Best RB Single Season Performance

Today, just like most days, I was perusing random football statistics. I came across something (I don’t even remember what it was now) and started wondering if Reggie White’s 1987 season was the best season for a defensive end of all-time. Then I wondered if 1987 harbored both the greatest season by a defensive end of all-time and the greatest season by a wide receiver, with Jerry Rice. Then I started to ponder if it was possible to pin down the greatest single season for each position.

For whatever reason, I started looking at running backs first. This was either a good idea or a bad idea depending on how you want to look at it, because there have been several incredible seasons by running backs that could be argued as the single greatest ever. I started by putting together a list, including all of the 2,000-yard rushing seasons, the top five rushing TDs in a season, top five all-purpose TDs in a season, and top ten yards from scrimmage in a season.

Barry Sanders, my favorite running back of all-time

There was obviously some overlap in these groups, so I conveniently ended up with a list of 20 seasons.

(Listed in chronological order after the jump.)

Year	Name	Team
1973	OJ Simpson	Buffalo Bills
1975	OJ Simpson	Buffalo Bills
1983	John Riggins	Washington Redskins
1984	Eric Dickerson	Los Angeles Rams
1985	Marcus Allen	Los Angeles Raiders
1995	Emmitt Smith	Dallas Cowboys
1997	Barry Sanders	Detroit Lions
1998	Terrell Davis	Denver Broncos
1999	Marshall Faulk	St. Louis Rams
2000	Marshall Faulk	St. Louis Rams
2000	Edgerrin James	Indianapolis Colts
2002	Priest Holmes	Kansas City Chiefs
2003	Priest Holmes	Kansas City Chiefs
2003	Ladainian Tomlinson	San Diego Chargers
2003	Jamal Lewis	Baltimore Ravens
2005	Tiki Barber	New York Giants
2005	Shaun Alexander	Seattle Seahawks
2006	Steven Jackson	St. Louis Rams
2006	Ladainian Tomlinson	San Diego Chargers
2009	Chris Johnson	Tennessee Titans

I know that there are arguments that could be made for several other seasons (1977 Walter Payton, 1963 Jim Brown, 1980 Earl Campbell, etc) and maybe I should have included more of them in my list, but this gave me a nice, rounded list of 20 seasons, so I stuck with it. Plus, this way I don’t have an seasons from before the NFL/AFL merger, and the only two seasons I have from before the switch to a 16-game season are those of OJ Simpson’s.

And because WordPress is making it extremely difficult to copy and past excel sheets into posts I’m going to show their stats below… but it won’t be next to their names, you’ll just have to trust me when I say they’re listed in the same order that I listed them above:

Rushing					Receiving				Total
Att	Yds	Avg	Tds	Fum	Rec	Yds	Avg	Tds	Yds	Avg	Tds	TD%
332	2003	6.03	12	7	6	70	11.67	0	2073	6.13	12	3.55
329	1817	5.52	16	7	28	426	15.21	7	2243	6.28	23	6.44
375	1347	3.59	24	5	5	29	5.80	0	1376	3.62	24	6.32
379	2105	5.55	14	14	21	139	6.62	0	2244	5.61	14	3.50
380	1759	4.63	11	3	67	555	8.28	3	2314	5.18	14	3.13
377	1773	4.70	25	7	62	375	6.05	0	2148	4.89	25	5.69
335	2053	6.13	11	3	33	305	9.24	3	2358	6.41	14	3.80
392	2008	5.12	21	2	25	217	8.68	2	2225	5.34	23	5.52
253	1381	5.46	7	2	87	1048	12.05	5	2429	7.14	12	3.53
253	1359	5.37	18	0	81	830	10.25	8	2189	6.55	26	7.78
387	1709	4.42	13	5	63	594	9.43	5	2303	5.12	18	4.00
313	1615	5.16	21	1	70	672	9.60	3	2287	5.97	24	6.27
320	1420	4.44	27	1	74	690	9.32	0	2110	5.36	27	6.85
313	1645	5.26	13	2	100	725	7.25	4	2370	5.74	17	4.12
387	2066	5.34	14	8	26	205	7.88	0	2271	5.50	14	3.39
357	1860	5.21	9	1	54	530	9.81	2	2390	5.82	11	2.68
370	1880	5.08	27	5	15	78	5.20	1	1958	5.09	28	7.27
347	1528	4.40	13	4	90	806	8.96	3	2334	5.34	16	3.66
348	1815	5.22	28	2	56	508	9.07	3	2323	5.75	31	7.67
358	2006	5.60	14	3	50	503	10.06	2	2509	6.15	16	3.92

