Rushing Yards over 50: 2017 Editon

by Chase Stuart on February 27, 2018

A few years ago, I looked at the career leaders in rushing yards over 50 yards in a game. I like doing this because it helps remove less material games and places more of an emphasis on dominance. A player with 16 games of 70 rushing yards has 1,120 rushing yards but only 320 rushing yards over 50 yards per game. On the other hand, a player with 8 games of 25 rushing yards and 8 games of 95 rushing yards maybe was a backup for half the season; he would have only 960 rushing yards but 360 rushing yards over 50 yards per game.

One player who excels in this metric is Ezekiel Elliott, who obviously missed six games due to suspension and therefore ranked only 10th in rushing yards. But Elliott hit 80 or more yards in 9 of 10 games — in fact, he’s rushed for at least 80 yards in a remarkable 23 of 25 career games (and also did it in his sole playoff game) — which means he fares very well in this formulation. In fact, he ranks 4th by this metric, and was the only rusher in 2016 to have over half of his rushing yards come after already rushing for 50 yards in a game.

On the other side of things, you have players like Lamar Miller and Frank Gore. Miller ranked 16th in rushing yards with a respectable 888-yard season, but his season high was just 75 yards. He was a consistent player — in 11 of 16 games he rushed for between 50 and 65 yards — but in no way was he a dominant one. Gore had 961 rushing yards, good enough for 12th place, but he ranked only 23rd in rushing yards over 50. Gore had two big games in December to boost his numbers: but in the first 12 games of the season, Gore finished with between 34 and 62 rushing yards in 11 games. A very consistent runner, yes, but a dominant runner? No.

The full results below:

RY Ov50 Rk	Player	Team	G	Rushing Yards	Rush Yd Rk	RY Ov50	Perc
1	Kareem Hunt	kan	16	1327	1	631	47.6%
2	Todd Gurley	ram	15	1305	2	585	44.8%
3	Le'Veon Bell	pit	15	1291	3	568	44.0%
6	LeSean McCoy	buf	16	1138	4	475	41.7%
9	Mark Ingram	nor	16	1124	5	403	35.9%
5	Jordan Howard	chi	16	1120	6	479	42.8%
8	Melvin Gordon	sdg	16	1105	7	405	36.7%
7	Leonard Fournette	jax	13	1040	8	444	42.7%
10	C.J. Anderson	den	16	1007	9	350	34.8%
4	Ezekiel Elliott	dal	10	983	10	525	53.4%
12	Alex Collins	rav	15	973	11	290	29.8%
23	Frank Gore	clt	16	961	12	215	22.4%
16	Carlos Hyde	sfo	16	940	13	268	28.5%
13	Dion Lewis	nwe	16	896	14	289	32.3%
17	Marshawn Lynch	rai	15	891	15	264	29.6%
34	Lamar Miller	htx	16	888	16	128	14.4%
15	Jay Ajayi	2tm	14	873	17	278	31.8%
14	Devonta Freeman	atl	14	865	18	279	32.3%
24	Isaiah Crowell	cle	16	853	19	210	24.6%
11	Latavius Murray	min	16	842	20	292	34.7%
20	Bilal Powell	nyj	15	772	21	232	30.1%
25	LeGarrette Blount	phi	16	766	22	198	25.8%
31	Cam Newton	car	16	754	23	142	18.8%
18	Orleans Darkwa	nyg	15	751	24	255	34.0%
22	Derrick Henry	oti	16	744	25	218	29.3%
28.5	Alvin Kamara	nor	16	728	26	153	21.0%
28.5	Jonathan Stewart	car	15	680	27	153	22.5%
37	DeMarco Murray	oti	15	659	28	107	16.2%
19	Kenyan Drake	mia	16	644	29	245	38.0%
32	Tevin Coleman	atl	15	630	30	141	22.4%
35	Joe Mixon	cin	14	626	31	123	19.6%
33	Samaje Perine	was	16	603	32	137	22.7%
40.5	Javorius Allen	rav	16	591	33	85	14.4%
43	Russell Wilson	sea	16	586	34	63	10.8%
42	Jerick McKinnon	min	16	570	35	64	11.2%
30	Jamaal Williams	gnb	16	556	36	143	25.7%
39	Ameer Abdullah	det	14	552	37	86	15.6%
26	Alfred Morris	dal	13	547	38	170	31.1%
21	Adrian Peterson	2tm	10	529	39	222	42.0%
44	Wayne Gallman	nyg	13	476	40	55	11.6%
45	Matt Breida	sfo	16	465	41	51	11.0%
37	Giovani Bernard	cin	16	458	42	107	23.4%
27	Aaron Jones	gnb	12	448	43	156	34.8%
47	Christian McCaffrey	car	16	435	44	41	9.4%
49	Tyrod Taylor	buf	15	427	45	8	1.9%
37	Kerwynn Williams	crd	16	426	46	107	25.1%
40.5	Peyton Barber	tam	16	423	47	85	20.1%
48	DeShone Kizer	cle	15	419	48	18	4.3%
46	Doug Martin	tam	11	406	49	49	12.1%

Two players who had mediocre rushing numbers but better dominance metrics were Adrian Peterson and Kenyon Drake. Peterson ranked 39th in rushing yards but 21st in rushing yards over 50, just ahead of Gore. Peterson had a 159-yard game, a 134-yard game, and a 79-yard game with Arizona, but didn’t do much else. That’s a sign that there might still be something left in Peterson’s (soon-to-be) 33-year-old body, although the rest of his season was a disaster. As for Drake, he only started 6 games, but he actually led the NFL in rushing yards in December. So while Drake ranked “only” 29th in rushing yards, he was 19th in rushing yards over 50. That’s probably a better way to measure how dominant he was in 2017.

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