Is Jamaal Charles a Hall of Fame running back?
By Nick Floyd
While it would be easy to just say yes, the stats alone are impressive for just 9 years in the league. Factor in the yards per carry average surpassing that of even the great Jim Brown seems like his road to Canton would be assured. However, let’s take a look at some of the current running backs currently enshrined in the Hall of Fame and see where Charles stacks up.
The Hall of Fame is filled with so many talented running backs; entire websites could be devoted to them. It is with that in mind we will take a look at a few of them and see where number 25 stacks up. For this we are going to look at the top 20 running backs according to the Hall of Fame website.
Let’s start with the man that is in the conversation with Charles whenever his yards per rush is talked about, Jim Brown.
In Brown’s nine year career he rushed 2,359 times for 12,312 yards and scoring 106 times, with his 5.2 yards per rush average. Charles has only rushed 1,332 times, with 7,260 yards, and 43 touchdowns, a far cry from the kind of production Brown had throughout his career. Even though Charles does not match up in terms of production, he is still in the conversation which is promising for his trip to Ohio.
Now, we are going to flip the coin and look at the current best running back, in stat terms, currently residing in Ohio, Emmitt Smith.
Smith’s career is one of the most impressive in the HoF. During his 13 year career, he rushed for a staggering 17,162 yards on 4,052 attempts finding pay dirt 153 times averaging 4.2 yards per attempt. Wow! We don’t need to go into Charles stats since he in no way compares, at least statically, to Smith.
Lastly, number 20 on the list on the website is Terry Allen. Allen during his 10 years in the NFL rushed for 8,614 yards on 2,152 attempts scoring 73 times with an average of 4.0 yards per carry. Allen compares more to Charles than most on the top 20, but still Jamaal falls short in terms of yards and scores. The only real impact that he has on this list is the fact that his career average is 5.49, which is better than every other player on that list.