When it comes to a discussion of running backs in the NFL, Jim Brown is like E.F. Hutton.

He speaks, you listen, because words are being spoken by the man considered by many to be the greatest running back in pro football history.

"I see good backs, but not dominant the way they should be," said Brown, 72, the Cleveland Browns great who gained 1,200 or more yards in seven of his nine seasons in the league (1957 to 1965).

On Thursday night (6:15 MST, KWGN-Ch. 2, NFL Network), the Broncos play the Browns in Cleveland. Denver's running game, decimated by injuries, bears no resemblance to the glory days of Terrell Davis.

Even though the Browns' Jamal Lewis has the second- highest single-game rushing total in league history (295 yards against the Browns while playing for the Baltimore Ravens in 2003), Cleveland's run game has been noticeably poor this season - ranked 27th in the league.

The Broncos and Browns offer proof to Brown's belief that there are only handful of great running backs playing today in the NFL.

Make that a really small hand.

"What's weird is, I remember the all-star runners from my day, guys who were definitive stars," Brown said. "You don't see that many all-stars today. I see good backs, but not dominant the way they should be.

"Right now, all these kids are the same. They're OK, but they're not guys that you think will control the game. You don't have the great ones, the guys that every time they touch the ball you look for them to break it. And I don't know why that is."

Brown remembers the days when Hall of Fame-caliber backs clustered the NFL's list of rushing leaders. Consider in 1983, when seven current Hall of Famers - Eric Dickerson, the late Walter Payton, John Riggins, Tony Dorsett, Earl Campbell, Marcus Allen and Franco Harris - ranked among the league's 16 1,000-yard rushers.

In Brown's eyes, the running back who comes closest to being dominant in the NFL today is Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings.

"If he doesn't get hurt, that's exactly what I'm talking about - that kind of flash," Brown said.

In his eighth NFL season, San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson has 11,201 career rushing yards, but Brown wants to see more.

"LaDainian Tomlinson is a friend of mine," Brown said. "But (the Chargers) keep him out of preseason games and make him like a product, where they save him and are protective.

"They do all kinds of things that we didn't want to do. I didn't want to sit out the preseason, sit down and all of that stuff."

In his day, Brown never missed a game - 118 of 118 in the regular season. Not that his durability never was tested. Brown said he once played with a broken wrist. Oh, and there was the time when he ran on a broken toe.

"It's one of those funny things," Brown said, chuckling. "A lot of times, when you have bad weather or something is hurting you, you're just out there - you know, you're going to go and you don't think too much? You might have a helluva game. If you think too much, you wouldn't be out there. You just roll with it."

The definitive proof of Brown's greatness is magnified in the record books 43 years after his retirement in 1965. His 12,312 career rushing yards still rank eighth in league history. He scored 126 career touchdowns, 106 rushing - both still among the league's top 10 all-time.

For his career, Brown averaged 5.2 yards a carry and 104 rushing yards a game - both still all-time bests for NFL running backs. From that perspective, Brown offers his views on the state of the NFL.

Running backs

* Reggie Bush, New Orleans: "You would think he would have tore the league up, but he didn't. It's not too late. It's a matter of breaking through."

* Clinton Portis, Washington: "Portis is leading the league. But he's not a superstar. He's a good runner. That's not who leads the league in the old days."

* LaDainian Tomlinson, San Diego: "Does he dominate? Sometimes they let him fade into the sunset. He might get numbers, but . . ."

* Terrell Davis, former Broncos great: "I thought he gave John Elway a new life. Would I put Terrell with cats I'm talking about, like Gale Sayers? No. I thought Terrell was a real good runner. I knew what he could do. I never knew what Gale was going to do. That's a whole different league, man."

Money

The type of production Brown gave on the field during the 1950s and 1960s would be worth megamillions in today's world of sports contracts. Money, Brown believes, is a noticeable negative influence on today's NFL player.

"You have a lot of showmanship and a lot of money. And you see all the guys that are sacrificing their careers because they want to go to bars and strip clubs, or get into fights," he said.

"They keep doing it over and over, and you wonder how can that be when the game is so great, they make so much money and get so much publicity. There must be something missing, and I think it might be the fact that we played football strictly for the game, strictly because we loved it and that was it. We didn't play it for the money. Now, I think, they have to play it for the money and it just doesn't resonate in their hearts the same way."

Showboating

Brown is the classic example of old-school football thinking - score, return to bench and wait your turn to get back on the field. No dance breaks during or in between.

"I think what has happened is, the game has become America's game because it's exciting and colorful. The promotion of it is fantastic, the broadcasting of it, it's fantastic . . . It's just a colorful spectacle. It's exciting, but it's almost like it's not a sport any more. It's almost like entertainment. I don't see the type of concentration that I would hope to see in sports. Whenever you're able to dance, celebrate and all that kind of stuff, that's a break of concentration."

Size matters

When he played, Brown was a block of granite in cleats, listed at 6-foot-2 and 232 pounds.

He took punishment and delivered plenty of it.

"The hitting is hard (today) - you do have hard-hitting individuals, real physical guys that are about 250-260 pounds that can move. People talk about speed and size, but I see these little bitty cornerbacks (today) weighing 175-180 pounds and I'm laughing to myself.

"When I'm real close to these guys I don't see a difference in size - except the bulky guys, the offensive and defensive linemen weighing around 330.

"But about 50 pounds of it is fat, so I'm thinking, 'Why do these guys need to be this big?' Well, that's the way they play now because they block differently.

"They do that sumo wrestling blocking, using their hands and arms. They don't use their shoulders."

Still runs with a purpose

Jim Brown resides in Los Angeles, where he is deeply involved with his "Amer-I-Can" Program.

But 51 years after the start of his NFL career, he remains "Mr. Brown" - literally and figuratively - in Cleveland, a city that hasn't had a major sports championship team in 44 years.

Brown gained 114 yards in Cleveland's 27-0 win against the Baltimore Colts for the 1964 NFL championship.

"The fans welcome me back on all occasions," Brown said. "They voted me the No. 1 sports person - even over (Cleveland Cavaliers player) LeBron James. That surprised me because I haven't played in so long and LeBron is such a great player and personality."

Brown remains visible in Cleveland, working as an executive adviser within the Browns organization.

Part of his duties are to bring together Browns players, past and current, to establish a reconnection with the Cleveland fan base.

"For a while, family wasn't there," Brown said. "We had a good season last year and the fans went crazy. These guys, the young guys, had not experienced that with the fans."

Brown is as proud of the ongoing results from his Amer-I-Can program during the past 20 years as any of his heroics on the football field.

The program offers training to a wide range of individuals who seek to improve their life-management skills.

"In this kind of work you do it and you live it," Brown said. "You don't use time frames. When you do this kind of work and you save lives, literally save lives, it's not about any money or statistics."

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