CEH is on the verge of winning the national championship and the Super Bowl in back to back seasons, a pretty rare feat. There have been 14 players to win a national championship and an NFL championship in back to back seasons. ^[1]The NFL qualifier excludes two other seasons. In 1947, when Frank Kosikowski was on Notre Dame’s back-to-back champions in 1946 and 1947; as a rookie, he played in the AAFC with the Cleveland … Continue reading

• In 1950, Jim Martin was a starting right defensive end for the Cleveland Browns.  He started in the NFL title game that year, a 30-28 win over the Rams.  Martin was a 2nd round pick in 1950 out of Notre Dame, and in 1949, he was part of a 10-0 national championship team for the Fighting Irish.
• In 1954, rookie running back Chet Hanulak was a backup on the Cleveland Browns.  He started three games, and scored the final touchdown in the championship game, one of the most lopsided in NFL history. Hanulak was a second round pick out of Maryland; the prior season, he rushed 77 times for 753 yards on a Maryland team that went 10-1 and won the national championship.
• In 1977, we get the premier member of the club: Tony Dorsett.  Of the group, Dorsett was the only to win either the Heisman Trophy or the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year award; the fact that he did both makes him the star of this small circle of players. Dorsett rushed for 2,150 yards and 22 touchdowns in 12 games in 1976 for the Pitt Panthers. That includes 202 yards in the Sugar Bowl victory over Georgia.   Just over a year later, he was back in the Louisiana Superdome for Super Bowl XII: Dorsett’s Cowboys won, and his 77 yards were the most by any player.
•  In 1988, edge rusher Danny Stubbs was taken by San Francisco with the 33rd overall pick.  As a rookie, he was a backup for the 49ers who still recorded six sacks.  He picked up two more in the playoffs, including one in Super Bowl XXIII played at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami.   It was a familiar setting for Stubbs. The year before, Stubbs was an All American for the undefeated ’87 Miami Hurricanes, who upset #1 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl and captured the national championship.
• In 1993, the Cowboys used a fourth round pick on running back Derrick Lassic out of Alabama.  With Emmitt Smith holding out, Lassic wound up starting the first three games of the season, before returning to a backup role. And while he was inactive in the Super Bowl, he still received a ring for being on the championship team.  He had a much bigger role the prior year as the leading offensive weapon for the 13-0 Crimson Tide. Despite being 8-point underdogs in the Sugar Bowl against Miami, Lassick’s 28-135-2 stat line helped Alabama pull off the upset and win the national title.
• In 1994, fullback William Floyd was a late first round pick by the 49ers.  Drafted out of Florida State, his college stats don’t impress, even by the standards of his era.  He ranked 8th in yards from scrimmage on the ’93 Seminoles, but was a versatile runner, receiver, and blocker.  He scored a touchdown in the Orange Bowl against Nebraska to help the Seminoles capture a national title. The fullback was a big part of the West Coast offense, and as a rookie, helped a star-studded 49ers team set fire to opposing defenses.  Floyd started 11 games at fullback for San Francisco, and rushed for three short touchdowns in San Francisco’s first playoff win.  Thirteen months after his Orange Bowl victory, he was back in Miami for Super Bowl XXIX, where he started, and gained 58 yards and scored a touchdown.
• In 1996, Packers rookie defensive back Tyrone Williams was mostly a depth player as a rookie.  Playing on a dominant Green Bay team, Williams played in all 19 games, and would turn into a regular starter beginning in 1997.  Williams was a 3rd round pick in ’96 after a great career at Nebraska.  Williams won national titles with the Cornhuskers in ’94 and ’95, and then made it to the Super Bowl in ’96 and ’97, and was one Elway-copter away from winning back to back “back to back titles”, at the college and pro levels.
• In 1998, the Denver Broncos used a third round pick on Michigan quarterback Brian Griese, the presumed successor to the team’s Hall of Fame quarterback.  That season, Griese threw just 3 passes, and he did not play in the postseason: still, his season ended with his team winning the Super Bowl in Miami.  The year before, the national title was split between Nebraska and Michigan. In college, Griese was a star and led the Wolverines to a 12-0 season and a Rose Bowl title.  The Wolverines won the AP title, while the coaches poll selected 13-0 Nebraska.
• In 2004, the New England Patriots would win their second consecutive Super Bowl.  In 2003, the BCS title went to 13-1 LSU, and there were three members of that team — coached by Nick Saban — who would up getting picked up by Bill Belichick in New England: DB Randall Gay and LB Eric Alexander were signed as undrafted free agents, while the late DE Marquise Hill was a second round pick for the defending champion Patriots.    Hill and Alexander were role players and did not play in the postseason; Gay made the more immediate impact, starting 9 games and also starting as a rookie in the Super Bowl victory.
• In 2012, rookie linebacker Courtney Upshaw  won a Super Bowl for the Baltimore Ravens after being drafted with the 35th overall selection.  He started 9 games in the regular season and also in the team’s Super Bowl victory where he forced a fumble in the first half.  Upshaw was a decorated star in college at Alabama, and won championships his sophomore and senior seasons.  Longtime readers may recall this post about it.
• In 2014, center Bryan Stork was drafted by the Patriots in the 4th round.  He would go on to start 11 games as rookie, and then was the team’s center in the dramatic Super Bowl win over Seattle. A year earlier, Stork was part of a separate dramatic  championship win, as the starting center (and Rimington Trophy winner) for the Florida State Seminoles in a 34-31, last-minute win over Auburn that clinched the national title for the 14-0 Seminoles.
• Cyrus Jones is the last player on our list. Drafted with the 60th pick in the 2016 draft by the Patriots, Jones played sparingly as a rookie, mostly as a returner. He did not play in the postseason. The year before, he had four punt return touchdowns for the 2015 Crimson Tide. That year, Alabama went 14-1, and defeated Clemson in the national championship game.

