IRVING, Texas -- It is a mere three feet -- 36 inches of grass, synthetic or organic -- but it may well be the longest, toughest yard in this world.

Large, swift and powerful men, usually in an ill humor, defend this precious real estate. The collisions they seek can be as destructive as car crashes -- without the cars. A dozen pounds of plastic are all that protect the man who dares to carry the football into this charged arena.

Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys has accepted that burden 3,905 times now and gained 16,634 yards, or better than 9.5 miles. On Sunday at Texas Stadium he needs 93 yards against the Seattle Seahawks to break the all-time NFL career rushing record of Walter Payton.

	Walter Payton's son Jarrett talks to Emmitt Smith about once a week.

The late, unfathomably great Chicago Bears running back played for 13 seasons, 1975-87, and this is Smith's 13th campaign as well. Context? The average running back lasts for less than three seasons. How did these sons of the South, born 15 years apart, arrive at this celebrated place? Payton, at 5-foot-10, 202 pounds, was not particularly large or fast. The same is true of the 5-foot-9, 212-pound Smith.

Their builds are similarly low to the ground; former Bears trainer Frank Caito used to attribute Payton's production to his formidable rear end. Both men possess rare vision and balance and, perhaps most important, an indomitable will. Both men played heroically when hurt. Is it any wonder, really, that the two men who have navigated the NFL gauntlet for more yardage than anyone else are, on so many levels, the same man?

When Connie Payton first met Smith last year, she said the similarities between him and her late husband were startling.

"It was as if I had known him forever," she said earlier this week in New York. "I don't know how to explain it. We just bonded. I mean, it was just so natural, it really was."

Maybe it's because one of Smith's two sisters is named Connie.

"I think that their dedication and their love for the game … You know, their hearts and souls are into what they do," Connie said. "They really don't take it for granted. I think that's the difference. They really have a heart for it, and it's not about the money. It's not about the fame. This is what they want to do, and you can tell by the way they train and work out and just the kind of people they are."

Jarrett Payton, 21, said it's uncanny.

"That is what scared me about Emmitt," Jarrett said Thursday at the University of Miami, where he, too, is a running back. "When we are talking it is like talking to my dad a little bit, the way he talks to me and tells me things and explains his opinions. He (has) the same advice that, basically, my dad would give.

"They both have that presence when you meet them, that aura."

Smith, who grew up in Florida, pretending he was Walter Payton in those Sunday backyard games, recognizes that the fantasy has evolved into reality.

"It's funny how you play those games and then in reality, when they were a fantasy at one time, now you're looking at them as a part of reality," Smith said at the Cowboys' Valley Ranch facility on Thursday. "You have a chance to do something very special and unique that's tied to that person you emulated.

"It's not an accident. I think Walter's life and his football career was predestined for him to do great things and I view my life the same way. That's one reason why it's such a special opportunity for his family and my family, because I think they see a lot of similarities and we have a lot more in common that just the game of football."

No doubt, Walter Payton would have welcomed this day.

Connie says he understood that records - even his - were set only to be broken. The man they called "Sweetness" died on Nov. 1, 1999 of a rare strain of liver cancer. He was 45.

	“	As a young man, there's just some things that you can't say to mom. There's some things that you want to say to your father, but in this case his father's no longer there. I just want him to understand that I am a friend. ”
		— Emmitt Smith, on his relationship with Jarrett Payton

On several levels, Smith's steady procession toward the record has had a healing effect on the Payton family. The widespread attention Smith has generated has cast a new light on the achievements of Payton in manner similar to Michael Strahan's eclipse of Mark Gastineau's single-season sack record. Then, too, there is the relationship that Smith has forged with the family. He hasn't filled the vast void, of course, but he has helped to ease the pain.

"Emmitt has been there for us," Connie said. "More than he knows."

Connie Payton: A sense of family
She had never met Smith in person, but when he asked her to come down to Dallas last September for a press conference to be part of a fund-raising campaign for kids, Connie Payton quickly agreed.

Connie and Emmitt had dinner the night before the press conference, along with Emmitt's wife, Pat, and his mother. She first noticed the similarities when they went out to dinner and he wouldn't sit with his back to anybody -- that peripheral vision thing again.

"Walter was the same way," Connie Payton said. "Then, while we were eating, people came up to meet him and were in awe, so excited. They said they were sorry to bother him during dinner, but they wanted an autograph any way. He politely smiled and signed for them. Even when they told him he got the name wrong, he never quit smiling and fixed it.

"I was laughing because it was so familiar."

The next day was Sept. 11. She was sitting on the edge of her bed in a Dallas hotel room when the call came. It was Emmitt Smith saying the press conference, in light of the tragedies unfolding that morning, had been cancelled.

"Would you like to come over?" he asked.

