Abner Haynes 101
Who is Abner Haynes? Ask any football aficionado who was alive to see him play and they’ll tell you he’s one of the all-time greats. It seems that most current Kansas City Chiefs fans, however, don’t know much about Haynes. Nobody’s at fault — the guy last played for the Chiefs over 40 years ago, and only spent half of his career in a Chiefs/Texans uni — but I still thought I’d even The COAT playing field with a little Abner Haynes 101…
- 1960 AFL ROY
- Three-time AFL All-Star (1961-63)
- 1962 AFL MVP
- 4,630 total rushing yards
- 3,535 total receiving yards
- Averaged 4.5 yards per carry
- 12.3 yards per reception
- 66 career TDs
- AFL leader in rushing TDs (1960-62)
- AFL rushing champion (1960, his rookie year)
- AFL leader in yards from scrimmage (1962)
- AFL total TDs leader (1962)
- Franchise record for most points in a game (30)
- Franchise record for most TDs in a game (five… but Priest could have had 8 against Atlanta a few years back, so this doesn’t impress me all that much.)
- 10.3-yard punt return average (one TD)
- 25-yard kick return average (one TD)
- AFL all-time yardage leader — 12,065 total all-purpose yards
- Chiefs HOFer
- His number, 28, was retired by the Chiefs
So there you have it — amazing player, amazing career. Abner Haynes was the AFL’s Gale Sayers, Reggie Bush before Reggie Bush was born. My problem is that even though he played five years with the franchise, only two of those were with the Chiefs. In those years he never topped 1,300 yards or seven TDs while playing 14 games each season. His Chiefs numbers just don’t compare to the gaudy stats put up by Priest Holmes or Larry Johnson, even when you view them objectively at a per-game average basis. Even Christian Okoye’s best seasons are better, and Mike Garrett helped the Chiefs when a Super Bowl.
Overall, Abner Haynes absolutely deserves to be in this group. He even deserves some votes. He doesn’t deserve to move on, though. Thinking that young Chiefs fans aren’t voting for Abner because of their age is ageism. Priest and L.J. were both better Chiefs. End of story.
now to be fair…Priest did return
May 17th, 2007 at 7:58 pmfour kicks for 51 yards and a 12.8 average
but that was in Baltimore…lol
I don’t think he needs any help garnering votes!
May 17th, 2007 at 10:25 pmLook at my boy T-Rich! Moving up the charts. Man I wish he would had retired a Chief. It killed me last season, just ask Adam.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:35 amanother reason King Carl is the stupidest GM, in my opinion….a measly five hundred grand and he probably would have stayed here.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:31 amWe lost Horn the same way,although he didn’t shine until he left.
T-Rich may have been Carls biggest mistake ever short of allowing D. Edwards to leave and to S.D. to boot.
Yes but football is a business and you have to make business decisions. I agree T-Rich would have been cheap but you also got to remember he got hurt last year and missed most of the season. Didn’t play after week 10 so he wouldn’t have helped us in the playoffs.
Still love my boy T-Rich and yes Joe Horn was a big mistake. But we brought in Willie Roaf cause of Joe Horn. If you dont remember, Horn slept with Roafs wife and thats when Big Willie wanted out of NO. So it might have been Carls Master plan, lol
May 18th, 2007 at 11:15 amwhat about when rich gannon left to…….oakland! and a few years later ……… super bowl appearance! i honestly can’t remember how or why he left, but i remember feeling a little burned watching him tear it up in the silver and black.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:38 amYou wish he was that smart…lol
May 18th, 2007 at 12:25 pmYah, Gannon left cause we went with Grbac, what a joke.
Oh and Grbac lasted one year in Baltimore and Ray Lewis and Co. made him retire he was so miserable.
May 18th, 2007 at 2:08 pmWe have had way to many QB’s get hurt and the back up come in and play well, after which we switch back, loose with the returning QB, and have the wrong QB leave the next year….I think we made the right decision this time
May 18th, 2007 at 2:59 pmIf ageism is not the issue, how do you explain Priest, LJ and TRich running 1.2.3.?? IMO, Priest deserves to be #1. LJ? it’s way to early to rate him that high. I do love him as a back, but right now, he is behind Haynes and Okoye in my book. TRich? I love his as a fullback and would merit serious consideration for top fullback on an all-time team. However, for all running backs? I don’t see him in the top 5 or perhaps the top 10.
May 18th, 2007 at 4:07 pmOK Merrlinnj easy goes it…lol
When I made the statement that I didn’t see how Haynes didn’t have many votes considering what he had done…
He only had one vote …mine…
Which made me wonder why…and it is easy for even me to vote for players of today instead of yesteryear…
As with the upcoming Wideouts & TE’s…before they played a different game…I would be inclined to vote for todays TE Tony G.as opposed to the receivers who
took the team to the big dance and won it all…
maybe not but I would be inclined to do it…
We as a whole tend to see things in that we change for the better…and in so thinking we see the newer players and the newer NFL as a better NFL….and to an extent that is true!!!
As with music youngsters listen to a different sound than do you and I….doesnt mean older music is worse just that people change and the mannor in which we view things change….
Remember none of the players placed here to vote for
May 18th, 2007 at 5:08 pmwould even be voted for if they were not great or near great players.
Exactly everyone on these lists are all deserving being recognized as a COAT, but only one can be. I think by just doing this hopefully we are remembering all the great Chiefs!
I love this so far cause it gets people talking and debating. Everyone has a different opinion and its great that Chiefs fans can discuss that. Keep it up guys love hearing from all of you. Thanks
May 18th, 2007 at 5:16 pmI am not getting upset. The basic point is that voting always tends to favor more recent players. That’s the way it goes. The difficult challange is to fairly evaluate players across eras. You can’t really use stats. So, what do you do? IMO you have to consider how the player compared to other players in his era.
WR/TE is going to present a dilemma for me. Tony G is the best TE we have ever seen in a Chief’s uniform. Only Fred Arbanas comes close. For my money, Otis Taylor is the best WR we have ever had. He should be in the HOF. If we are sending 2 people to the next round, it would be nice to have 2 votes. However, only having one vote, I would probably vote for Otis. I can’t argue with a Tony G vote though.
May 18th, 2007 at 6:49 pmYes, I wish we could give you two votes too, but it does make voting more difficult. We want tough choices for you guys so we can have good debates and get the true COAT! 2 guys move on from each category too. I really don’t see why Otis and Tony wouldn’t be the top two vote getters.
I hear ya on voting tends to favor more recent players. Especially in an era where you know more and more because of the amount of information out there.
May 18th, 2007 at 7:22 pmBoth great players but I am still leaning towards the Stephan Paige vote, only because he played with Carlos and had better numbers across the boards than he did.
And like almost everybody is saying Tony G. is hard not to vote for. Especially when you add in the fact that Tony G. hasn’t had people to play with down field.
May 19th, 2007 at 10:12 am