ADDISON -- I'm in Emmitt Smith's house -- near the kitchen, to be exact.

I finished interviewing Smith and his wife Pat for a story in next month's debut of SportsDay Style magazine, but there is a separate, football-related topic I want to broach with Emmitt.

It's something that has baffled, and bothered, me for the better part of a decade, and it's become especially topical in recent weeks.

What is the deal with these various rankings of the best running backs in NFL history that rather inexplicably do not have all-time leading rusher Smith near the top? And how does Smith feel about these slights?

Emmitt and Pat have been in their living room posing for the magazine, but during a brief break, as Emmitt heads to his refrigerator for bottled water, I ask if he heard about the recent Talk of Fame radio network's top-ten running back ranking that deemed him No. 5 all-time.

"Yeah, I saw it," he says. "You know what it does? It tells me that people are looking to create a conversation. Because some of it is not justifiable."

To be clear, Smith, 48, isn't speaking out on this topic. He's sharing these thoughts because I'm standing in his kitchen, asking.

More than likely, we'll see other rankings in the coming days, as a lead-in to the Aug. 5 enshrinement of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2017. The inductees include a pair of running backs, LaDainian Tomlinson and Terrell Davis.

Former Dallas RB Emmitt Smith, left, and owner Jerry Jones are pictured at halftime during the Detroit Lions vs. the Dallas Cowboys NFL football game on Sunday, November 21, 2010 at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. (Louis DeLuca/The Dallas Morning News) (LOUIS DeLUCA/Staff Photographer)

Last month on NFL.com, longtime Cowboys director of player personnel Gil Brandt ranked his top 27 running backs of all-time. Brandt placed Smith tenth. That's not a misprint. Tenth.

This week, highly respected Sports Illustrated NFL reporter Peter King wrote in his Monday Morning Quarterback about an intriguing draft of all-time players he conducted with 12 historians of the sport, including our Rick Gosselin. Smith was the 13th running back selected, in the 16th round.

I can't think of another pro athlete in any sport who owns major records as does Smith, yet ranks comparatively low in media opinion. Barry Bonds, perhaps, but for different reasons.

We're talking about Emmitt Smith, a player who rushed for more yards (18,355) and touchdowns (164) than anyone in NFL history. We're talking about a first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer who was named to eight Pro Bowls and helped lead the Cowboys to three Super Bowl titles, earning MVP honors in 1994's Super Bowl XXVIII.

"You always have to go back to, 'What is the criteria for the greatest running back of all-time?' " Smith says. "And if you really want to have a legitimate conversation about the best running back in National Football League history, or the best player in NFL history, then you have to create the criteria.

"And if you create the criteria, then anybody who's chiming in can give you their true opinion. Because now you have something you can actually gauge it against. Everything else is so arbitrary. So I think they are just doing it to create a conversation in the marketplace.

"I'm not going to overly concern myself with it. Because at the end of the day, eighteen three fifty-five speaks for itself. One hundred sixty-four speaks for itself."

One would think so. Smith's career rushing total is 1,629 yards ahead of No. 2 Walter Payton's 16,276 -- and 3,086 yards more than No. 3 Barry Sanders' 15,269. His rushing touchdown total dwarfs those of No. 2 Marcus Allen (123) and No. 3 Tomlinson (115).

It's highly doubtful either of those records will be broken, yet for whatever reason, 12 years after Smith's retirement, those achievements don't resonate in the minds of some.

Why?'

"Because it's too easy," Smith says. "It's too easy. It's too easy."

OK, perhaps. Let's move on to a criterion by which most professional athletes are judged: Winning.

Anytime "experts" rank quarterbacks, they place significant value on Super Bowls won, a reason Dan Marino seldom cracks the top five of such lists. Similarly, team success is cited when ranking other positional players. It's a primary reason Charles Haley (five Super Bowl wins) finally got elected into the HOF despite not ranking among the all-time leaders in sacks.

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Winning matters in all facets of life, except, apparently, when it comes to ranking the best running backs in NFL history.

