Career Rushing Yards Over “Worst Starter” Baseline

by Chase Stuart on May 29, 2015

Last year, DeMarco Murray led the NFL with 1,845 rushing yards. The 32nd-ranked rusher last season rushed for 570 yards, which means Murray rushed for 1,275 yards more than the Nth-ranked rusher, with N representing the number of teams in the NFL. That’s obviously excellent, although not quite the best of all time.

That honor, as regular readers could have guessed, belongs to O.J. Simpson. In 1973, Simpson rushed for an incredible 2,003 yards, while the 26th-ranked rusher in the 26-team NFL rushed for 655 yards. As a result, Simpson is credited with 1,348 yards over the Nth-ranked rusher. Then again, remember that this was a 14-game NFL season; we need to pro-rate that number to 16 games to make for a fairer comparison. That brings Simpson’s season up to +1,540, slightly edging out Adrian Peterson‘s 2012 season (2,097, 564, +1533).

What if we use that methodology for every player during every season of his career? That, to me, is an improvement on just a list of the career rushing leaders, since we don’t give players any benefit for junk seasons. That may be the only thing this list is an improvement on — after all, it is still based on only one statistic — but hey, it’s Friday. Below are the career grades for the top 150 running backs (note that by default, the table only displays the top 25). I have also listed for each back his career rushing yards and his rank in that category.

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Rk	Runing Back	Car Rush Yd	Car Rush Rk	First Yr	Last Year	HOF	Value
1	Emmitt Smith	18355	1	1990	2004	Yes	9517
2	Walter Payton	16726	2	1975	1987	Yes	9364
3	Jim Brown	12312	9	1957	1965	Yes	9338
4	Barry Sanders	15269	3	1989	1998	Yes	9324
5	Eric Dickerson	13259	7	1983	1993	Yes	7270
6	Curtis Martin	14101	4	1995	2005	Yes	7258
7	LaDainian Tomlinson	13684	5	2001	2011	Not El.	6671
8	Tony Dorsett	12739	8	1977	1988	Yes	6007
9	Jerome Bettis	13662	6	1993	2005	Yes	5921
10	Edgerrin James	12246	11	1999	2009	No	5790
11	Adrian Peterson	10190	28	2007	2014	Not El.	5572
12	O.J. Simpson	11236	19	1969	1979	Yes	5530
13	Thurman Thomas	12074	14	1988	2000	Yes	5435
14	Franco Harris	12120	13	1972	1984	Yes	5217
15	Marshall Faulk	12279	10	1994	2005	Yes	5173
16	Eddie George	10441	26	1996	2004	No	5120
17	Ricky Watters	10643	22	1992	2001	No	5072
18	Corey Dillon	11241	18	1997	2006	No	5014
19	Tiki Barber	10449	25	1997	2006	No	4926
20	Fred Taylor	11695	15	1998	2010	Not El.	4917
21	Jamal Lewis	10607	23	2000	2009	No	4836
22	Earl Campbell	9407	33	1978	1985	Yes	4813
23	Clinton Portis	9923	30	2002	2010	Not El.	4667
24	Frank Gore	11073	20	2005	2014	Not El.	4663
25	Jim Taylor	8597	38	1958	1967	Yes	4636

Showing 1 to 25 of 150 entries

I’d be careful not to read too much into the list, but I think it’s a fun idea. What stands out to you?

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