No coach wants to gamble with odds like that.
There would be over a 25 percent chance that Dickerson would fumble the football during the drive. Imagine needing your running back to carry the ball seven times on a fourth-quarter drive to seal a victory. A team needs to be able to trust its running back to hold onto the football at all costs.ĭickerson fumbled the football one out of every 27 carries in 1984. He averaged 5.6 yards per carry and scored 14 touchdowns. In 1984, Eric Dickerson rushed 379 times for a still-standing record of 2105 yards. And it's the quickest way for the National Football League's single-season rushing holder to fail to qualify for this list. It's the easiest way for a rookie to get cut from a team. Unlike passer ratings, where the league average practically doubled between the 1940's and now, yards per attempt has always been relatively consistent-between 3.9 and 4.2 yards per attempt.įumbles are the worst thing a running back can do. The best thing about yards per carry is that averages have been relatively unchanged over time. Good running backs average about four and a half yards per carry, and average running backs average around four yards per carry. The best running backs average in the National Football League over five yards per carry. Well, my two favorite statistics for running backs are yards per carry and fumbles. So what should a running back be rated on? Why? Because the Lions' had a 234-pound fullback named Tommy Vardell who carries the ball just 18 times but scored six touchdowns! Should Barry Sanders be penalized for his lack of touchdowns? No, because he consistently put his team in position to score. In 1998, Sanders carried 343 times for 1494 yards, but scored just four touchdowns. The Lions' legendary running back averaged 5.0 yards per carry throughout his Hall of Fame career, but scored 'only' 99 touchdowns in 10 seasons. Only Marshall Faulk's 2000 campaign and LT's recordbreaking season of 2006 found their way onto my list. Three of the five seasons-Emmitt Smith in 1995, Priest Holmes in 2003, and Shaun Alexander in 2005-failed to make my list. However, rushing touchdowns are slightly overrated-maybe even more than slightly overrated. The single season touchdown record has been broken five times in my lifetime, and will probably be broken again in the near future. Nowadays, the majority of teams produce a 1000-yard rusher, and within the next 10 to 15 years, I predict that a half dozen or more teams yield two 1000-yard rushers. There was a time when, even factoring in the increases in games played during the season, a 1000-yard rusher was considered impressive. Seasonal rushing totals have increased, partly due to a stronger emphasis on powerful offensive lines. That's the last time a Lions player led the NFL in rushing scores.Throughout history, the position of running back has changed significantly. Finally, Williams is only four touchdowns short of tying the Lions' single-season record of 16 rushing touchdowns, set by Sanders in 1991.
Williams also became the first back to score multiple rushing touchdowns in at least five of his team's first 10 games since another Hall of Famer, LaDainian Tomlinson, did so in 2006.
Sunday was Williams' fifth game with multiple rushing touchdowns this season, tying the legendary Barry Sanders for the franchise record. In his first five NFL seasons with the Packers and Lions, he totaled a combined 13 rushing scores. Williams had a career-high three rushing scores in the Lions' third straight win Sunday, a 31-18 upset of the New York Giants. Swift is back now, but appears to have lost his share of the workload. He and D'Andre Swift essentially shared touches – but then Swift got hurt. The 27-year-old Williams, BYU's all-time leading rusher, wasn't even Detroit's true featured back when the season began. Williams and Cleveland's Nick Chubb are now both +300 to lead in rushing scores at DraftKings. Williams was +10000 to do so entering the year but currently sits first with 12 scores. I'm not sure what the longest odds were for any player in NFL history to lead the league in rushing touchdowns was, but Detroit's Jamaal Williams could go down as one of the most unlikely champions of that statistic.
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