Yards per season as a Cowboy - rushing

[Established1971]

career yards as a Cowboy divided by seasons played as a Cowboy to come up with avg yds per season with the star.
1 Emmitt Smith 1,320
2 Ezekiel Elliott 1,180
3 DeMarco Murray 1,132
4 Tony Dorsett 1,094
5 Julius Jones 871
6 Calvin Hill 835
7 Duane Thomas 798
8 Don Perkins 777
9 Marion Barber III 726
10 Tony Pollard 654
11 Felix Jones 546
12 Amos Marsh 516
13 Troy Hambrick 474
14 Paul Palmer 446
15 Eddie George 432
16 Walt Garrison 432
17 Robert Newhouse 399
18 Alfred Morris 395
19 Darren McFadden 391
20 Ron Springs 363

 

[visionary]

It is not yards per season or per game that is as important

It is

When he is your RB you will not have negative plays

He will get you first downs on 3rd and 4 or less consistently

He will not tap out

There is reason Sanders never won a SB and Emmitt won 3

 

[AbeBeta]

Just did a little Excel magic to take career yards as a Cowboy divided by seasons played as a Cowboy to come up with avg yds per season with the star.
1 Emmitt Smith 1,320
2 Ezekiel Elliott 1,180
3 DeMarco Murray 1,132
4 Tony Dorsett 1,094
5 Julius Jones 871
6 Calvin Hill 835
7 Duane Thomas 798
8 Don Perkins 777
9 Marion Barber III 726
10 Tony Pollard 654
11 Felix Jones 546
12 Amos Marsh 516
13 Troy Hambrick 474
14 Paul Palmer 446
15 Eddie George 432
16 Walt Garrison 432
17 Robert Newhouse 399
18 Alfred Morris 395
19 Darren McFadden 391
20 Ron Springs 363

Wow. Excel magic! You must work in tech.

 

[Established1971]

It is not yards per season or per game that is as important

It is

When he is your RB you will not have negative plays

He will get you first downs on 3rd and 4 or less consistently

He will not tap out

There is reason Sanders never won a SB and Emmitt won 3

lol typical dismissive response, I didnt even finish reading your post the way you began it. Its a "for what its worth chart" "visionary"

 

[Havic]

It is not yards per season or per game that is as important

It is

When he is your RB you will not have negative plays

He will get you first downs on 3rd and 4 or less consistently

He will not tap out

There is reason Sanders never won a SB and Emmitt won 3

Eh.
Sanders never won a SB because he played for the dumpster fire Lions. Put Sanders on that Dallas team with the stacked O-line, he gets at least 1 if not more imo

 

[acr731]

Eh.
Sanders never won a SB because he played for the dumpster fire Lions. Put Sanders on that Dallas team with the stacked O-line, he gets at least 1 if not more imo

I thought the comment sounded like he never watched Barry Sanders play.

What you said is absolutely true. If Barry played for those Dallas teams he would be the all-time rushing leader instead of Emmitt, and the separation between #1 and #2 would have been enormous. Emmitt finished his career with 18,355 yards. I have no doubt Barry would have been way over 20k. Another thing people forget - Emmitt played 5 more seasons than Barry and is only 3k yards ahead of him on the all time list.

 

[Sinister]

It is not yards per season or per game that is as important

It is

When he is your RB you will not have negative plays

He will get you first downs on 3rd and 4 or less consistently

He will not tap out

There is reason Sanders never won a SB and Emmitt won 3

Sanders ran behind some of the worst lines, played with some of the worst QB's.

Emmitt played with HOFers on the line at QB at WR, no one can name 1 OL from those Sanders years.

This is the ultimate team game please don't reduce it to single player heroics.

 

[speedkilz88]

Sanders ran behind some of the worst lines, played with some of the worst QB's.

Emmitt played with HOFers on the line at QB at WR, no one can name 1 OL from those Sanders years.

This is the ultimate team game please don't reduce it to single player heroics.

