Should Jerome Bettis get a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Weighing his credentials against three other backs who might some day wind up in Canton -- Edgerrin James, Ricky Watters and Terrell Davis.

They’re naming the new Hall of Fame class on Saturday night, and Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is banging the drum that Jerome Bettis needs to be in Canton. Bouchette offers up a few facts and figures, and touches base with some of the Steelers brass – Art Rooney II, Tom Donahoe and Bill Cowher.

These kind of discussions get tricky, because you wind up having to compare guys across positions – Bettis vs. Andre Reed vs. Aeneas Williams, etc.

For me, the debate is best when you’re looking at just one position. You look at the positives for each, but also his shortcomings. And after you decide on the best guy at each position, then you can move onto the more complicated job of comparing left tackles to linebackers to tight ends and whatnot.

For this one today, I’m looking at just running backs. I’m going to look at Bettis, of course, and I’m going to compare him to three other candidates at that position – Terrell Davis, Ricky Watters and Edgerrin James. James played in 2009, so he’ll be eligible for the Hall in 2015, and he’s in that same class of running back (maybe a Hall of Famer, but not certainly).

Other than Bettis and James, the only other running back among the top 14 rushers all-time who’s not in the Hall is LaDainian Tomlinson (eligible in 2017). I’m leaving Tomlinson out of the discussion, because I think he’s a first-ballot guy – No. 3 all-time in touchdowns and No. 7 all-time in yards from scrimmage.

So of these other four running backs, which is most deserving of a spot in the Hall of Fame? Bettis, Davis, Watters or James?

Career Rushing Yards
Bettis, James, Watters and Davis. That’s the order. Those are the cumulative yards, for whatever you think they’re worth. Bettis ran for 13,662, which is No. 6 all-time, ahead of Eric Dickerson, Jim Brown and a bunch of other great backs.

Career Receiving Yards
Watters, James, Bettis and Davis. Watters and James both caught over 430 passes in their careers. Bettis played about 50 more games but caught only 200 balls. Davis played only a little more than half as many games as any of those guys and caught 169.

Career Totals Yards
Adding together rushing and receiving yards. James is the winner, with 15,610 yards. That’s about 500 more than Bettis, who’s 200 ahead of Watters. Davis, with only 78 career games, is just short of 9,000.

Career Touchdowns
Not much difference between the three longer-term guys here. Bettis, Watters and James all finished with 91-94 touchdowns. Davis, with only a fraction of the games, closed at 65.

Career Rushing Average
Davis averaged 4.6 yards per carry. That’s about half a yard better than the others – Watters (4.1), James (4.0) and Bettis (3.9).

Postseason Impact
When it comes to the postseason – playoff games, Super Bowls – Davis wins by a mile. He won back-to-back Super Bowls, and in one of them, he put together one of the legendary performances, running for 157 yards and 3 TDs to carry Denver past a quality opponent (Green Bay). In his other Super Bowl, Davis ran for 102 yards and added another 50 yards as a pass catcher in a win against Atlanta. Davis ran for 91 yards in his first playoff game; after that he went over 100 yards in all seven of his postseason appearances, and the Broncos won all of those games. He averaged 5.6 yards per carry in playoff games, over a half yard better than any of the other top 10 postseason rushers in NFL history. His 1,140 playoff rushing yards are the 6th-most in league history, and all of the guys ahead of him are in the Hall of Fame.

All of the other three backs here averaged under 4 yards per carry in the playoffs.

Watters is definitely the No. 2 back if you’re looking at just the playoffs. In his Super Bowl against San Diego, he put up 108 combined yards and scored 3 TDs. He also scored 5 TDs in a playoff game against the Giants.

Bettis and James didn’t really do anything of note in the postseason. The Steelers won a Super Bowl in Bettis’ hometown, and he had kind of a cheerleader-type role on that team, but Willie Parker was their starting tailback – Parker was the guy who had the key long touchdown run against the Seahawks. That was Bettis’ only Super Bowl appearance. He averaged under 3 yards per carry in his two games leading into that Super Bowl. James also wasn’t a big factor in his only Super Bowl game (a loss to Pittsburgh at the end of his career).

Combined, these four players played in 46 playoff games. If you rank them 1 thru 46, using the fantasy scoring system of 1 point for every 10 run/rec yards and 6 points for touchdowns, Davis had 5 of the top 8 games, and 8 of the top 16. Watters had 3 of the top 9 games. James had the No. 6 game, running for 125 yards and 2 TDs in a win at Arrowhead, and the rest of his games were in the middle of the pack. Bettis’ best game comes in 10th. In 10 of these games, a running back finished with something between minus-2 and 52 total yards, and Bettis was the author of all but one of those 10 lousy games.

Great Seasons
Would you rather have three really great seasons or a half dozen solid ones? That’s what it comes down to. Look at the top 20 seasons by these four running backs. I’ve put them in order of fantasy points, which is a balance of rushing, receiving and touchdowns.

Davis has three of the top 5 seasons, plus one other solid year (he ran for 1,117 as a rookie). Bettis doesn’t have any of the top-10 seasons of this group, and he’s in the top 20 only three times, which is the fewest of anybody. James has four of the top 8, which is noteworthy. Watters, with eight of these seasons, has the most appearances in the top 20. For this category, you can debate the order of Davis-James-Watters. Any of those guys can arguably be No. 1. Bettis is definitely the last guy of this four.

Combined these guys played 41 seasons. It’s in seasons 24-37 where Bettis and James take over. Those are all below-average seasons for these four backs, but Bettis has 10 of them and James has the other four.

Intangibles
Bettis was a loved teammate, supposedly. Everybody in Pittsburgh seems to think he’s great, and they let him drive out onto the field in a yellow school bus for the Thursday night opener the year after he retired. Watters may have been kind of a arrogant jerk. He had the deal where he short-armed a ball at the end of a blowout loss in Philadelphia, and then said, “For who?, For what?” afterwards. The 49ers and Eagles both got rid of him. I’ll call Davis and James neutral. But I’m not giving any weight to this kind of stuff. I’m just going off the numbers and by what I remember seeing on the field.

100-yard games
Bettis ended his career with 64 100-yard games, the most of this game. James had 59. Davis had 41, and Watters had 35 (including 2 games with over 100 receiving yards). For all guys, that’s regular season and playoffs combined.

150-yard games
Combined, these guys went over 150 rushing yards 33 times. That’s just rushing (so it penalizes James and Watters some, since they were the more well-rounded backs). Just rushing. But with 150 yards, we’re not just talking about a good, solid game. We’re talking about the kind of game that wins you Player of the Week honors. The kind of game that has guys talking about you around the water cooler on Monday morning.

Of those 33 games with 150-plus, Davis had over half of them – 17. Watters had six (for three different teams). Bettis and James each had five. Big win for Davis.

Conclusion
To me, I think Davis comes out on top. He’s got the three lights-out seasons, and then he’s got kind of a fourth off-the-charts piece of work when you look at what he did in his eight playoff games. For me, that shorter burst of productivity makes him more memorable – more noteworthy – than the other three guys.

James and Watters, I think, would battle for the No. 2 spot. I don’t see a lot of separation there. James comes out a little bit ahead in the regular-season comparison, but Watters tightens it up with his greater impact in the postseason.

Of these four, Bettis is the only one who might become a Hall-of-Famer this week. And he’s worth consideration, I think. But to me, he comes in at No. 4 in a comparison of these four backs. Not a mile back or anything, but just not quite as good as the others.