Frank Gore’s Career Has Been Almost All Prime

by Chase Stuart on July 2, 2018

Frank Gore has had a remarkable career. He’s averaged at least 60 rushing yards per game in 12 different seasons, second only to Emmitt Smith. But it’s also been somewhat remarkable in how unremarkable each season has been: Gore averaged a nondescript 43.4 rushing yards per game as a rookie and then an eye-popping 105.9 rushing yards per game in his second season; since then, for 11 straight years, Gore has averaged between 60 and 80 rushing yards per game. No other player has more than 7 such seasons in their career, let alone consecutive, with Warrick Dunn, Franco Harris, and Ricky Watters tied for second place on the list.

So far, Gore has rushed for 14,026 rushing yards in his career. But I wanted to try to identify similar — and dissimilar — rushers to Gore. So here’s what I did: for each running back, I identified his rushing yards in each season of his career. For seasons where the league had fewer than 16 team games per season, I pro-rated that player’s production as if the league had 16 games. So players in a 14-game season get their rushing yards bumped by 14.3%, regardless of how many games they played. Then, I gave a player 100% credit for their best rushing season, 90% credit for their second best rushing season, 80% credit for their third best rushing season, and so on. Doing this gives Gore just 6,824 rushing yards, just under half of his actual total.

Now why would we do this? So we can compare him to other players. Take a look at Shaun Alexander, who had five seasons with over 80 rushing yards per game but fewer rushing yards than Gore, because he had just one season in his career with between 60 and 80 rushing yards per game.

Gore has more than 5,000 more rushing yards than Alexander, but fewer adjusted rushing yards than him using this metric. So, whether you like or dislike this metric, I think it can be a useful tool to identify players whose careers were short but all prime (like Alexander) and players who were consistent producers over long stretches.

I looked at Hall of Fame running backs, leaders in career rushing yards, and leaders in career rushing yards per game to get a list of over 70 running backs. In that group, Gore’s 49% number — the ratio between his weighted rushing yards and his actual rushing yards — is the third lowest. The only two lower are Smith, who has five seasons over over 900 rushing yards that get reduced to almost nothing, and a 49ers running back who is in the Hall of Fame.

Here’s how to read the table below. Gore ranks 3rd in Ratio (the 49% number), the statistic by which the table is sorted. Gore has 14,026 career rushing yards, which ranks 6th on this list (it ranks 5th on the real list, but Jim Brown — who played in the era of 12- and 14-game seasons — moves ahead of him once we pro-rated for number of team games played). He has 6,824 weighted rushing yards, which ranks 25th, and the final column shows the ratio of his weighted and actual rushing yards.

