Trial & Error: Climbing Mt.Dickerson

     

Mount Dickerson in all its glory.

     Adrian Peterson is just 294 yards away from surmounting Eric Dickerson's all time single season rushing record of 2,105 yards set in 1984. It seems so, so close, but in reality it's still far away....
Many have made it to the 2,000 yard echo base camp, only to sputter out during that final climb to the summit. You see, Mount Dickerson is a fickle mistress; many running back have come so close but failed this epic quest. Here are a few of the backs that left their mark on the mountain, but never saw the view from the top. 

*QUEST for 2,105 Count Down*

By AJ Guel (originally posted to Flickr as Chris Johnson)
 CC-BY-2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), via Wikimedia Commons

4. Chris Johnson- 2,006 - Chris Johnson's speed is a thing of legend ("I heard he ran an official 4.21/40 wearing timberland boots... or was that Deion Sanders? Who knows, spread rumors Whoo!"). Maintaining that kind of sub 4.3 speed while wearing a helmet, pads, and about 50lbs of hair is a mystery of the universe deserving of testing in CERN'S Hardron Collider. In 2009, just his second season in the league, Johnson nearly smashed Dickerson's record by rushing for over 100 yards 12 times, including 4 150 plus yard days (he picked up 228 yards against Jax and 197 against Hou). he was done in by 4 sub 100 yard performances to start the year, finishing short of the Dickerson summit.

By  Toiete Jackson (http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=21433) [Public domain], via
 Wikimedia Commons

3. Terrell Davis- 2,008 - Those Elway, Davis, Sharpe teams of the late 90's are still some of my favorite NFL teams of all time. Just epic and hall of fame worthy in every way. The Broncos rode Davis to two super bowl titles during his short career, (his battered knees had him out of the league before the age of 30). Davis had his most epic season in 1998, where he rushed for 2008 yards, and accounted for 23 total TD's. That is the most TD's of any running back in the 2000 yard base camp club. But he still fell 97 yards short of Dickerson's record. 

2. Barry Sanders- 2,053 - Nobody runs/ran/moves like Barry Sanders did. Its easy to confuse slow motion footage of Sanders running the ball with leaked footage of a Matrix prequel. He was that awesome. And in 1997, Sanders nearly took down Dickerson's rushing record, despite rushing for only 53 rushing yards through the first 2 games of the season. He had 14 consecutive 100-yard games after that; an NFL record in and of itself. But finished with 2,053 yards, just 52 yards short of the record. 

1. Jamal Lewis- 2,066 - The feisty climber who wouldn't give up, Lewis is the one who came the closest to reaching the top, eventually falling short by just 39 yards of the record in 2003. Interestingly, Lewis,  Like AP this year, was coming off serious knee surgery before making his run (he missed the entire 2001 season). In week 2 of the 2003 season, Lewis had 295 yards against the Browns, setting the record for single game rushing yards, (which was eventually broken by AP in 2007). Going into the final two games of the season, Lewis needed 359 yards to break the record. He got 205 against the Browns, then 114 against the Steelers for a grand total of 319 yards. Sooo close Jamal.