The green numbers are the best from each statistical category, and the red numbers are the worst. For rushing attempts I could see arguments for both the highest and lowest numbers being better or worse, so instead I just have both the highs and lows in bold for that column. After putting all of this together, I found the averages for each:

Rushing					Receiving				Total
Att	Yds	Avg	Tds	Fum	Rec	Yds	Avg	Tds	Yds	Avg	Tds	TD%
345	1757	5.11	17	4	51	465	9.02	3	2223	5.65	19	4.95

With those numbers I found how each of the 20 seasons compared to the average of the 20 for every category by dividing the players’ stat by the average of the 20 seasons for that same stat. The results are shown here:

(Again, listed in the same order as the original list)

Rushing					Receiving				Total
Att	Yds	Avg	Tds	Fum	Rec	Yds	Avg	Tds	Yds	Avg	Tds	TD%
0.96	1.14	1.18	0.71	1.71	0.12	0.15	1.29	0.00	0.93	1.09	0.62	0.72
0.95	1.03	1.08	0.95	1.71	0.55	0.92	1.69	2.75	1.01	1.11	1.18	1.30
1.09	0.77	0.70	1.42	1.22	0.10	0.06	0.64	0.00	0.62	0.64	1.23	1.27
1.10	1.20	1.09	0.83	3.41	0.41	0.30	0.73	0.00	1.01	0.99	0.72	0.71
1.10	1.00	0.91	0.65	0.73	1.32	1.19	0.92	1.18	1.04	0.92	0.72	0.63
1.09	1.01	0.92	1.48	1.71	1.22	0.81	0.67	0.00	0.97	0.87	1.29	1.15
0.97	1.17	1.20	0.65	0.73	0.65	0.66	1.02	1.18	1.06	1.13	0.72	0.77
1.14	1.14	1.00	1.24	0.49	0.49	0.47	0.96	0.78	1.00	0.94	1.18	1.11
0.73	0.79	1.07	0.41	0.49	1.72	2.25	1.34	1.96	1.09	1.26	0.62	0.71
0.73	0.77	1.05	1.07	0.00	1.60	1.78	1.14	3.14	0.98	1.16	1.34	1.57
1.12	0.97	0.86	0.77	1.22	1.24	1.28	1.05	1.96	1.04	0.91	0.93	0.81
0.91	0.92	1.01	1.24	0.24	1.38	1.44	1.06	1.18	1.03	1.06	1.23	1.26
0.93	0.81	0.87	1.60	0.24	1.46	1.48	1.03	0.00	0.95	0.95	1.39	1.38
0.91	0.94	1.03	0.77	0.49	1.97	1.56	0.80	1.57	1.07	1.02	0.87	0.83
1.12	1.18	1.04	0.83	1.95	0.51	0.44	0.87	0.00	1.02	0.97	0.72	0.68
1.03	1.06	1.02	0.53	0.24	1.07	1.14	1.09	0.78	1.08	1.03	0.57	0.54
1.07	1.07	0.99	1.60	1.22	0.30	0.17	0.58	0.39	0.88	0.90	1.44	1.47
1.01	0.87	0.86	0.77	0.98	1.78	1.73	0.99	1.18	1.05	0.95	0.82	0.74
1.01	1.03	1.02	1.66	0.49	1.11	1.09	1.01	1.18	1.05	1.02	1.59	1.55
1.04	1.14	1.10	0.83	0.73	0.99	1.08	1.12	0.78	1.13	1.09	0.82	0.79
0.73	0.77	0.70	0.41	0.00	0.10	0.06	0.58	0.00	0.62	0.64	0.57	0.54

Then I took the sum of these numbers for each season, excluding the rushing attempts, and subtracting (instead of adding) the value for fumbles to give each of the 20 seasons a “score” to be able to rank them.

