Single Season Rushing Yards Over “Worst Starter” Baseline

by Chase Stuart on June 1, 2015

On Friday, I looked at the career rushing leaders in “yards over worst starter.” Today, let’s look at the single-season list.

In 1963, Jim Brown rushed for 1,863 yards in a 14-team NFL. The baseline that year was 541 yards, which represents the 14th highest individual rushing total that year. So Brown exceeded that number by a whopping 1,322 rushing yards. Given that 1963 was a 14-game NFL season, that translates to a pro-rated value of 1,511 yards, the third best ever. The table below shows the top 300 single seasons.

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Rk	Running Back	Year	Tm	Lg	Rush Yds	Tms	Baseline	Diff	Lg G	Pro-Rated
1	O.J. Simpson	1973	BUF	NFL	2003	26	655	1348	14	1541
2	Adrian Peterson	2012	MIN	NFL	2097	32	564	1533	16	1533
3	Jim Brown	1963	CLE	NFL	1863	14	541	1322	14	1511
4	Eric Dickerson	1984	RAM	NFL	2105	28	610	1495	16	1495
5	Terrell Davis	1998	DEN	NFL	2008	30	527	1481	16	1481
6	Walter Payton	1977	CHI	NFL	1852	28	585	1267	14	1448
7	Jamal Lewis	2003	BAL	NFL	2066	32	627	1439	16	1439
8	Barry Sanders	1997	DET	NFL	2053	30	643	1410	16	1410
9	Jim Brown	1958	CLE	NFL	1527	12	500	1027	12	1369
10	O.J. Simpson	1975	BUF	NFL	1817	26	631	1186	14	1355

Showing 1 to 10 of 300 entries

Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, and Emmitt Smith each have nine seasons in the top 300. Incredibly, all 9 of Payton’s top 300 seasons are top 200 seasons, while Sanders has 8 top 150 seasons.

Jim Brown and Curtis Martin are next with 7 top-300 seasons, although in Brown’s case, that’s 7 seasons in the top 80!

You won’t be surprised to learn that Dallas has 16 seasons make the top 300. That’s what happens when you combine Smith and Tony Dorsett, plus get one season each out of DeMarco Murray and Herschel Walker. But the Cowboys are not the only team with 16 such seasons. And it would probably take you awhile to guess which other team that is.

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Washington has 16 seasons spread across 9 different running backs. The list begins with Cliff Battles in 1937, includes Frank Akins in ’45, jumps to Rob Goode‘s 1951 campaign, and then to Larry Brown in ’70 and ’72. From there we get John Riggs in ’83 and ’84, Terry Allen in ’95 and ’96, Stephen Davis from ’99 to ’01, Clinton Portis in ’05 and ’08, and finally Alfred Morris in ’12 and ’13.

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But the Rams actually take the top spot with 17 seasons, albeit spread across two cities. In Los Angeles, Dan Towler (1952), Dick Bass (1962, 1966), Lawrence McCutcheon (’74, ’76-’77), Eric Dickerson (’83, ’84, ’86), Charles White (’87), Greg Bell (’88), and Jerome Bettis (’93) make the list, while Marshall Faulk and Steven Jackson combine for five additional top-300 seasons since the franchise moved to St. Louis.

You won’t be surprised to see that the Dolphins have just three seasons in the top 300. When Miami had a great rushing game, it was split among players like Larry Csonka, Mercury Morris, and Jim Kiick. And then Miami went 17 years without a 1,000-yard rusher. One of the 3 entries is Andra Franklin‘s 701 grind-it-out rushing yards during the strike-shortened 1982 season; the other two came from Ricky Williams.

The Cardinals only have 4 top-300 seasons, but that’s hardly surprising, with John David Crow‘s 1960 season joining 3 Ottis Anderson seasons. What’s more surprising is that the Raiders have only four seasons on the list, too. Marcus Allen in ’82 and ’85 is bookmarked by Mark van Eegehn and Napolean Kaufman each having one top-300 season in ’77 and ’97, respectively.

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