What is it about great running backs who end their careers prematurely that makes us fans worship them as gods who’ve walked the earth only to return to the heavens from whence they’d came? Players such as Jim Brown (who dropped out of NHL High to take up the noble causes of social activism, bad acting, and posing in Playgirl) and Bo Jackson (forced into retirement due to a hip injury) pretty much pioneered this phenomena, but let’s not forget the most prominent example of this: Barry Sanders.

Barry Sanders is one of the most enigmatic superstars in all of sports. At the height of his Hall of Fame career, within one season’s worth of rushing to break the NFL rushing record, Sanders’ walked away from the game seemingly on a whim. It was revealed years later that Sanders was frustrated by the Lions’ culture of losing and didn’t see a turn around coming. A shame really, as Sanders, left the door open for Emmitt “At Least 50% of My Rushing Yards Belong to My Offensive Line” Smith to snatch up the rushing record. Surely, had Barry continued, The Protected One would’ve been regulated to a distant number two.

Fortunately, the code-jockeys at Tecmo recognized Barry’s greatness and juiced him up real nice-like, because you aren’t considered a star athlete in Tecmo Super Bowl unless you can accumulate an entire real-world season’s worth of yards in one game.

Sanders rocked three plays out of the default Detroit Lions playbook (QB Rodney Peete got the other  – - sucks to be the other running back). His Up + A play is his most lethal of this trio as it gave Sanders enough time to build up a good head of steam, and accelerate to his maximum speed.

While backs like Christian Okoye rely on brute strength to smash their way to the end zone (savages!), digital Barry was able to dance around defenders like Fred Astaire thanks to incredibly swift feet. He was also blessed with a Receiving rank of 44, which is pretty darned good for a running back (in comparison, Okaye was given a rather pathetic hands of 19, hence his fumbellina tendencies; Thurman Thomas was given 50).

Truly, there isn’t a weakness in Sanders game. He’s the second greatest sports videogame running back ever, but some say even that ranking is too low for him. I, obviously, disagree, but place him amongst the elite 2D football elite.