Connie, contemplating a day alone in a strange place, immediately said yes. Soon, she was at Emmitt's house in Addison, north of Dallas, with Pat and his mother and his brothers.

	NFL Countdown
	ESPN's Greg Garber spent a couple of days in Irving, Texas talking to Cowboys RB Emmitt Smith about his pursuit of Walter Payton's rushing record and his relationship with Walter's widow and son. Tune in to ESPN at 11 a.m. on Oct. 27 to watch.

"We just sat there like a family, glued to the TV, shocked like everybody else and praying for what had happened," she remembered. "We went to the grocery store and the line was wrapped all the way around the store. It was such an eerie and scary sight. The second store we went to, people were buying up everything. It reminded me of what you see before a hurricane."

They fixed dinner together and had a nice family meal.

"Just watching he and his family and the love there," Connie said, "you realize on a day like that, that the most important thing when it comes down to everything is having family and support and love."

This, Jarrett has come to understand as well.

"You can see the caring in his heart when he brought mom into his home, making sure she was all right," Jarrett said. "That showed me what kind of person he was. They talk a lot and my mom talks to me and says, 'Why don't you call him back -- he told me he called you.'

They are the two people who are the easiest and understand me the most. It is real easy to talk to two people like that who are so special."

After Walter Payton died, his family created the Walter Payton Cancer Fund to support research for conventional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation as well as more experimental science-based medicines. When it came time to honor an NFL player with the organization's first Spirit of Sweetness Award, Smith -- a prodigious backer of charitable causes in the Dallas area -- was the obvious choice.

"A no-brainer," Connie said, citing humility, pride, love of family and a willingness to give back as the prerequisites for the award.

When he accepted the award this past July in Aurora, Ill., Smith -- who once played through the searing pain of a seriously separated shoulder without compliant -- broke down.

"When you get something from a person or family that represents truly what the game means, a person that's dedicated to excellence, a person that means a lot to me …" Smith paused and tears filled his eyes. "I tried to be strong and tried to hold my emotions, but I just can't. That's how much it has meant to me, and that's how much it's going to mean to me when I break (the record). Because he's an individual that I had up in my locker in high school, a guy that worked so hard for a team that he loved so dearly, a guy that I wish would be here.

"But he can't. But I know his family is here and that's what I can hold onto. So when the day comes, it will be more special than you realize."

"Maybe it was the way they were raised," Connie Payton said. "I don't know, because I've tried to think about the same thing about Walter. Maybe just their upbringing and how they are and just their traditions and their values. What they want seems to be different than a lot of people these days.

"I mean, you set your goals, you go out, you accomplish it and you're proud for that fact. They're just really good, decent human beings that are really proud in what they do. They want to set examples. I know a lot of guys these days don't want to be role models. I don't think they mind being role models."

Jarrett Payton: A father figure
Emmitt Smith is familiar with the enormous weight of potential.

He was named the national high school player of the year as a senior at Escambia High School in Florida. He produced the third-highest rushing and scoring totals (8,804 yards, 106 touchdowns) in national high school history. He arrived as the most heavily decorated runner in University of Florida history.

Three years later, Smith left with 58 school records.

Jarrett Payton hasn't been quite as fortunate.

A notable high school athlete in Arlington Heights, Ill., Payton is a junior at Miami where the undefeated football team has been ranked No. 1 since the preseason polls and was ranked No. 2 in the first BCS standings released earlier this week. Payton, who wears his father's No. 34, is the team's third-string tailback.

The Hurricanes have won all 18 of their games with Payton on the roster. Problem is, he has missed seven of them due to various injuries. When the games get out of hand, as they inevitably do, Payton comes on in relief of Willie McGahee and Jason Geathers, who have already combined for more than 1,100 yards in six games. Payton, who missed the first and most recent games of the season, has 21 carries and 82 yards. In his brief career, he has 35 carries for 115 yards and two touchdowns.

"Life is all about obstacles and getting back into things," said Jarrett. "My dad always told me that nothing comes easy, and my mom told me that my time is going to come. I just have to be ready."

Emmitt Smith, it turns out, tells him those things, too.

The first time Jarrett remembers meeting Smith was his freshman year at Miami, just after his father had passed away. It was Dan Marino's annual golf tournament.

"We really didn't talk that much," Jarrett said. "We said hello to each other and he said he would be looking out for me. I said thank you. After that, I knew I had a friend I could look up to."

	Smith is likely to get his record-breaking carry against the Seahawks on Sunday.

The two talk about once every week. Payton has Smith listed as "22" in his cell phone, the familiar number with the Cowboys. Payton, however, calls him Mr. Smith despite Smith's repeated request for him to call him Emmitt. Smith calls Payton by his initials, "J.P."

"I love Emmitt," Jarrett said. "He reminds me a lot of my father."