And now we have Edwards-Helaire.  In terms of contributions as a rookie, Edwards-Helaire will be up there with just about anyone on this list.  He started 13 games, more than any other player (Dorsett led the Cowboys in rushing as a rookie, but technically started just four of 14 games, as veteran Preston Pearson was the starter in name).  Here’s a helpful summary chart.

Among the now 110 teams to make the Super Bowl, the 2014 Patriots rank last when it comes to rushing yards gained by their leading rusher. The 1998 Broncos, of course, rank first: Terrell Davis rushed for 2,008 yards that season. The graph below shows the rushing yards (pro-rated to 16 game seasons for years with shorter schedules) for the leading rusher on each Super Bowl team: the winners are shown in black, the losers in green, and the Bucs and Chiefs are shown in team colors.

In what is becoming something of a trend, the 49ers and Chiefs do not have a 1,000-yard rusher. And while these teams are not lacking for big names in the backfield — Le’Veon Bell! Leonard Fournette! LeSean McCoy! — it’s Ronald Jones II (978 yards) and Clyde Edwards-Helaire (803) who lead the team in rushing.

From 1972 to 1979, the leading rusher each season averaged at least 1,000 rushing yards and was usually a Hall of Famer: Larry Csonka, Csonka again, Franco Harris, Harris again, Mark van Eeghen, Tony Dorsett, Harris, and Harris again. Emmitt Smith had his run with the Cowboys in the ’90s, and then from ’97 to 2007, the Super Bowl champion had a 1,000-yard rusher in 9 of 11 seasons, with the ’02 Bucs and ’03 Patriots being the sole exceptions.

But this season, for the 6th time in 7 years, the Super Bowl champion will not have a 1,000 yard rusher. That means Blount, on the ’16 Patriots, is the last such player to rush for 1,000 yards and win the Super Bowl in the same season. In fact, just 3 of the last 13 Super Bowl champions (including whoever wins Super Bowl LV) had 1,000 yard rushers: Ray Rice on the 2012 Ravens, Marshawn Lynch on the ’13 Seahawks, and Blount on the ’16 Patriots.