Erick Dickerson’s single-season rushing record has stood for 30 years. As time elapses and generations change and the game becomes more focused on quarterbacks and receivers, the rushing record has become more important to the Hall of Famer and La Rams star running back.
It’s the defining accolade of his career and an example of a time in the 80s and 90s when running backs still carried NFL teams. For Dickerson personally, it’s statistical proof that no running back has ever been more dominant than he was in 1984. Over a 16-game season, Dickerson rushed for 2,105 yards, eclipsing the previous record held by O.J. Simpson (2003), the first running back to surpass 2,000 rushing yards in a season.
With Saquon Barkley of the Philadelphia Eagles on the cusp of breaking Dickerson’s record, needing just 268 yards over the last two regular season games to do it, Dickerson isn’t pulling any punches about the fact that he doesn’t want Barkley to break his long-standing record.
Eric Dickerson Doesn’t Want Saquon Barkley to Break His Single-Season Rushing Record
During a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Dickerson said:
“Do I want him to break it? Absolutely not,” Dickerson said. “I don’t pull no punches on that. But I’m not whining about it.”
With Barkely needing to average 134 yards per game over the final two weeks, Dickerson thinks his record will be safe for another year.
“I don’t think he’ll break it. But if he breaks it, he breaks it,” Dickerson said.
Barkley will definitely benefit from the NFL going to a 17-game schedule in 2021, which distorts the yardage record a bit.
When Dickerson set the record, there were only 16 games and that’s a glaring change that he’s fully aware of.
“He had 17 games to do it? Hey, football is football,” Dickerson said. “That’s the way I look at it. If he’s fortunate to get over 2,000 yards and get the record, it’s a great record to have.”
Dickerson’s beef is legit, but he was also the beneficiary of a rule change which allowed him to break the record. O.J. broke the 2000-yard mark in just 14 games in 1973.
Adrian “Purple Jesus” Peterson rushed for 2,097 yards in 2012 and is the only running back who has even come within 35 yards of topping Dickerson’s mark.
Barkley Is 162 Yards Short Of Becoming 9th Player In History With 2,000 Rushing In Season
The 27-year-old Barkley needs just 162 yards to reach 2,000, and if he does that, he’ll enter an exclusive club, while becoming the second-oldest player to hit 2,000 yards, trailing only Barry Sanders, who rushed for 2,053 yards as a 29-year-old in 1997.
Records such as these will be challenged less and less. Most NFL teams are turning towards a running back-by-committee philosophy, dispersing carries among three backs with various styles.
The position has also been devalued as far as salaries go. Barkley’s salary dispute with the NY Giants is why he signed with Philly and is even in this historic position.
This is the fourth season of the 17-game schedule and only two running backs have even rushed for more than 1,700 yards: Jonathan Taylor in 2021 (1,811) and Barkley this year (1,838 heading into Week 17), so for a running back to be this productive a part of the offensive game plan is notable.
Eric Dickerson Is Considered Among Last Of The Big Backs
The era of the 30-carry running back is over. Dickerson is from a time when entire game plans were designed to stop his rushing prowess. Everyone in the stadium knew when he was getting the ball, and the 6-foot-3 and lanky ED would fly through the linemen and past the secondary with relative ease. Barkley is just 5-11 and he is used in more of a dual-threat role despite his high rushing numbers. Baltimore Ravens pigskin-toter Derrick Henry would be considered in the Eric Dickerson mold.
Barkley, more of a Marshall Faulk type, can only succeed under the rules he’s given, and he definitely wants to take advantage of that extra game to etch his name into the history books with a record that might take longer than 30 years to break again.
Dickerson respects Barkley’s game but also mentions noticeable differences in their styles.
“I like him,” said Dickerson, who sits ninth place on the NFL all-time rushing list with 12,259 career yards, said of Barkley. “But I tend to like big backs. He’s not a big back like I was. He’s elusive, he’s tough, he runs hard, he can catch the ball out of the backfield. I think he’s a great player.”
“I always felt like he’d never reach his potential when he was in New York,” Dickerson added. “You could take Emmitt Smith and put him in Cleveland, and he’d have never been the Emmitt Smith we know now.”
Call him a hater, but honestly speaking, that record probably means more to Dickerson than it ever will for Barkley.
