was the best running back of all time started coming.

So my excuse not to go into work that day was no longer an excuse, and I was ready to chime in. So I found my roommate, who is a Cowboy fan, and went to town.

I’m not going to be as ignorant as usual and say that Smith wasn’t a good running back. But that’s all he was, good. He wasn’t great and is not even close to being the best ever.

I would put him in my top ten running backs of all time, in the bottom four.

He barely owns the rushing record, and much of the record has to be attributed to all of the great offensive lines he had over the years and the fact that he has gotten the ball more than any other running back in history.

Look at Smith highlights from the years when he gained most of his yards, the years of the Cowboy teams in 1993 and 1994, and you see him darting through huge holes untouched for seven and eight yards at a time.

I don’t want to make any bold statements, but I would think any running back would do quite well with blocking like that, especially with nearly 25 attempts per game.

In my early years of football fandom, I had a rather strong Barry Sanders obsession. He is the definition of a great running back and the way he eluded defenses and racked up countless yards for a team that wasn’t that good.

Sanders has 867 fewer attempts than Smith, played three years fewer, averaged almost a yard more per carry and is only 1,474 yards behind Smith. Sanders rushed for 2,053 in 1997 alone. So it’s not like Smith was dominant in his climb to the top of the record.

Sanders, along with former rushing leader Walter Payton, is who people should talk about when they describe the greatest running backs of all time.

One of the more beautiful things about Smith’s record breaking day was the fact that the Cowboys lost, and nobody cared because all the Cowboys are right now is an outlet for Smith to break and add to his record.

The Cowboys have no money because they are still paying such retired players as Troy Aikman and Irvin.

So, lovely Dallas owner Jerry Jones decided to keep Smith as the starter so he can break the record and give the franchise some positive media coverage, even though handing the ball off to an old man won’t get the team anywhere in the win/loss column.

I am trying to be less cynical, so I will say that one of the few impressive things about Smith’s career is his lack of injuries. This can pretty much be chalked up to luck, so it’s really not that impressive.

Smith claims he’ll stay around and play longer for love of the game. But he probably feels Marshall Faulk nipping at his heels (he’s 6,700 yards away) so he is going to continue hurting the Cowboys until someone finally lays that career-ending hit on him.

Unfortunately, Smith’s name will be etched at the top of the rushing record for a while, thanks to Sanders retiring while still in his prime.

But if a conversation ever comes up about the best running back of all time, remember that Smith’s name belongs at the bottom of that list.

Kyle Moss

is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.