Quote:
Originally Posted by lionsfan20
Definitely the right move for Barkley. Championship is the most important thing for the team. Also getting the rushing record playing 2 more games than Dickerson is lame anyway. Major asterisk.
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Ha! Funny you should mention it. Football doesn't do asterisks! There as a big discussion in one of the threads on here....
Football used to be 14 games. Jim Brown set the single season rush record in ... '63??
OJ then beat that record in '74?? Think he was the first guy to rush over 2,000 yards, though he had many more carries than Jim Brown.
Then in '84 or '85 Dickerson beat OJ's record, but by then the NFL had moved to 16 games. Only reason Dickerson holds it - he didn't have the most rushing yards ever through 14 games. It was weeks 15 and 16, which had been added, that took him to just over 2,100 yards.
So the rushing record will likely be broken at some point with the 17 game season. Some were debating the real test would be to take a minimum # of carries (say 250) then divide yards gains for the season by # of attempts.
The leader in that case would be Jim Brown. Pretty sure he averaged 6.5 yards per carry in his 1963 season.
I'll try to link the discussion later, but it was interesting. Lots of people saying football has never asterisked any records, even when they went from 14 to 16 games, so why would they when they went from 16 to 17. Obviously adding two games has a bigger impact on records than adding one.