NBA legend Michael Jordan recently found himself at the receiving end of some genuine love from NFL legend Barry Sanders. MJ is no stranger to being named the GOAT by basketball analysts. However, his claim to the NBA’s All-Time throne was recently acknowledged by former NFL running back, Sanders, who also proceeded to shower the Bulls legend with adulations.
On Instagram, user frank.hrelja had initially posted a video listing 5 reasons why Michael Jordan can be deemed as the obvious GOAT. The post dived into a range of MJ’s achievements, including the fact that he won the NBA MVP, Finals MVP, First-Team All-NBA and First-Team All-Defense nominations, the Scoring Title and the Championship, all in the same season, four times in his career.
No other player has done it even once. MJ is also the only player since 1960 to have scored at least 3000 points in a single season, which happened back in 1987, when he averaged 37 points per game despite scoring only 12 three-pointers throughout the season.
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Jordan is also the only player to have averaged more than 40 points in a playoff series, something he has done a total of five times. Moving on, Jordan also did not ever lose three games in a row until his first retirement, which is a span of 2,777 days. Finally, back in 1988, MJ also became the only DPOY ever to average 35 points per game throughout the season.
The achievements in question are not only incredible, but they also prove exactly why MJ is considered the GOAT by many. Barry Sanders was one of the hundreds who commented on the said Instagram post, claiming that he also had an obvious answer to the GOAT question. “For me @jumpman23 will always be the one. He was so dominant as a competitor, that we may never see anything like him again,” Sanders wrote.
That’s surely high praise coming from a 10-year NFL vet. However, it’s not surprising to see the 55-year-old Sanders pick MJ as his GOAT pick. He witnessed the dominance of Jordan before his eyes in the 90s. Therefore, it’s difficult for him to consider any other candidate for the GOAT debate.
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Barry Sanders is not the only NFL legend to consider Michael Jordan the GOAT
Of course, Michael Jordan has turned it into a norm-being called the NBA GOAT. Sanders is hardly the only NFL icon who has heaped adulations at MJ. In addition to the Detroit Lions legend, other NFL legends like Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady have also made similar claims in the past.
Aaron Rodgers, for example, revealed in 2020 that he was a bona fide MJ fan right since when he was little, and would often attend his games. Rodgers concluded by calling Jordan the GOAT as well, citing his wealth of achievements as evidence, as per PackersWire.
Tom Brady, who is widely considered to be the GOAT in football himself, also unsurprisingly had a similar take. Brady had posted a clip of him meeting Michael Jordan, and claimed in the caption that MJ was the real GOAT.