Bob Gill wrote:TanksAndSpartans wrote:Bob Gill wrote:Who was the first back to rush for 1,000 yards five years in a row?
I recall a CC article about Jim Brown having some lost yards on statistical errors, but I don't recall the details. I know he was right around 1,000 a few times.
I'll say Jim Taylor?
Yes! From 1960-64, as I recall. Brown missed 1,000 in 1957 and '62, so he had only four in a row in between. (I thought there was a pretty convincing case that he actually should've had something like 1,012 in 1962, but apparently nothing came of that.)
Jim Brown came into Week 14 with 861 yards. He played since Week 4 with a bad wrist. You can see the protective pad in photos of him in 1962. In the first half against the 49ers, Brown ran for 108 yards and 2 TDs on a mud-covered field. In the second half, the yards came harder. Brown had gone over a 1000 late in the game, but was thrown for a 5 yard loss on his last carry, giving him 996. The Browns held on to win 13-10, finishing 7-6-1. Paul Brown was fired a few weeks later.
There was an article some years ago analyzing Jim Brown's 1962 season game by game that said he had "something like 1012." In 1972 Mercury Morris had (I think) 995 yards after the last game, but the League searched and found 5 extra yards to give Morris 1000, making him and Larry Csonka the first teammates to both go over a thousand. It was good publicity.
Jim Brown, to my knowledge, never made anything of it, never asked for a recount of his 1962 season.