Career Yards From Scrimmage Over “Worst Starter” Baseline

by Chase Stuart on June 3, 2015

Last week, we looked at the career leaders in rushing yards over worst starter; today, we use the same methodology but with yards from scrimmage. Let’s use Walter Payton’s 1977 season as an example.

That season, the NFL had 28 teams, and the 28th-ranked player in yards from scrimmage gained 854 yards. But Payton, in his best season as a pro, rushed for 1,852 yards and picked up another 269 yards through the air, for a total of 2,121 yards from scrimmage. That gave him 1,267 yards above the baseline of “worst starter.” But remember, in ’77, the NFL had a 14-game schedule; pro-rate that to 16 games, and Peyton is credited with 1,448 yards over the baseline. That’s the 2nd best season ever by this formula.

While 1977 was by far Payton’s best year, he dominated in this metric for most of his career, posting the 48th, 82nd, 87th, 90th, 94th, 108th, and 157th best seasons. And while Emmitt Smith finally edged past Payton on the career yards from scrimmage last in the final games of his career, Payton has a big edge in this metric because we are removing “junk” seasons. In fact, Payton has a big edge over just about everyone. Nobody forgets about Walter Payton, of course, but I wonder if sometimes his dominance in this metric is overlooked: he led the NFL in YFS in ’77 and ’78, then finished 2nd in the category in ’79. He ranked 3rd in YFS in ’80 and in ’83, ’84, and ’85. Add in a 4th-place finish in ’76 and a 5th-place in ’86, and that gives Payton a whopping 9 finishes in the top 5 in yards from scrimmage.

If we use the methodology described above for every season of a player’s career, we get what I think is a better version of the career yards from scrimmage leaders (at least for running backs) because we are removing junk seasons. Below are the career grades for the top 200 players (note that by default, the table only displays the top 25). I have also listed for each back his career yards from scrimmage and his rank in that category.

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Rk	Player	YFS	Rk	First Yr	Last Yr	HOF	VALUE
1	Walter Payton	21264	3	1975	1987	Yes	8914
2	Jim Brown	14811	23	1957	1965	Yes	7868
3	Barry Sanders	18190	6	1989	1998	Yes	7351
4	LaDainian Tomlinson	18456	5	2001	2011	Not El.	6312
5	Marshall Faulk	19154	4	1994	2005	Yes	5842
6	Emmitt Smith	21579	2	1990	2004	Yes	5829
7	Eric Dickerson	15396	15	1983	1993	Yes	5260
8	O.J. Simpson	13378	37	1969	1979	Yes	5139
9	Tiki Barber	15632	12	1997	2006	No	4999
10	Thurman Thomas	16532	9	1988	2000	Yes	4961
11	Tony Dorsett	16293	10	1977	1988	Yes	4947
12	Curtis Martin	17430	8	1995	2005	Yes	4768
13	Don Hutson	8275	175	1935	1945	Yes	4560
14	Jerry Rice	23540	1	1985	2004	Yes	4421
15	Edgerrin James	15610	13	1999	2009	No	4411
16	Ricky Watters	14891	22	1992	2001	No	4328
17	Lydell Mitchell	9737	102	1972	1980	No	4027
18	Adrian Peterson	11905	59	2007	2014	Not El.	3789
19	Marcus Allen	17654	7	1982	1997	Yes	3675
20	William Andrews	8633	154	1979	1986	No	3659
21	Ottis Anderson	13335	38	1979	1992	No	3617
22	Chuck Foreman	9106	121	1973	1980	No	3602
23	Franco Harris	14407	25	1972	1984	Yes	3516
24	Matt Forte	11431	66	2008	2014	Not El.	3441
25	Clinton Portis	11941	57	2002	2010	Not El.	3362

Showing 1 to 25 of 200 entries

Tiki Barber, Edgerrin James, Ricky Watters, Lydell Mitchell, and William Andrews check in as the only players in the top 20 not in the HOF. I am sure their rankings here don’t come as a shock to hardcore fans — all were dominant in their prime — but does this change your view on the HOF case for any of them?

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