The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Hunt on pace to surpass Dickerson BY THE NUMBERS
Kareem Hunt has been a longtime fan of Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders.
When Hunt was a middleschooler in Lake County, he hung in his room a poster of the former Lions running back. It stayed there in his Willoughby home until his family recently moved to Lorain.
“My brother might have it,” Hunt said in a recent phone interview.
“It’s somewhere. I just have to find it.”
Hunt’s scintillating start to his NFL career might end up being surreal when the 2017 regular season is complete.
At his current pace, Hunt will pass Sanders’ rookie season totals of 1,470 rushing yard and 14 touchdowns in 1989.
There might be a bigger prize out there for Hunt in 2017 — Eric Dickerson’s record-setting rookie season of 1983.
Dickerson’s 1,808 rushing yards as a Ram has stood as the single-season rookie mark for 33 years.
Hunt has a chance to break that mark, but said he’s only interested in it in Rams running back Eric Dickerson runs for yards against the Seahawks in 1987.
one respect.
“As long as we keep winning, that’s what I’m trying to do,” he said. “If I get a record, that’s a bonus.”
With 609 rushing yards in five games, Hunt is averaging 121.8 yards per game. For a 16-game season, that’s 1,949 yards. Not only would that shatter Dickerson’s mark, it would be among the greatest single-season rushing marks in NFL history.
Dickerson owns that record with 2,105 in 1984, his second season in the NFL.
Last season, Cowboys rookie Ezekiel Elliott
started fast and was eyeing Dickerson’s mark, but fell short.
“(Elliott) told me through his agent that he was going to break my record,” Dickerson told ESPN.com last season. “I just laughed and said, ‘Good luck.’ Many have said that. All have failed.”
Elliott finished 2016 with 1,631 rushing yards.
Hunt said Dickerson has reached out to him via Twitter.
“He said he loves watching me play,” said Hunt. “That’s pretty awesome to hear that from him.”
As for Dickerson’s mark
of 1,808, it’s on Hunt’s radar.
“Yeah, I know all about that number,” he said about 1,808 yards.
Hunt has four 100-yard rushing games in five games this season.
In 1983, Dickerson didn’t rush for 100 yards in his first three games, then ripped off three straight — 192, 199, and 142. He finished that season with nine 100-yard games, and averaged 113 yards per game.
“I like the record because you get one shot at it and that’s it, because you’re a rookie one time,” said Dickerson in that 2016 interview. “You don’t get three or four shots at that record. ‘Oh, let me do it again.’ Nah.”