Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 77

August 28,19 97 PACE 7 Tw Hot Coriier lions' Barney set the standard NFL'S 10 CORNER BACKS: 1. Lem Barney, Detroit: Glamour player and Hall of Famer was best in the most difficult position in football; 56 career interceptions. 2. Herb Adderley, Green Bay: Heady player, hard to fool; key player in four Super Bowls with Packers, Cowboys in 1960s, 70s. 3.

Dick (Night Train) Lane, Detroit: Tough tackier, gambling defender who snared 68 enemy passes. 4. Willie Brown, Oakland: Gave receivers fits playing Raiders' famous bump-and-run defense. Selected to Pro Football Hall of Fame in first year of eligibility. 5.

Jack Butler, Pittsburgh: Always a leader in heavy-handed Steelers defense. Led mediocre teamsln interceptions five times, named to the all-pro team of the 1950s. 6. Mel Blount, Pittsburgh: Four Super Bowl titles. Leads Steelers in career interceptions (57); Butler is second (52).

7. Jimmy David, Detroit: Big men feared him, rival fans threatened him. Intercepted 36 passes. 8. MiK Davis, Baltimore Colts: Played for '58-59 NFL champions; stole 27 passes in fouryears.

9. Jimmy Johnson, San Francisco: Hall of Famer led Niners twice in interceptions, was second all-time (47) to Ronnie Lott 10. Everson Walls, Dallas: 11 interceptions in '81 rookie season, led Cowboys five times; second all-time (44) to Mel Renfro (52). By George Puscas I lJl 3U. fw voi tr- Free Press file photo Lem Barney played on a high plane on punt returns, too.

In short history of corners, best played in Detroit loo often in sports we don't fully appreciate what we have until we don't have it anymore. Then, of course, we are permitted to wail and search endlessly for a replacement. That has been the case with Lem Barney, the best cornerback the Lions ever had and perhaps the best ever to play in the National Football League. The Lions and others scout the college fields look ing for the likes of another Barney. But they have not found his equal yet, and they probably will not soon.

Barney was, for kids in the crowd, the Lions' No. 2 draft choice out of Jackson State (behind zillionaire Mel Farr) in 1967. He had speed and quickness and a field intelligence 4' mat made mm a dangerous competitor whether dogging a receiver or fielding kicks. He gave the Lions' defense a new dimension and became immensely popular. Passers learned to avoid his side of the field, and receivers knew they were unlikely to have much success in his area.

If Barney wasn't snaring or batting away passes, he stepped back to field one of the enemy's punts. And here again, he often brought the crowd out of its seats. He was defensive rookie of the year in 1967 after intercepting 10 passes and returning three for touchdowns. He picked off the first pass Bart Starr threw in his direction and ran it 24 yards into the end zone. In the last game of his rookie season, he picked off three passes in one quarter against the Minnesota Vikings.

It was a great way to launch a career. Premier cornerbacks have been few in the NFL, perhaps because the position itself is fairly new, having evolved as passing attacks developed and became more varied and explosive in the 1960s. Not until 1962, in fact, did cornerbacks appear in a special category on Ail-Star squad selections. Always before, they had been lumped into a group with all other defensive backs, though the requirements and nature of cornerback play were far different and more demanding than those for safeties. In its first 20 years, the NFL was a relatively small league (10 to 12 teams) with smaller rosters (33 players).

Players were required to play both ways on offense and defense. One result was that GEORGE PUSCAS i'T I i C- The last of the Lions' great cornerbacks, the best backs on offense often were the best backs on offense. Count chiefly among the two-way stars Sammy Baugh, the Washington Redskins' passing-punting immortal who also was the outstanding defensive back of his time. And add the Lions' own Earl (Dutch) Clark, who captained and quar-terbacked the 1935 NFL champions and was saluted in the 1950s by Chicago -Bears owner-coach George Halas as the best player in the history of pro football. In any definition of best cornerbacks, the likes of Baugh and Clark and several dozen others must be excluded.

So, too, must former lions Jack Christiansen and Doak Walker, who sparkled on the corners but had only spare work there in team emergencies. More and more, cornerbacks have become distinguished as special people, their skills and values enhanced as pro football pushes on toward ever more explosive offenses. The demands on the cornerbacks are almost unlimited. They guard the sidelines particularly and everything else within range. If that sounds simple enough, consider they are doing it against the best receivers and frequently the fastest runners a rival can throw at them.

No better example of the problems the cornerbacks face can be found than the one presented by the Lions' own Herman Moore. At 6-feet-4, he is an exceptionally quick and sure-handed receiver, he also is a former college high jump champion who invariably wins any jumping contest for a ball. So you see what cornerbacks must face. Barney had the good fortune to work with assistant coach Jimmy David, a premier cornerback during the Lions' run to three world titles in the 1950s. David had been known as a vicious tackier and a heady combatant; Barney did not copy David's style, but he learned from it Barney's career spanned 11 seasons 1967-77, during which he scored in a variety of ways.

He produced eight touchdowns on interception returns, two on returns of field goal attempts, two punt returns and one kickoff return. "If there was anybody better than Lem," David said at Barney's induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1992, "I never saw or heard of him. Nobody before or since measured up to him." Include among those others Dick (Night Train) Lane, who as a rookie with the Los Angeles Rams in 1952 intercepted 14 passes an NFL record to this day. He played for the Lions in 1960-65. Lane, a notorious neck-tie tackier, is rated No.

3 on our all-time list of corner-backs, and David, whom the Rams once sought to bar from football because he hurt them, is No. 7. If the Top 10 list of great cornerbacks seems overloaded with Lions, recognize that two of the three David and Lane were from the 1950s and early 1960s, when the Lions were dominant, or nearly so. The Lions have been searching for their likes ever since. In the current NFL, one future member of the all-time Top 10 list is apparent: Dallas' Deion Sanders.

GOTCHA CORNERED: 8 IN HALL OF FAME Cornerbacks in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Herb Adderley: Green Bay (1961-69), Dallas (1970-72). Lem Barney: Detroit (1967-77). Mel Blount: Pittsburgh (1970-83). Willie Brown: Denver (19666), Oakland (1967-78). Mike Haynes: New England (1976-82), LA Raiders (1983-89).

Jimmy Johnson: San Francisco (1961-76). Dick (Night Train) Lane: LA Rams (1952-53), Chicago Cardinals (1954-59), Detroit (196065). Mel Renfro: Dallas (1964-77). Before the NFL's 75th anniversary season in 1994, four cornerbacks were voted to the league's all-time team by a 15-member panel of NFL and Pro Football Hall of Fame officials, former players and media members. The cornerbacks picked: Mel Blount, Mike Haynes, Dick (Night Train) Lane and Rod Woodson.

Lem Barney Jimmy David NightTrain Lane 1.