Lomas Brown & Kevin Glover

 

[Sinister]

Lomas Brown & Kevin Glover

jesus, you are amazing I couldn't remember anyone for the life of me.

 

[speedkilz88]

jesus, you are amazing I couldn't remember anyone for the life of me.

They were two top linemen in the 90s. They also had Utley who unfortunately suffered a spinal injury.

 

[Sinister]

They were two top linemen in the 90s. They also had Utley who unfortunately suffered a spinal injury.

You jogged my memory a little Lomas played left tackle and Glover, I think was RG it was Center (had to look it up), but still you have to admit that those Detroit lines were not the best especially compared to the Cowboys lines. Also Wayne Fontes was a terrible coach, why the tolerated him in Detroit for so long, I'll never know.

 

[CowboyRoy]

It is not yards per season or per game that is as important

It is

When he is your RB you will not have negative plays

He will get you first downs on 3rd and 4 or less consistently

He will not tap out

There is reason Sanders never won a SB and Emmitt won 3

LOL............a typical biased Cowboys viewpoint.

Sanders would have mopped up here with our Oline.

A couple 1 yard losses here and there to get a few 40 and 70 yard gains is nothing.

The reason that Sanders didnt win any SB's is because he wasnt surrounded by what the Cowboys had at the time.

 

[speedkilz88]

You jogged my memory a little Lomas played left tackle and Glover, I think was RG it was Center (had to look it up), but still you have to admit that those Detroit lines were not the best especially compared to the Cowboys lines. Also Wayne Fontes was a terrible coach, why the tolerated him in Detroit for so long, I'll never know.

The Lions offensive line was way better than the Cowboys before either RB showed up. Nate Newton has admitted that he was just a fat guy until Emmitt was drafted. The Cowboys OL was Mark Tuinei an undrafted free agent DT that they moved to multiple OL positions and ended up at LT. Nate Newton was an undrafted free agent that started out with Washington and then played in the USFL who also moved all around the OL until he ended up at LG. Stepnoski was 3rd round pick, a 269 pound college guard that they moved to center (had to teach him to snap). They had all kinds of guys play the other G spot like plan b free agent Alan Veingrad and John Gesek who was a low draft pick trade from the Raiders. RT was their best player Erik Williams who was a 3rd round pick. Great player until his auto accident. Larry Allen didn't show up until the 3rd Super Bowl run and filled in for Williams. Kevin Gogan was originally a RT who sucked. They eventually moved him to RG and he played great replacing Gesek but then left in free agency for the Raiders.

 

[dsturgeon]

Murray was my favorite

 

[RonnieT24]

Eh.
Sanders never won a SB because he played for the dumpster fire Lions. Put Sanders on that Dallas team with the stacked O-line, he gets at least 1 if not more imo

While the Lions were never as stacked as those Dallas teams Emmitt played on, the narrative that he played for a dumpster fire of a team is just a convenient excuse for the failures. The fact of the matter is Sanders played behind more top 100 pick linemen in his career than Emmitt did by a fair margin. No matter how you slice it, Barry's running style made his linemen look bad because he all too often refused to hit it up in there and take a 3 yard gain choosing instead to bounce it outside looking for the home run. The net result was nearly 3000 yards of negative carries over the course of his career. If you don't think all those 2nd and 17s after Barry danced around and got tackled for a loss didn't help his teams lose games then I can't really hold a football discussion with you. You don't think that unwillingness to get tough yards (or block) didn't factor into most of his coaches taking him out on the goal line and in most passing situations?

Again, I have to ask if you think that didn't hurt his teams' chances of winning? It's okay to lionize (pun intended) Barry's abilities.. He was an absolute joy to watch and clear a massive talent. But Emmitt did more things that helped his teams win games which is why when they polled coaches and GMs about who they would rather have Emmitt came out on top 55% to 45% while when they polled fans it was the other way around and when they polled players I think Barry came out slightly ahead. In other words, the more dependent your job was on winning actual games, the more likely you were to favor Emmitt. I cannot fault anybody for loving Barry. Hell I loved Barry.. I just loved Emmitt a little more.. mostly because he was the more complete football player by a sizeable margin. That and he had a heart the size of Texas..

