Ultimately, Barry Sanders’ motivation for his shocking resignation was as simple as the fax he sent to the Detroit Lions informing them of his plans to hang up his cleats.
Sanders, who stunned everyone by retiring just as the Lions were entering training camp in the summer of 1999, recently expressed his decision to leave the club while he was still in the prime of his career.
“For me, the thing that drove me to play, that passion, just wasn’t there,” Sanders said in Amazon’s new documentary about the Hall of Fame running back. “There really was nothing left worth playing for. I didn’t see us as serious Super Bowl contenders, that’s pretty much it.”
Sanders’ comments on the issue in 2023 are similar to those he made 24 years earlier in the article announcing his retirement.
“The reason I am retiring is simple: my desire to get out of the game is greater than my desire to stay in it,” Sanders wrote. “I have searched my heart through and through and am comfortable with this decision.”
As discussed in the documentary, there were factors that ultimately led to Sanders no longer having the drive to continue playing. The main reason for this was that the Lions were 5-11 in Sanders’ final season and seemed light years away from being a legitimate contender. The fact that the team parted ways with several of the team’s core players during Detroit’s more successful years during Sanders’ tenure didn’t help matters.
The Lions came within one game of the Super Bowl in Sanders’ third season, but did not win a playoff game in any of his last seven seasons. While Sanders stayed, he saw some of the team’s better players leave town during those years. The departure of Pro Bowl center Kevin Glover after the 1997 season, for example, had a profound impact on Sanders, who would retire the following offseason.
“When you go to war with these guys and go into battle, you obviously form a bond,” Sanders said. “Some of the guys they may have brought in to replace those guys just weren’t the same, but you have to get on the field with the guys you train with. … Would this group have somehow been able to stick together?” “We definitely could have done a lot better and definitely would have won some playoff games.”
Sanders retired despite being just 1,458 yards away from breaking Walter Payton’s legendary career rushing record. He likely would have broken Payton’s record that season, as he ran for just 1,491 yards in 1998, in what was considered a “bad” year for him. Sanders had rushed for at least 1,500 yards in each of the previous four seasons and rushed for 2,053 yards in his MVP season in 1997.
In 2002, Emmitt Smith finally broke Payton’s record. But if Sanders had decided to play on, many – Smith included – feel he would have been the first running back to rush for 20,000 yards.
Although he didn’t break Payton’s record, Sanders’ legacy is secure. He is considered one of the greatest players in NFL history and is the talk of the league’s annals when it comes to the top running backs, among a select group that also includes Payton and Jim Brown, career rushers NFL leader until Payton overtook him in 1984.
Sanders’ legacy as an all-time star was cemented in 2004 when he became the second youngest player ever inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Numbers aside, Sanders’ true greatness was his uniqueness as a runner. Arguably the most elusive running back of all time, Sanders’ vision, cutback ability and cat-like reflexes were unmatched. He regularly made breathtaking runs that he had never seen before and hasn’t seen since.