Bad sports logic strikes again

I have always felt the layperson has nothing to apologize for, or to be ashamed of, when giving genuine sports analysis the way he or she sees it. I often hear regular people bullied off their point by the supposed trump card, where the other person (usually a current or ex-jock but not always) says something like "What do you know, you never played in the NBA/NFL/MLB..."

We the commoners should never be shy to have a view, even if we've never played at a high level. If we watch enough games, and understand the sport, we can have valid and meaningful analysis. Especially if we can easily look at records and/or statistics to back up our arguments.

This sort of leads into another example of poor sports logic I grow weary of: The bitter old man. Even if he was legitimately great, he is not secure with his own legacy. As a result he'll take any opportunity to slight the players of today.

One recent sports dust-up combines elements from both example pools - from the New York Times, the Sayers/Butkus vs. Urlacher feud. In short, Gale Sayers says the Bears stink now, Brian Urlacher puts it in perspective by pointing out that Sayers never won anything, and Dick Butkus says Urlacher wasn't born yet, so what does he know?

True, Urlacher wasn't born yet, but he could use something called THE INTERNET, and see that indeed, the Bears with Sayers never made the playoffs. He could have even added that the Bears were under .500 during those years if he wanted to.

Mike Ditka then added in a radio interview, that had Sayers not gotten hurt, no one would ever be able to break his records. After another look at the Internet, (Pro Football Reference in this case), in Sayers' first 5 years before serious injury he rushed for these yardage totals (with rushing TDs):

867 (14)
1231 (8)
880 (7)
856 (2)
1032 (8)

I'm not sure I understand what kind of record pace Sayers was setting, but maybe Ditka thought Sayers was about to double these totals over the next 5 years had he stayed healthy. And Sayers only missed 5 games combined over those first 5 years. Could Ditka have been thinking of career yards per carry? 5.0 is damn good, but not a record, Jim Brown's 5.2 leads all running backs. (And that's not a volume stat anyway.) Maybe he meant a fumbles record, as Sayers coughed it up 34 times in 68 career games?

Ditka and Butkus came up in a time when there was no internet, so they probably feel they can make any claim and not be called on it. But come on fellas, times are different, people can actually check stuff now. No longer can you just say whatever you want and pass it off as a given.