The Great White Hope: The Curious Case Of Denver Bronco Peyton Hillis

A friend of mine recently asked me a strange question. He laughed as I stammered around, looking for a solid answer.

"Can you name the last great white running back in the NFL?" he asked.

The question asker, Kris Wilson (who is not Caucasian, by the way) had obviously put some thought into the topic. He offered up Mike Alstott, but in an unsure fashion.

Alstott, a fullback during Tampa Bay's heyday, didn't feel like a definitive answer. Sure he was a spectacular runner in his day and came up big on a regular basis, but was he great?

Alstott never accumulated 1,000 yards in a season and only once did he rack up 10 touchdowns. In fact, halfback Warrick Dunn was a bigger star for the Buccaneers. So if Mike Alstott couldn't be considered great, then who?

Merrill Hoge was another standout fullback with the run-heavy Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1980s and 90s, but Hoge is better know for his work on ESPN as an analyst.

Brian Leonard was great when he played at Rutgers and was drafted in the second round of the 2007 draft by St. Louis. Now playing behind Cedric Benson in Cincinnati, Leonard has yet to prove his greatness.

In fact, the conversation led us all the way back to John Riggins, Larry Czonka, and Franco Harris. So it looks like there may not have been a great white running back in the NFL for about 25 years.

Every other position in the major sports has great players, both black and white (with the possible exception of catcher in baseball, still not sure of Charles Johnson's greatness). So, why not the running back position?

We couldn't come up with a valid answer and remained perplexed by this anomaly.

One name came up as the most likely player to buck the trend, Denver Broncos' fullback Peyton Hillis.

True, his name sounds eerily like a bizzaro world version of Paris Hilton, but Hillis is definitely not living the "simple life." Stuck in the Broncos "running back factory," Hillis made a name for himself last season.

After Andre Hall, Michael Pittman, and Ryan Torain went down with season ending injuries, Peyton Hillis got the start. In his first start, he recorded two touchdowns, followed by 129 yards and one touchdown in his next.

The moment in the spotlight was short-lived as Hillis suffered a season ending hamstring injury himself the next week.

Well, this offseason, under new head coach Josh McDaniels, things got even worse for Hillis. The Broncos drafted RB Knowshon Moreno 12th overall and signed free agents Correll Buckhalter and LaMont Jordan.

So, once again buried at fourth on the Denver depth chart, Hillis waits for another chance to prove himself.

Meanwhile, Kris and I will be left waiting to see when another white running back will make a lasting impression on the National Football League.