On Brandt's list, for example, Smith's three Super Bowl titles equal the combined Super Bowls and NFL titles won by the nine players ranked ahead of him -- one each by No. 9 Tony Dorsett, No. 2 Payton and No. 1 Jim Brown.

Oh, the hypocrisy.

Ranking No. 4 on both the Brandt and Talk of Fame lists is Gale Sayers. Good grief. Hey, I love watching the footage of Sayers zigzagging and jet-propelling himself through defenses, but the man's career was injury-shortened to five seasons. I also loved 1971's Brian's Song -- bawled like a baby -- and the social significance of black and white teammates being best friends in the late 1960s, but none of the above are qualifications for greatest running back of all-time.

Nor is Sayers' NFL-record kickoff-return average of 30.56 yards, though the Talk of Fame ranking cites it in its synopsis of why he deserved its No. 4 ranking.

Did you know that Sayers eclipsed 1,000 rushing yards in only two of his five full seasons? Did you know his 4,956 career rushing yards ties him for 137th in NFL history, with Alfred Morris? Did you know the Bears never made the playoffs with Sayers, and that their record in those five seasons was 29-38-3?

Can you imagine a quarterback having a flashy five-year career, in which his team didn't accomplish squat, still cracking anyone's all-time top five ranking? Me, neither.

The running back in many lists' top five whose career most closely mirrored Smith's is the Lions' Sanders. He entered the NFL in 1989, the year before Smith.

During Sanders' ten seasons, the Lions were a pedestrian 78-82 and made the playoffs five times. Their 1-5 postseason record included losses by 31, 21 and 10 points.

In Smith's first ten seasons, the Cowboys were 101-59 in the regular season and 12-5 in the playoffs, although two of the regular-season defeats occurred when he missed the first two games of '93 during a contract holdout.

In addition to his regular-season records, Smith is the all-time leader in playoff rushing yards (1,586) and touchdowns (19).

While Sanders frequently was pulled from games in goal-line situations, Smith was an every-down back with an uncanny knack for banging or squirming into the end zone.

As Smith takes a swig of water, I tell him that the words I most often hear or read about him when it comes to rankings are, "Yeah, but . . . "

Yeah, but he played on great teams. Yeah, but he ran behind a great offensive line.

Funny, but I never hear or read anyone devalue Jerry Rice's receiving records because he played on great 49ers teams and had two Hall of Fame quarterbacks, Joe Montana and Steve Young.

"Everybody had great teammates," Smith says. "I mean, Jim Brown didn't do all that by himself. Gale Sayers didn't do all that by himself.

"And you're talking about different eras and different offenses. Jim Brown played in an era when running was predominant. Barry played in a spread, run-and-shoot at the beginning. Eric Dickerson, Marcus Allen and I were in a similar offense.

"So it's kind of hard to compare. That's why I say a lot of these comparisons are just B.S. It's just talk. It's just talk in the marketplace to create this conversation in the social media world so everybody can chime in because somebody at home ain't doing nothing.

"I just say, 'OK, fine. I'll let other people defend me.' "

Former Dallas Cowboys football player Emmitt Smith (right) and former director of operations Bruce Mays on the Blue Carpet during the 25th Anniversary of the Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl XXVII at Gilley's in Dallas, Saturday, February 25, 2017. The event was hosted by Troy Aikman and United Way of Metropolitan of Dallas in which he is the new fundraiser. The evening featured appearances by Cowboys legends, a conversation with head coach Jimmy Johnson and other members of the 1992 coaching staff, and a special celebration honoring Jerry Jones for his election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News) (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

Well, I might not be the guy Smith has in mind, but I'm the one raising the issue on this particular day.

So with that, here are my all-time top 10 running backs. Feel free to chime into the conversation, but know that if you rank Gale Sayers ahead of Emmitt Smith, I'm going to question the legitimacy of your list:

10. Marcus Allen

9. LaDainian Tomlinson

8. Marshall Faulk

7. Eric Dickerson

6. Earl Campbell

5. O.J. Simpson

4. Barry Sanders

3. Walter Payton

2. Emmitt Smith

1. Jim Brown