Ratio Rk	Rusher	Rush Yd	Rush Yd Rk	Weighted RY	Wtd RY Rk	Ratio
1	Emmitt Smith	18355	1	8436	5	46%
2	Joe Perry	12641	14	6068	38	48%
3	Frank Gore	14026	6	6824	25	48.7%
4	Marcus Allen	12835	12	6270	35	48.8%
5	John Riggins	12447	15	6227	37	50%
6	Franco Harris	13489	10	6836	24	50.7%
7	Walter Payton	17785	2	9068	3	51%
8	Jerome Bettis	13662	8	7297	13	53.4%
9	Tony Dorsett	13493	9	7317	12	54.2%
10	Warrick Dunn	10967	23	6045	40	55.1%
11	Curtis Martin	14101	5	7871	9	55.8%
12	Marshall Faulk	12279	16	6892	22	56.1%
13	Thurman Thomas	12074	19	6961	20	57.7%
14	Earnest Byner	8290	47	4830	65	58.3%
15	Steven Jackson	11438	21	6673	29	58.3%
16	Barry Sanders	15269	3	9085	2	59.5%
17	Fred Taylor	11695	20	6970	19	59.6%
18	Lenny Moore	6395	65	3812	74	59.6%
19	Thomas Jones	10591	27	6342	34	59.9%
20	LaDainian Tomlinson	13684	7	8305	7	60.7%
21	Larry Csonka	9071	40	5537	50	61%
22	Matt Forte	9796	36	6040	41	61.7%
23	Ricky Watters	10643	25	6596	30	62%
24	Hugh McElhenny	6852	60	4260	72	62.2%
25	Edgerrin James	12246	18	7710	10	63%
26	Corey Dillon	11241	22	7077	16	63%
27	John Henry Johnson	8311	46	5239	58	63%
28	Freeman McNeil	8721	41	5498	51	63%
29	Ottis Anderson	10730	24	6804	27	63.4%
30	Jim Brown	15034	4	9694	1	64.5%
31	Roger Craig	8243	50	5326	54	64.6%
32	DeAngelo Williams	8096	53	5250	56	64.8%
33	Marshawn Lynch	10003	33	6510	32	65.1%
34	Herschel Walker	8284	49	5396	52	65.1%
35	Eric Dickerson	13345	11	8733	4	65.4%
36	Ricky Williams	10009	32	6586	31	65.8%
37	Willis McGahee	8474	44	5587	48	65.9%
38	Ollie Matson	6743	62	4464	70	66.2%
39	Eddie George	10441	29	6915	21	66.2%
40	LeSean McCoy	10092	31	6688	28	66.3%
41	O.J. Simpson	12691	13	8412	6	66.3%
42	Terry Allen	8614	42	5721	47	66.4%
43	Adrian Peterson	12276	17	8201	8	66.8%
44	Jim Taylor	10168	30	6881	23	67.7%
45	Jamal Lewis	10607	26	7223	15	68.1%
46	Floyd Little	7226	56	5052	62	69.9%
47	Ahman Green	9205	39	6441	33	70%
48	Tiki Barber	10449	28	7341	11	70.3%
49	Chris Johnson	9651	37	6814	26	70.6%
50	Gerald Riggs	8479	43	5987	43	70.6%
51	Leroy Kelly	8313	45	5881	45	70.7%
52	Clinton Portis	9923	34	7026	17	70.8%
53	Maurice Jones-Drew	8167	52	5922	44	72.5%
54	Steve Van Buren	8289	48	6017	42	72.6%
55	Rodney Hampton	6897	59	5078	61	73.6%
56	Earl Campbell	9825	35	7241	14	73.7%
57	Priest Holmes	8172	51	6050	39	74%
58	Shaun Alexander	9453	38	7015	18	74.2%
59	Marion Motley	5826	69	4339	71	74.5%
60	George Rogers	7633	54	5726	46	75%
61	Robert Smith	6818	61	5243	57	76.9%
62	DeMarco Murray	7174	57	5544	49	77.3%
63	Curt Warner	6910	58	5394	53	78.1%
64	Travis Henry	6086	68	4850	64	79.7%
65	Ray Rice	6180	67	4968	63	80.4%
66	Arian Foster	6527	63	5287	55	81%
67	William Andrews	6432	64	5219	59	81.2%
68	Gale Sayers	5664	70	4601	67	81.2%
69	Terrell Davis	7607	55	6241	36	82%
70	Larry Johnson	6223	66	5133	60	82.5%
71	Billy Sims	5603	71	4659	66	83.1%
72	Le'Veon Bell	5336	73	4473	69	83.8%
73	Doug Martin	4633	74	3886	73	83.9%
74	Willie Parker	5378	72	4520	68	84%

The table above is fully sortable and searchable. You can see that among players in the top 15 in weighted career rushing yards but who were mostly prime are Tiki Barber (28th and 11th), O.J. Simpson (13th and 6th), and Adrian Peterson (17th and 8th). Peterson, of course, is a contemporary of Gore’s who is going to wind up losing the race for most career rushing yards to Gore in a very tortoise/hare fashion.

What stands out to you?

Tagged as: Frank Gore

{ 0 comments }