Al 'Bubba' Baker: One Play Convinced Me That Billy Sims Could've Been Best Ever

(EDITOR’S NOTE: To access the Al “Bubba” Baker interview, click on the following attachment: Ep 65: Al "Bubba" Baker Joins The Show | Spreaker)

Maybe you know about former Detroit running back Billy Sims and how his burgeoning NFL career was short-circuited by a devastating knee injury. But my guess is that you don’t know what would have happened had he not been hurt.

That makes two of us.

So we asked someone who should know: former defensive end Al “Bubba” Baker, once a teammate of Sims. He was with the Lions in Sims’ first three seasons when the star running back was named the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year (1980), was a three-time Pro Bowler, ran for 3,379 yards, averaged 4.5 per carry and scored 35 times, including 30 rushing, in 39 games.

In five seasons Sims ran for 5,106 yards, averaged 4.5 yards a carry, scored 47 times in 60 games and led the Lions to the playoffs twice.

Then he was gone.

But what if he hadn’t been hurt? What if he played, say, 10 or more seasons? How good could Billy Sims have been?

“We’d be talking about the leading rusher in the National Football League, Hall of Famer, every kind of accolade,” Baker said on a recent “Eye Test for Two” podcast.

To illustrate his point, Baker offered a play that Sims and the Lions’ offense ran in a 1980 practice. Baker had held out that summer for a new contract, missing all preseason games, and was absent for the Lions’ regular-season opener. But after renegotiating his deal, he showed up in time to catch Sims – then a rookie – make tacklers miss again and again in workouts.

"They had a play,” he said, “called ‘iso’ that they put in for this guy -- Billy Sims – and the quarterback would reverse pivot, not block the end and – boom! – they just pitched the ball. And you’re one-on-one with Billy Sims, right?

“Billy Sims took off around the corner, and … he just ran down the sideline. And (then head coach) Monte Clark blew the whistle. I guess somebody messed up … one of the receivers. Now I’m trying to catch him. This is the next play. I know what play they’re going to run. So I got a little wider out there. They ran the same play, and they pitch the ball to Billy Sims. I take an angle like I’m going to touch him. And he ran right by me.”

That wasn’t supposed to happen, and it certainly wasn’t supposed to happen to Bubba Baker. One of the league’s premier pass rushers, he prided himself on holding the edge. Except he couldn’t … not here … not with Billy Sims carrying the ball. So he yelled to the Lions’ running backs coach, Jimmy Raye, with a message that was as loud as it was clear.

“I said, ‘Run that again!’,” said Baker. “And Monte looked at me … (because) I’d just gotten back into camp. (It was) the first day. And I said, (he raises his voice) ‘RUN THAT AGAIN!’

“We line up, and I know they’re going to run this ‘iso.’ I get a little wider. They pitch the ball to Billy Sims, and I take an angle away, anticipating where he’s (going to be). He ran right by me. I came back to the huddle and said, ‘Man, I’ve never seen anything like this.’ That guy was phenomenal.”

Had Sims not been hurt and his career extended, he would’ve been a candidate for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But he never played after 1984 and has never been a finalist or semifinalist for Canton. Nevertheless, people who saw him – or, in Baker’s case, played with or against him – never forget the talented player he was.

“He was the strongest guy on our team in the seated shoulder press,” said Baker. “He had shoulders like no one else I’d ever seen. I don’t know if you’ve seen many highlights, but Billy didn’t pass up licks. He would hit you.

“He wasn’t a Barry Sanders-kind of a guy. He was a slasher. He saw the hole, he put his foot in the ground and I’m not kidding you: He was going 100 miles an hour … I gotta tell you, no one -- maybe Dickerson -- but no one could plant their foot and be going in a different direction like Billy Sims. And that’s including Barry Sanders.

“He was a different kind of runner. And the one thing I respected Billy for was: If the hole was clogged, he made a hole. He was a very, very tough guy. ”