The two really got to know each other back in July when Smith received the Spirit of Sweetness Award.

"It was actually my mom's birthday," Jarrett remembered. "He was sitting on the other side of the table and I was on the other side and before we started eating he actually came and sat by me and we ended up talking the whole time we were there.

"So I asked him how everything was going, and he kind of gave me a sigh. Like, 'Everything is good, it is just a lot. Everything is on me right now, I've got to do all these things -- I love doing it -- but I can't wait until it is over.'

"That was the same thing my dad would have said."

Smith has also been helping Jarrett through his travails at Miami. The week after Smith accepted the Spirit Award, Jarrett suffered a back injury.

"It was kind of devastating," Jarrett said. "All the goals I had and things I was looking up to doing this year had to be put on hold and put in the back seat. I was struggling with dealing with it at the time and it was just easy to talk to him. I was down and he told me to keep my head up, good things are going to happen.

"I always tell him, 'I want to be where you are at, and he says, 'You will be there. It is going to take time. It might not seem like it is going to be there right now, but you have to keep working hard.' That's what he keeps telling me. Day in and day out, I work hard and try to get myself back to where I was back in the summer."

Said Smith, "As a young man, there's just some things that you can't say to mom. There's some things that you want to say to your father, but in this case his father's no longer there. I just want him to understand that I am a friend. I'm not trying to replace his father -- I am a friend. Regardless of what the world may say or how I may be perceived in terms of stardom and all those things, toss all that out the window. Look at me as a human being and share whatever you want to share with me and just know it's between me and him."

Is he Uncle Emmitt to Jarrett?

"That's basically what he is," Jarrett said. "He is like a new best friend, a new friend to me."

Is this the week?
The play called in the Bears' huddle was Toss-28-Weak.

Walter Payton had gained 50 yards in the first half of the Oct. 7, 1984 game against the New Orleans Saints at Soldier Field, leaving him just two yards short of Jim Brown's all-time NFL career rushing record of 12,312 yards.

On the second play of the third quarter, Chicago fullback Matt Suhey and left guard Mark Bortz slammed into the Saints' line, opening a small crease for Payton. He turned it into a 6-yard gain and finished the game with 154 yards. The following season, the Bears won Super Bowl XX and Payton retired after the strike-torn season of 1987.

Smith has been closely scrutinized by the national media this week. The fact that Sunday's game against Seattle is the only home game in a five-week stretch strongly suggests that the Cowboys will do everything to get Smith the record. That the 1-5 Seahawks have the league's worst run defense sort of clinches it.

"I'm sure they're looking at film and going, 'This is the week,' " Seattle head coach Mike Holmgren noted earlier this week.

The Cowboys made a conscious effort to get Smith the ball last week in a loss at Arizona. He carried 22 times for 82 yards, both season highs.

Connie Payton wishes she could be at Texas Stadium on Sunday but she has a previous engagement. The Illinois chapter of WINGS -- Women Involved in Nurturing, Giving, Sharing -- will honor her in a ceremony as the organization's first Humanitarian of the Year.

She has already taped a congratulatory message for Smith when -- and if -- he breaks the record. She would prefer to see him break it the following week in nearby Detroit, but realizes that probably won't happen.

Connie is in the middle of a national tour to support her new book, "Stronger than Cancer: Treasured Insights from the Hearts and Homes of Families Fighting Cancer." A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Walter Payton Cancer Fund. Earlier this week, she was in New York, bouncing between book signings, radio and television appearances.

Her fondness for Smith is obvious. Clearly, his personality, his manner is eerily familiar.

"They're from the old school," Connie Payton said. "I'm one of these people from the old school, so I have little tolerance for a lot of these guys and what they do today, I really do.

"But he's great and Walter spoke very highly of Emmitt. I know he would be really excited for what's happening to him right now. I couldn't think of a better person to be in position to break Walter's rushing record than Emmitt."

Not surprisingly, Jarrett feels the same way.

"Growing up, I'd be like, 'I don't want anybody to break the record,' " Jarrett said. "And my dad would say, 'One day, somebody is going to break it.'

"If anybody is going to do it, I would like it to be Emmitt because he's a great guy. Emmitt, to me, is deserving of the rushing record. If it was someone else, I might be kind of upset. If it is Emmitt, it's OK."

Smith, for his part, said he feels he has the Paytons' blessing.

"You could be dealing with people who are very selfish about what their father and their husband has accomplished, but that is not their spirit, their demeanor or even their character," Smith said. "Their character has taken on the role of their father; they have carried it on and that's a credit to Walter -- leaving a living legacy of a heartwarming warmth and loving and caring and giving family.

"There's a give and a take. I want to give back to them, they want to give back to me, so we both get to take this thing together."

Greg Garber is a senior writer at ESPN.com.