Broadway Joe
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- Mar 19, 2019
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Jets running back Frank Gore is 1,379 yards behind Walter Payton on the NFL’s all-time rushing yardage list, and if Gore should top Payton’s mark, Payton’s son will be happy for him.
Jarrett Payton, who played with Gore at the University of Miami, said he’d welcome seeing Gore top his dad’s rushing total.
“I’d be proud. I really would,” Jarrett Payton told Eric Edholm of Yahoo Sports. “You play football to win games and try to break records and all of that. But along the way, you make great friends and meet incredible people. Relationships that last a lifetime. So just to know that a guy I played with — a guy who I saw had a sprinkle of my dad in him — has a chance to pass my dad’s rushing record? I’d be super proud. It would be different this time around.”
When Walter Payton died in 1999, he was the NFL’s all-time rushing leader. Jarrett admits it was painful for him to see Emmitt Smith break the record in 2002.
“I’m at a different point now in my life now,” Jarrett Payton said. “When Emmitt broke my dad’s record, I was in college. I was upset. I didn’t want him to break it. I was like, ‘I want my dad to be on top for all of time!’ But now I am totally different.”
For Gore or any player, being mentioned alongside Walter Payton is an honor.