Comments on: Career Rushing Yards over 50 Rushing Yards In Games http://www.footballperspective.com/career-rushing-yards-over-50-rushing-yards-in-games/ NFL History and Stats Mon, 02 Oct 2017 01:31:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Chase http://www.footballperspective.com/career-rushing-yards-over-50-rushing-yards-in-games/#comment-329148 Mon, 02 Oct 2017 01:31:00 +0000 http://www.footballperspective.com/?p=23825#comment-329148 Since I wrote this post, Frank Gore (in 2015, 2016, and the first three weeks of 2017) rushed for 2,137 yards, although only 528 of those yards came after already rushing for 50 yards in that game.

So for his career, Gore (through 3 games of 2017) is at 13,210 career rushing yards, 5,121 rushing yards over 50 yards, and a 38.8% rate. He’s 7th all-time in career rushing yards, but the 5,121 would put him “only” at 12th all-time behind Fred Taylor (without updating for anyone else since this post, but a quick scan doesn’t identify any clear risers). And his sub-40% rate is also pretty compiler-y: In the top 25, only Franco Harris and Steven Jackson are lower, and only Thurman Thomas is below 40%.

]]> By: krl97a http://www.footballperspective.com/career-rushing-yards-over-50-rushing-yards-in-games/#comment-304788 Mon, 09 Mar 2015 21:22:00 +0000 http://www.footballperspective.com/?p=23825#comment-304788 For the record, Tony Dorsett also had limited carries (17 per game, one of the lowest career totals on this list), and wasn’t a “compiler”, if by that you mean an average back getting stats mostly anyone would have gotten but playing a long time for whatever reason. Watching him play quickly dispels that notion. In fact a frequent criticism of the team from the late 70s through the mid 80s when he was splitting time with Herschel Walker was that Dorsett wasn’t used enough. The counterpoint was that Landry was extending the career of a somewhat undersized back, but either way Dorsett had maybe the fastest acceleration to top speed in NFL history, possessed deceptive power, and is rightly considered one of the greatest running backs of all time.

That said, I like this analysis. This just shows that every stat has its limitations in describing reality. There is no statistical magic bullet. One area I haven’t seen much investigation into yet but would like to is standard deviation of RB gains within a game, a season, and/or a career. I’d do it myself but I don’t have full play by play data. Consistency is one of the most undervalued stats; probably more important than YPC since it sustains drives, controls clock, and avoids punting.

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