Here’s the scores for each season:

Year	Name	Team	Score
1973	OJ Simpson	Buffalo Bills	7.20
1975	OJ Simpson	Buffalo Bills	12.81
1983	John Riggins	Washington Redskins	7.33
1984	Eric Dickerson	Los Angeles Rams	5.67
1985	Marcus Allen	Los Angeles Raiders	10.85
1995	Emmitt Smith	Dallas Cowboys	9.76
1997	Barry Sanders	Detroit Lions	10.45
1998	Terrell Davis	Denver Broncos	10.98
1999	Marshall Faulk	St. Louis Rams	13.47
2000	Marshall Faulk	St. Louis Rams	16.33
2000	Edgerrin James	Indianapolis Colts	11.71
2002	Priest Holmes	Kansas City Chiefs	13.49
2003	Priest Holmes	Kansas City Chiefs	12.60
2003	Ladainian Tomlinson	San Diego Chargers	12.84
2003	Jamal Lewis	Baltimore Ravens	7.44
2005	Tiki Barber	New York Giants	10.69
2005	Shaun Alexander	Seattle Seahawks	9.63
2006	Steven Jackson	St. Louis Rams	11.77
2006	Ladainian Tomlinson	San Diego Chargers	13.81
2009	Chris Johnson	Tennessee Titans	11.17
		Average:	11.00

Now, the final step was to rank them in order from highest to lowest. In theory this should give me the best ever single-season performance by a running back in the history of professional football – or at least the best in the history of the NFL. There may have been a couple more statistical categories I could have included -I’m sure OJ Simpson would have benefited from me including yards per game- but on the whole I think this was a pretty good way to be unbiased.

Rank	Year	Name	Team	Score
1	2000	Marshall Faulk	St. Louis Rams	16.33
2	2006	Ladainian Tomlinson	San Diego Chargers	13.81
3	2002	Priest Holmes	Kansas City Chiefs	13.49
4	1999	Marshall Faulk	St. Louis Rams	13.47
5	2003	Ladainian Tomlinson	San Diego Chargers	12.84
6	1975	OJ Simpson	Buffalo Bills	12.81
7	2003	Priest Holmes	Kansas City Chiefs	12.60
8	2006	Steven Jackson	St. Louis Rams	11.77
9	2000	Edgerrin James	Indianapolis Colts	11.71
10	2009	Chris Johnson	Tennessee Titans	11.17
11	1998	Terrell Davis	Denver Broncos	10.98
12	1985	Marcus Allen	Los Angeles Raiders	10.85
13	2005	Tiki Barber	New York Giants	10.69
14	1997	Barry Sanders	Detroit Lions	10.45
15	1995	Emmitt Smith	Dallas Cowboys	9.76
16	2005	Shaun Alexander	Seattle Seahawks	9.63
17	2003	Jamal Lewis	Baltimore Ravens	7.44
18	1983	John Riggins	Washington Redskins	7.33
19	1973	OJ Simpson	Buffalo Bills	7.20
20	1984	Eric Dickerson	Los Angeles Rams	5.67
			Average:	11.00

It looks like Marshall Faulk’s 2000 season is far and away the best. I can’t say I’m surprised. Faulk was phenomenal. That year he had 26 touchdowns and no fumbles -none- and found the end zone 7.78% of the times that he touched the ball. He was also an incredible threat as a receiver out of the backfield. And for those of you that will recall, Marshall Faulk is the reason I became a Colts fan. That was over a half-decade before this 2000 season, but it just goes to show that even as a six year old kid I realized and was enamored by the skill that Faulk displayed on the field.

As I hinted in the introduction to this post, I’m going to turn this into a series and try to figure out the best single season for each position (other than offensive lineman and fullbacks) and then use it to redo my All-Time NFL Team. So on that note, I would like to congratulate the 2000 Marshall Faulk on being the first player named to my NEW All-Time NFL Team.

2000 Marshall Faulk

If you have any questions, suggestions, corrections, or any thoughts at all that you’d like to share, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below. I’d love to hear people’s feedback on this.

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