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Portis and a 2000 Yard Season


dsciambi

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With Portis at nearly 1000 yards rushing mid-way through the season, I've been thinking a lot about the single season rushing record, and 2000 yard seasons. I don't really care if he hits it as long as we win, but it sure would be awesome. So I looked up the numbers of the top 5 single season rushers. Listed is name, year, rushing yards per game, season total, and their mark at the midway point.

Eric Dickerson, 1984

138, 102, 49, 89, 120, 107, 175, 145, 38, 208, 149, 132, 191, 149, 215, 98

2105 rushing yards

Season halfway mark: 925

Jamal Lewis, 2003

69, 295, 132, 115, 131, 101, 134, 68, 111, 91, 117, 78, 180, 125, 205, 114

2066 rushing yards

Season halfway mark: 1045

Barry Sanders, 1997

33, 20, 161, 113, 139, 107, 215, 105, 105, 105, 108, 216, 167, 137, 138, 184

2053 rushing yards

Season halfway mark: 893

Terrell Davis, 1998

75, 191, 104, 119, 168, 208, 136, 149, 69, 111, 162, 74, 88, 147, 29, 178

2008 rushing yards

Season halfway mark: 1150

OJ Simpson, 1973 (14 games)

250, 103, 123, 171, 166, 55, 157, 79, 99, 120, 124, 137, 219, 200

2003 rushing yards

Season halfway mark (7): 1025

Clinton Portis, 2008

84, 96, 68, 121, 145, 129, 175, 126

Season halfway mark: 944 rushing yards

All of these rushers had mid-season byes (as opposed to early), and I was surprised that all of them (except Barry Sanders, who put up a ridiculous 14 straight 100+ yard games) had 4 sub-100 yard games. All but Terrell Davis had 2 200 yard games each (Lewis with a 295 obviously helps). So far, Portis is about middle of the pack with these guys. It's some pretty good company. Portis already shares a record with OJ, it sure would be nice to get another.

Editing to add Portis' career numbers based on halves of the season.

2008 (bye week 10)

944 yards, 187 attempts (5 120+ yard games)

On pace for 374 attempts, 1888 yards

2007 (bye week 4)

629 yards, 105 attempts (196 yards week 9)

633 yards, 174 attempts (3 100+ yard games)

325 attempts, 1262 yards

2006 (bye week 8)

414 yards, 98 attempts (1 100+ yard game, missed week 2)

109 yards, 29 attempts (0 100+ yard games, missed weeks 11-17)

127 attempts, 523 yards

2005 (bye week 3)

620 yards, 148 attempts (3 100+ yard games)

896 yards, 204 attempts (6 100+ yard games, 5 straight to finish regular season)

352 attempts, 1516 yards

2004 (bye week 7)

663 yards, 204 attempts (2 100+ yard games)

652 yards, 139 attempts (3 100+ yard games)

343 attempts, 1315 yards

2003 (bye week 10)

682 yards, 131 attempts (4 100+ yard games, missed week 4)

909 yards, 159 attempts (missed weeks 16-17, 5 straight 120+ to finish regular season; 6 100+ in a row, 218 yards week 14)

290 attempts, 1591 yards

2002 (bye week 9)

562 yards, 114 attempts (3 100+ yard games)

946 yards, 159 attempts (4 100+ yard games, 228 yards week 17)

273 attempts, 1508 yards

Total: 1897 attempts for 8659 yards

Comparison (to compare longevity to running THAT hard)

Eric Dickerson: 2996 attempts for 13259 yards (10 years in NFL after 2000 yard season)

Jamal Lewis (Active): 2249 attempts for 9589 yards

Barry Sanders: 3062 attempts for 15269 yards (1 year in NFL after 2000 yard season)

Terrell Davis: 1655 attempts for 7607 yards (3 years in NFL after 2000 yard season)

OJ Simpson: 2404 attempts for 11236 yards (6 years in NFL after 2000 yard season)

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Keep in mind, that since Portis got here, he's ALWAYS rushed better towards the end of the season. Don't have time to compile those stats, but maybe later. Also, yes, he needs 132 per game, but like I mentioned, all of those people had 2 200 yard games (minus Sanders).

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Amazing that Dickerson had 1044 in a 6 game span. That's nearly 2,800 for a season.

The bottom line about these guys is they played mostly on poor teams that were willing to run them ragged. Or they played on good teams and were ruined for the rest of their careers. The numbers for guys that hit 1800 yards in a season do not bode well for career longevity.

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The stats on Barry Sanders and OJ Simpson are beyond incredible for 14 game stretches (OJ only beat him by three if you look at Barry's last 14 games of the 97 season)

O.J. was a killer back in the day. Man he could lay them out....

Barry Sanders was feast or famine. He would have 20 yards on 20 rushes then break one for 80 yards to get to the 100 yard mark. He was just silly with the football and his ability to stop and start on a dime, but it seemed that they could never sustain the drive with the running game and never had a QB to help him out.

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Unlikely. The Redskins face 3 of the top 4 defenses in the NFL over their next 5 games, including the #1 team against the rush (Ravens) and the #3 team against the rush (Steelers).

This is true, but we faced the Eagles when they were the No. 1 team against the rush, and see what happened?

Not saying that Portis will do as well, but just saying that numbers mean little most of the time.

But I agree that Portis won't hit 2,000. Or come close (within 100 yards).

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I would like to see it but it wont happen. We're facing a rough second half of the season. Teams that we faced before will key more on Portis. If we're lucky enough to capture the Division or playoffs early I can also see us resting our starters in the last game.

I would rather see a solid balanced attack for the second half. Get more players involved like Devin Thomas and Fred Davis. Rest Portis and bring on a run at the playoffs!!

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Interest post, dsciambi.

All those guys had at least two games at or near 200 yards rushing:

Dickerson 208 - 191 - 215

Jamal Lewis 295 (holy cow!) - 205

Barry Sanders 215 - 216

Terrell Davis 208 - 191

OJ Simpson 250 - 219 - 200

That helped offset the few lower-than-needed games out of the season. Like the guys on this list, Portis will need one or two off-the-chart games to get there.

I wonder if, to some degree in these cases, the coach and the team decide they want to go for that goal for the player. So they may leave him in longer in games, give him more carries than usual, adjust play calling, things like that.

I wonder how many of those guys were playing on a playoff-bound team in the year they hit 2,000? If they're out of the playoff hunt, it might become easier to try for that goal.

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12-4/11-5 record and playoff berth > Portis breaking 2,000, and I would hope that he agrees. If he has to wear himself out to get such an absurd number of yards, then I must say that it's not worth it. We're going to need him healthy down the stretch.

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