Quote:
Originally Posted by HPF Bob
Feature backs are typically 25-30 carry/game type players. To call someone a feature back and then say you hope he gets 15 touches is contradictory.
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Keith said almost everything I intended to say, except that, by that definition, there have only been a few feature backs over a full season in the NFL's history. Larry Johnson last year averaged an even 26 carries per game in setting the NFL record for carries as Herm Edwards finished off another back. Jamal Anderson's 410 in 1998 was an average of 25.6. He blew out his knee for the first time the next year and never recovered. Finally, Eddie George scored 403 (25.18) carries for Jeff Fisher in 2000. He never managed more than 3.4 ypc again in his career.
In the late 90s, early 2000s, there were a few others that came close. Terrell Davis in his greatest year, 1998, got 392 carries (24.5) but never played anywhere close to full-time again (his high carry seasons of 97 and 98 were compounded by SB runs that pushed his knees far beyond what they were capable of). Edgerrin James ran 387 times in 2000 (24.18) a year after leading the league with 369; the next season he tore his ACL in game 6. Ricky Williams was a toy Norv Turner couldn't resist driving him for 383 carries in 2002 (23.9) and 392 carries in 2003 (24.5) even though his YPC dropped from 4.8 to 3.5 in that span. Norv has a long history of riding his backs into the ground; the fact that he only rushed Tomlinson 315 times (19.6) this season is as good an evidence as any that this super-workhorse trend might be dying off. Also in 2003, Jamal Lewis carried 387 (24.18) times on his way to his 2000 yard season; most of the media blamed his downturn on his offseason prison time but I think that its hard to ignore that 387 carries is a lot for any back, particularly one working on two rebuilt ACLs.
Before that late 90's, early 00's stretch, only a few other players have even come close to 25 carries per game, notably Jim Brown on the old 12 game schedule and Walter Payton and OJ Simpson on the 14 game schedule in the run-heavy 70's. But even they didn't average 25 carries a game once in their career.