The Browns once had a running back who resembled Barry Sanders. (If you aren't old enough to know who Sanders was, you need look at some old NFL films and get up to speed.) He had the shake and bake moves, the amazing quickness and the burst to score every time he touched the ball. The man was Greg Pruitt and when the Browns got him in the draft from the Oklahoma Sooners, hand-offs were suddenly exciting by the lake. He was an All-American for two years in college and came to the Browns with high expectations.
Pruitt was a scat-back, small even by the standards of the day, at about 5 foot 10 and 190 pounds. If any of us mere mortals had tried to play two-hand touch or flag football with him in his prime, I'm sure we wouldn't have been able to even put a finger on him. The NFL however was FULL of amazing athletes of much greater size that COULD and did lay hands on Greg.
Pruitt was constantly making people miss and getting slammed to the ground by his jersey. So many guys were literally grasping at straws and snagging him that he decided to do something about it. When he started wearing very flimsy, tear away jerseys the opposition suddenly had a problem. When they caught up to him and grabbed his jersey, it simply ripped off of him and away he went, sort of like the Road-Runner when Wile Coyote got close. BEEP BEEP.
Three Pro-Bowls and constant frustrated defenders later, the NFL finally decided the jerseys were giving Greg an unfair advantage. They passed "The Greg Pruitt Rule" that outlawed the tear away to balance the scales of justice once again. As a Browns fan..I think Pruitt was amazing and the tear away jersey was perfectly fair, at least until he finished his career with the Raiders. Go Browns!.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Greg Pruitt and the Tear-Away Jersey
The Browns once had a running back who resembled Barry Sanders. (If you aren't old enough to know who Sanders was, you need look at some old NFL films and get up to speed.) He had the shake and bake moves, the amazing quickness and the burst to score every time he touched the ball. The man was Greg Pruitt and when the Browns got him in the draft from the Oklahoma Sooners, hand-offs were suddenly exciting by the lake. He was an All-American for two years in college and came to the Browns with high expectations.
Pruitt was a scat-back, small even by the standards of the day, at about 5 foot 10 and 190 pounds. If any of us mere mortals had tried to play two-hand touch or flag football with him in his prime, I'm sure we wouldn't have been able to even put a finger on him. The NFL however was FULL of amazing athletes of much greater size that COULD and did lay hands on Greg.
Pruitt was constantly making people miss and getting slammed to the ground by his jersey. So many guys were literally grasping at straws and snagging him that he decided to do something about it. When he started wearing very flimsy, tear away jerseys the opposition suddenly had a problem. When they caught up to him and grabbed his jersey, it simply ripped off of him and away he went, sort of like the Road-Runner when Wile Coyote got close. BEEP BEEP.
Three Pro-Bowls and constant frustrated defenders later, the NFL finally decided the jerseys were giving Greg an unfair advantage. They passed "The Greg Pruitt Rule" that outlawed the tear away to balance the scales of justice once again. As a Browns fan..I think Pruitt was amazing and the tear away jersey was perfectly fair, at least until he finished his career with the Raiders. Go Browns!.
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