Wednesday, May 10, 2000

Star wars

NFL personalities don’t have the high profile they once did

By Robert Neely, Associate editor

I noticed something during my time in Santo Domingo: Football is not an international sport. The papers down there had lots of major-league baseball scores and some info on the upcoming NBA playoffs, but I was not able to find any recaps of the NFL draft.

That little bit of culture shock — which I got over as soon as I hit U.S. soil by digging up a complete draft recap at the Miami airport — got me to thinking about the NFL’s place in our collective consciousness.

(Please don’t bail on this column now, thinking that an ivory-tower discourse is coming. I promise that it’s going somewhere interesting.)

Here’s the question I asked myself: Does the NFL have as many superstars as it once did?

I want to be clear: In no way would I contend that the talent in the NFL isn’t as good as it used to be. If anything, there are probably more unique talents out there now than there have been at any point in the past. In this context, a superstar is such not because of performance as much as for persona. It’s someone who is known by one name or a catchy nickname.

The NFL used to have those characters, but the big names whom I grew up watching — Joe Montana, John Elway, Walter Payton, Dan Marino, Lawrence Taylor, even "the Refrigerator" Perry — simply aren’t around anymore.

Think of it this way: When you thought of sports in San Francisco, you thought of Montana. In Denver, it was Elway. In Miami, Dan Marino. "L.T." may have been the highest-profile New York athlete of the ’80s.

That’s not the case anymore. With the recent retirements of Elway and Marino, few cities point to the NFL for their sports star power anymore. Here in Chicago, Michael Jordan and Sammy Sosa are much bigger than any Bears player. As Steve Young and Jerry Rice near the end in San Francisco, Barry Bonds gains on them in the Q-rating department. And with Keyshawn Johnson now in Tampa Bay, no football player in New York can hold a candle to Derek Jeter or Mike Piazza as back-page fodder.

Maybe my sociology skills are faulty, but here’s my hunch: If we went on the streets of any city in America and asked the average American (one who isn’t a sports freak) who his or her five favorite athletes are, my guess is that NFL players wouldn’t pop to mind immediately.

Now, the question is: Why? Here are a few of my ideas:

1. A changing of the guard — Elway and Marino have ridden off into the sunset, while Barry Sanders has ridden into limbo. Steve Young is near the end, followed closely by Rice. Deion Sanders, Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith, big names who became such in big games, are a lot closer to the end than the beginning as well.
2. Product placement — Brett Favre is probably the brightest star among current NFL stars, but he plies his trade in Green Bay, a minor media market. The next two on my list, Terrell Davis and Randy Moss, aren’t in the biggest major markets either.
3. Personality profile — Favre and Davis fit the media-friendly category. But Moss can be a bit of a prickly personality, and Peyton Manning’s Q-rating is held down by his straightforward demeanor. Ricky Williams, another star, can also be a bit of an odd guy at times.

All this isn’t to say that the NFL is in trouble. It’s one sport where the game, more than the personalities, is the drawing card. But it would be interesting to find some new stars on the horizon.

To one man’s list of NFL superstars

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