Always an interesting read. They go back a couple more seasons every offseason. Their latest being the 1984 season.
Full read here.
For the Rams that year (10-6, Dickerson breaks OJ's record, lose wildcard at home to NYG), a few notable things:
- Rams finish 13th in DVOA overall that year (10th on offense, 16th defense, 3d on special teams), well below their other '80s playoff teams of 1989, '88, 86 and '85, who were all top-10 (1983 and 1980 still TBD).
- Jeff Kemp was rated a respectable 16th among 34 QBs
- On Dickerson:
Now it's time to take on the other record-setting season of 1984: Eric Dickerson set the all-time rushing yardage record by gaining 2,105 yards on 379 carries. Where does this stand on the all-time Football Outsiders DYAR list?
The answer is "nowhere near the top." Dickerson ranks No. 1 for the year with 370 rushing DYAR, and nobody else is above 300. But 370 rushing DYAR doesn't even make the top 30 rushing seasons since 1983. The problem is fumbles. My god, did Eric Dickerson fumble a lot. Dickerson had 13 fumbles in 1984. There were a lot more fumbles in 1984 than there are in the modern NFL. The average NFL team in 1984 had 9.3 fumbles from running backs on running plays. This year, in 2020, the average NFL team had just 2.5 fumbles from running backs on running plays. But even compared to the rest of the league which had a lot of fumbles, Dickerson had a lot of fumbles. He's tied for the league lead because Wendell Tyler of San Francisco also had 13 fumbles on runs. Tony Dorsett was third in the league with 10.
Anyway, if we take out the 13 fumbles, Dickerson would end up with 605 rushing DYAR which would narrowly top Terrell Davis' 1998 season for the all-time record. By comparison, Davis had one fumble in 1998. Dickerson's season is the only one ever with at least 300 rushing DYAR that has more than seven fumbles. Dickerson averaged 5.6 yards per play with a very respectible 52% running back success rate (18th among qualifying backs). But yikes, those fumbles.
By the way, here's a fun segment of play-by-play from the Week 10 Rams at Cardinals game:
First-and-10 at Rams 20, Dickerson rushes for 21 yards
First-and-10 at Rams 41, Jeff Kemp sacked for 10 yards
Second-and-20 at Rams 31, Kemp sacked for 15 yards
Third-and-35 at Rams 16, Dickerson rushes for 34 yards.
Thirty-four yards! This is possibly the longest unsuccessful run of all time! And did the Rams follow this up by going for fourth-and-1 at midfield with their awesome running back? No, of course not, they punted to the Cardinals 16.
