Kenneth Walker’s 665 rushing yards through five games trail only four of the 20 best rushing seasons ever at the same point:
O.J. Simpson 1973 (813)
Jim Brown 1963 (787)
Jamal Lewis 2003 (742)
DeMarco Murray 2014 (670)
Walker is ahead of Eric Dickerson’s record 1984 season that totaled 2,105 yards. Dickerson had just 498 yards through five games.
What you notice about Dickerson’s record-breaking season is the increase in trajectory starting in his 10th game. Dickerson had rushed for only 963 yards through the first nine games of the season (107 per game, pace of 1,712 yards), including games of 38 (Week 9) and 49 yards (Week 3). He then went into overdrive the final seven games of the year, rushing for 1,142 yards (163 yards per game), hitting 200+ yards twice (Weeks 10 and 15), plus 191 yards on another occasion (Week 13).
Dickerson not only did this in a shorter 16-game season, but there weren’t bye weeks for him to recuperate. Though it appears he didn’t need the rest as much as the defenses he faced did.
The 1984 campaign was Dickerson’s second NFL season, coming on the heels of his rookie year with 1,808 rushing yards, enough to keep Dan Marino from winning Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Looking specifically at the seasons above Walker’s for rushing yards through five games, they all ended up finishing strong, except for DeMarco Murray in 2014. Murray was ahead of Dickerson’s pace through nine games, but failed to reach 100 yards in three of his last five games.
The 14-gamers Jim Brown and O.J. Simpson maintained their pace throughout, with Simpson squeezing a lot of juice (pun intended) out of the final two weeks, rushing for 200+ yards both games (419 total), breaking the 2,000-yard barrier (2,003). Brown’s pace faded a bit post-Week 10, but his per-game pace was higher through 14 games than for Dickerson’s 16.
