The American Football Favorite Player Tournament - And the Winner is.... Announced Inside!

Welcome to the Arena's American Football Favorite Player tournament. A few notes before we begin:

This is a favorite player tournament, not best player tournament. So don't vote based on who was better, but vote for the one you like more

Each round will take between 24 to 48 hours depending on the number of votes. Be sure to look at my most recent post for who is being voted upon currently. Votes for previous (or future) rounds will be ignored. You do not have to vote for every pairing in a round, however.

Each player's name will link to a wiki article to help you decide if you have trouble

Feel free to discuss why you voted for a particular player, that is a large part of what makes these fun.

Voting with socks is prohibited. If any of the mods tell me that multiple votes were made by the same user, those votes will be discounted and the user barred from future voting. Obviously, if you're game-banned or posting with a holiday sock, you can vote with that username as long as you do not vote with your regular name as well.

The bracket is divided into the NFC and AFC brackets, each of which has a division for each team in the conference. This makes 32 divisions with 4-5 teams each (those with 5 will have an opening round vote to narrow it down to 4). Players are listed in alphabetical order with no correlation to the team whose division they are in. The players in the opening round were chosen mostly at random, though I tried to avoid having the biggest names involved in the opening round.

For most of the tournament, there will be 4 pairs of names to vote on at a time. As the field narrows, this will drop to two and eventually only one pair. The opening round, however, will have 5 pairs at a time (10 total)

I will post the updated bracket frequently, though not necessarily every time the round changes. Hopefully one of the managers will update the list in this post as well as update the title to make it easier to keep track of.

Without further ado, the bracket:


NFC

Cowboys Division

John Abraham
Troy Aikman
Marcus Allen
George Atkinson

Giants Division

Champ Bailey
Mark Bavaro
Don Beebe
Jerome "The Bus" Bettis
Fred Belitnikoff

Redskins Division

Mel Blount
Anquan Boldin
Terry Bradshaw
Tom Brady
Jerome Brown

Eagles Division

Jim Brown
Sheldon Brown
Tim Brown
Troy Brown

Bears Division

Willie Brown
Reggie Bush
Dick Butkus
Leroy Butler

Lions Division

Earl Campbell
[link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H

 

Opening round of voting:

Mark Bavaro vs Don Beebe


Mel Blount vs Anquan Boldin


Todd Christensen vs Tim Couch


Roger Craig vs Joshua Cribbs


Larry Fitzgerald vs London Fletcher


Let the voting begin!

 

Don Beebe- tough for his size, and stripped that ball from Leon Lett.


Boldin-good young receiver, and have watched him play.


Todd Christensen- One of the best.

Roger Craig - Even though I am a Raider fan, Roger Craig has my respect.


Larry Fitzgerald- Could be a great one if he ever plays for a stable franchise. I would welcome him in silver and black....but I said Stable franchise

 

Don Beebe


Boldin- Another FSU player who got better in the pros


Todd Christensen- .

Roger Craig


Larry Fitzgerald- Amazing reciever in college and will be good in he pros

 

Beebe
Boldin
Christensen
Craig
Fitzgerald

 

Beebe
Boldin
Couch
Craig
Fitzgerald

 

Don Beebe
Mel Blount
Todd Christensen
Roger Craig
London Fletcher

 

Don Beebe


Mel Blount

Tim Couch


Roger Craig

London Fletcher (go OAC)

 

Don Beebe
Mel Blount
Todd Christensen
Roger Craig
Larry Fitzgerald

 

Don Beebe
Anquan Boldin
Todd Christensen
Roger Craig
Larry Fitzgerald

 

Don Beebe 8, Mark Bavaro 0


Anquan Boldin 5, Mel Blount 3


Todd Christensen 6, Tim Couch 2


Roger Craig 8, Joshua Cribbs 0


Larry Fitzgerald 6, London Fletcher 2



Next round of voting:


Mike Haynes vs William Henderson


Paul Hornung vs Don Hutson


Howie Long vs Ronnie Lott


Justin Miller vs Lawyer Milloy


Mike Nugent vs Christian Okoye


After this we will move from the opening round to the regular first round, the round of 128, with four pairs at a time.