 

[Sinister]

The Lions offensive line was way better than the Cowboys before either RB showed up. Nate Newton has admitted that he was just a fat guy until Emmitt was drafted. The Cowboys OL was Mark Tuinei an undrafted free agent DT that they moved to multiple OL positions and ended up at LT. Nate Newton was an undrafted free agent that started out with Washington and then played in the USFL who also moved all around the OL until he ended up at LG. Stepnoski was 3rd round pick, a 269 pound college guard that they moved to center. They had all kinds of guys play the other G spot like plan b free agent Alan Veingrad and John Gesek who was a low draft pick trade from the Raiders. RT was their best player Erik Williams who was a 3rd round pick. Great player until his auto accident. Larry Allen didn't show up until the 3rd Super Bowl run and filled in for Williams. Kevin Gogan was originally a RT who sucked. They eventually moved him to RG and he played great replacing Gesek but then left in free agency for the Raiders.

Lomas Brown was drafted in 1985 (I looked it up), Sanders was drafted in 1989, Lomas Brown was on the Lions team for 11 years so until 1996 then went to the Cardinals. The line for Barry was admittedly not terrible because there were players like Brown and Glover, but it wasn't sustained. Having two or even three good lineman doesn't mean that the overall OL is good. It just means that there were individual players who were good on the OL.

The Cowboys lines were more talented overall during the time that Emmitt Smith played it just something that has to be admitted and anyone who watched football during this time understands this.

 

[john van brocklin]

career yards as a Cowboy divided by seasons played as a Cowboy to come up with avg yds per season with the star.
1 Emmitt Smith 1,320
2 Ezekiel Elliott 1,180
3 DeMarco Murray 1,132
4 Tony Dorsett 1,094
5 Julius Jones 871
6 Calvin Hill 835
7 Duane Thomas 798
8 Don Perkins 777
9 Marion Barber III 726
10 Tony Pollard 654
11 Felix Jones 546
12 Amos Marsh 516
13 Troy Hambrick 474
14 Paul Palmer 446
15 Eddie George 432
16 Walt Garrison 432
17 Robert Newhouse 399
18 Alfred Morris 395
19 Darren McFadden 391
20 Ron Springs 363

Thanks, thats a lot of research!

 

[GoCowboysGo]

Lomas Brown and Kevin Glover were clearly the best pieces of a great offensive line. And they had some good outside threats too, like Herman Moore.

 

[Loso86]

Eh.
Sanders never won a SB because he played for the dumpster fire Lions. Put Sanders on that Dallas team with the stacked O-line, he gets at least 1 if not more imo

I hate when ppl (some fans unfortunately)say that it literally lessons what Smith did smh

 

[Kingofholland]

Eh.
Sanders never won a SB because he played for the dumpster fire Lions. Put Sanders on that Dallas team with the stacked O-line, he gets at least 1 if not more imo

That's such a tired argument that has a lot of misconceptions. The Lions offensive line was pretty capable and had 2 outstanding players in Lomas Brown and Glover. Herman Moore was an excellent receiver. Their 2nd and 3rd receivers in Perriman and Morton were quite good too. The biggest difference was consistency at QB with Rodney Pete and Scott Mitchell. Though Scott had a pretty outstanding 1995. 4300 passing yards and 32 tds which was 2nd and 3rd in the league. Go find that kind of season from Aikman. He didn't need it because he had Emmitt.

No doubt the Cowboys were a better overall team, but we can't pretend Barry Sanders had no talent around him and every yard he got was inspite of that. They had talent, the Lions just never ascended and Barry wasn't a factor in 5 of the 6 playoff games he played.