Yesterday, I wrote that in 2006, LaDainian Tomlinson had the best fantasy season any running back has ever had. He produced a record 282.4 points of VBD that year, but Tomlinson was no one year wonder. In 2003, he had 245.8 points of VBD, the 6th-best season by any running back since 1970. He had 186.6 points of VBD in 2005 and 183.6 points in 2007, and was a top-3 fantasy running back every year from 2002 to 2007. Take a look at his career:

That number at the bottom right — 1,487.3 — shows how many career points of VBD Tomlinson produced. That’s the most of any running back since the merger, slightly edging out Marshall Faulk and Emmitt Smith. Those three overlapped from ’01 to ’04, and in some ways the fantasy torch was passed from Smith (#1 fantasy RB from ’92 to ’95) to Faulk (#1 from ’99 to ’01) to Tomlinson (top-3 each year from ’02 to ’07).

The graph below shows the VBD each player had from ’90 to ’01:

Of course, if we really want to compare those three, let’s do it by age. This chart is pretty interesting, because the three stand out in different ways:

Emmitt wins at most years — he had more VBD than both Faulk and Tomlinson at 22, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, and 35. Faulk wins just two years — his rookie year at age 21, and his 2001 season at age 28. Faulk’s peak was limited to four years, and in three of them, Smith or Tomlinson still were better. On the other hand, Faulk had some early success outside of his peak. Tomlinson, meanwhile, had the longest sustained peak, but less success outside of it.

Finally, let’s compare their years by ranking them from best to worst:

The table below shows the career VBD (since 1970) for the top 100 running backs. Players who entered the league prior to the merger are included, but only given credit for their post-1970 seasons. Everyone in the top 10 is in the Hall of Fame or will be:

Please leave your thoughts in the comments.