 

What the crap!

Two of the greatest Packers players of all time against each other in the first round?! BAH!



Henderson
Hutson
Lott
Milloy
Okoye


I chose Hutson over Hornung simply because Hutson is the greatest WR of all time. I know Rice has the flashy numbers, but Rice didn't dominate his era as much as Hutson dominated his. He played in a time when passing wasn't really used much. He was the first receiver to have 50 receptions in a season, and he was the first receiver to reach 1,000 yards in a season too. No one in that time even came close to those numbers in that time.

For example, in his best season he caught 74 passes. Second place that year? caught 27 passes.
That year he had 1,211 yards. second place? 571.
He had 17 touchdowns that year. second place? 8.

Not even Jerry Rice was good enough to double his competition's achievements.

 

Henderson
Hutson
Lott
Miller
Okoye

 

William Henderson

Paul Hornung

Ronnie Lott (ugh ... this needed to be a later round vote ... ugh)

Lawyer Milloy

Mike Nugent

 

William Henderson

Paul Hornung

Ronnie Lott

Justin Miller

Mike Nugent vs

 

I must have been on something when I typed that sentence.

 

Mike Haynes

Paul Hornung


Howie Long


Lawyer Milloy


Christian Okoye

Did you guys forget about the first two?

 

forget about what first two?



btw, I can't believe Hornung is beating Hutson...

 

William Henderson
Don Hutson
Howie Long
Lawyer Milloy
Mike Nugent

Which leaves two ties, currently. Next round will begin as soon as someone breaks the tie (or in 24 hours if nobody else votes in which case I'll drop my vote).

 

forget about what first two?

My fault...I read the list wrong

 

Henderson
Hornung
Lott
Milloy
Nugent

 

William Henderson 6, Mike Haynes 1

Paul Hornung 4, Dot Hutson 3

Ronnie Lott 5, Howie Long 2

Lawyer Milloy 5, Justin Miller 2

Mike Nugent 4, Christian Okoye 3

Which leaves the bracket as follows:

NFC

Cowboys Division

John Abraham
Troy Aikman
Marcus Allen
George Atkinson

Giants Division

Champ Bailey
Mark Bavaro
Don Beebe
Jerome "The Bus" Bettis
Fred Belitnikoff

Redskins Division

Mel Blount
Anquan Boldin
Terry Bradshaw
Tom Brady
Jerome Brown

Eagles Division

Jim Brown
Sheldon Brown
Tim Brown
Troy Brown

Bears Division

Willie Brown
Reggie Bush
Dick Butkus
Leroy Butler

Lions Division

Earl Campbell
Harold Carmichael
Dave Casper
Todd Christensen
Tim Couch

Packers Division

Roger Craig
Joshua Cribbs
Antonio Cromartie
Rodney Culver
Randall Cunningham

Vikings Division

Jeff Davis
Terrell Davis
Brian Dawkins
Eric Dickerson

Panthers Division

Donald Driver
Kalimba Edwards
John Elway
Marshall Faulk

Falcons Division

Brett Favre
Larry Fitzgerald
London Fletcher
Doug Flutie
Dan Fouts

Saints Division

Antonio Gates
Ted Ginn, Jr
Ahman Green
Mean Joe Greene

Buccanee

 

Troy Aikman - Made those great cowboys teams click.

Marcus Allen -Maybe the best all-around back ever, certainly the best

Goaline back.

Champ Bailey-Probably the best in the game right now.

Fred Belitnikoff - Hall of fame receiver who had some of the best hands ever. Jerry Rice (The best WR ever) said Belitnikoff still had something to teach Rice, when Rice joined the Raiders.

Two Raider greats face off this early...But Marcus gets the nod IMO.

 

Aikman
Allen
Beebe
Bettis

 

Aikman
Allen
Beebe
Bus



EDIT: And I'm so disappointed that the greatest receiver of all time is knocked out so early.