4.1 ypc is what he averaged in 2017, not sure if anyone called it abysmal then. I wouldnt call it abysmal now either. 3.7 or below is abysmal.
Shoot..... Eddie George averaged 3.7 ypc the year he was first team All-Pro. He never averaged more than 4.1 his entire career.
....because he was inconsistent in 2017 and had a few abysmal games. He had 4 games below 4 YPC, one game he didn't even average a single yard, and had 3 games where he barely average 4.
Eddie George played in a different era, you compare players to their peers. In 2017, with RBs with a similar amount of carries, it looked like this
Kareem Hunt - 4.9
Mark Ingram - 4.9
Todd Gurley - 4.7
Alex Collins - 4.7
Marshawn Lynch - 4.3
Jay Ajayi - 4.2
Jordan Howard - 4.1
C.J. Anderson - 4.1
Ezekiel Elliott - 4.1
Melvin Gordon - 3.9
Leonard Fournette - 3.9
Carlos Hyde - 3.9
Lamar Miller - 3.7
Zeke was pretty average in 2017, and this was when he was starting to show he didn't have the homerun hitting ability he had in his rookie year. We didn't draft him to be average and he's not being paid average RB money.