Adrian Peterson is really gonna piss you off this season.

Just a moment ago I stumbled across something very interesting.  Is it science?  Is it coincidence?  Is it bacon?

Who knows…  But, it’s definitely something to think about.

I like to lovingly call this “thing” The Larry Johnson Line.  As you may know, I accumulate stats to make fantasy football tools.  As I was perusing the stats, as I’m prone to do, I noticed that back in 2005 and 2006, Larry Johnson had a couple of monster seasons (1750 & 1789 yards rushing)  and hasn’t been the same since.  In those two seasons, Johnson rushed 5.2 and 4.3 Yards Per Rush respectively with 336 rushes in 2005 and 416 in 2006.

416 rushes in a season is a LOT of running around.  That works out to 26 rushes per game, and on a team that ran an average of 60 plays per game, that means he ran the ball for every other play run.  That doesn’t even take into account the 41 times he caught a pass that season.  So, that got me thinking, what’s the magic number here?  Is it 400?  Nah, because I don’t see anyone else on my list that has run the ball 400 times, and there’s been plenty more unexpected drop offs in the league.  So, I kept whittling it down.

For the sake of brevity, I will just tell you that kept whittling and finally settled on 350 rushes.  At every mark above that, there was a drastic drop off in production the next season.  At 340, there was some, but almost every back handled 330 with little repercussion.

Want some examples?  Here you go.

2005 Clinton Portis – 352 Rushes, 1516 rushing yards

2006 Clinton Portis – 127 Rushes, 523 rushing yards

2003 Jamal Lewis – 387 Rushes, 2066 rushing yards

2004 Jamal Lewis – 235 Rushes, 1006 rushing yards

2005 Edgerrin James  – 360 Rushes, 1506 rushing yards

2006 Edgerrin James – 337 Rushes, 1159 rushing yards

2006 Steven Jackson – 346 Rushes, 1528 rushing yards

2007 Steven Jackson – 237 Rushes, 1002 rushing yards

2006 LaDanian Tomlinson – 348 Rushes, 1815 rushing yards

2007 LaDanian Tomlinson – 315 Rushes, 1474 rushing yards

2003 Ricky Williams – 392 Rushes, 1372 rushing yards

2004 Ricky Williams – Retired to go smoke pot in the mountains

OK, the Ricky Williams one was just to be funny…or was it?  Not only does the magic number 350 make RBs lose a step, they might also just lose their damn minds.

So, what does all this have to do with Adrian Peterson, the vast consensus #1 overall pick in 2009?  Well, our buddy ran the ball 362 times last season, and regardless of name, age, or any other factor, I can’t seem to find ANY evidence of a player running more than 350 times and improving the next season.  I can’t even find any evidence of them producing similar numbers the next season.

If you have the #1 pick in your draft this year, you still have to pretty much take Peterson with that pick, and that’s what REALLY sucks.  But, I just thought you should know what you’re getting into with the pick.

Live in fear!

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