Steve Van Buren isn’t a name that most fantasy footballers remember. After all, his Hall of Fame pro football career started in the 1940s and ended after the 1951 season.
That was a LONG time ago.
However, Van Buren was the first running back in a long line of players who have fallen into a trend pertaining to scoring touchdowns. In 1945, he became the first running back to score 18 or more times in a single season. That was quite a feat back then when you consider that the regular season lasted just 10 games. “Supersonic Steve,” as he was called, would have been one of the first fantasy superstars had our great game been around back then (most agree that fantasy football didn’t begin until the early 1960s).
That trend I mentioned has to do with running backs who score 18 or more touchdowns in a single season and their inevitable decline in the following year. Van Buren was the first back to hit that mark and experience a decline, as he saw his total drop from 18 to five in 1946. That trend has continued in the many decades since then, even with advancements in team offenses, coaching strategies and player skill sets.
Heck, it happened just last season.
We'll get to that soon, but first, let's look at the historical data. It's relevant because we’ve had four runners hit the 18-touchdown mark over the last two years, including three last year. In 2019, we had a trio of runners score 18-plus times. That had only happened once before (2005), though we had 16 regular-season games back then.
Based on my research, there have been 58 instances of a back scoring 18-plus times in a single season. All but six saw that total decline the following season. Six. LaDainian Tomlinson had the biggest leap, scoring 20 times in 2005 and 31 times (+11) in 2006. Shaun Alexander saw an eight-touchdown increase in 2005 after scoring 20 times in 2004. No other runner who saw an increase had more than three additional scores.
Every other running back saw a decline from one to 21 touchdowns after a season with 18-plus touchdowns. That’s 89% of the time. Furthermore, the decline was eight or more touchdowns 32 times (55.2%). Another six runners saw a decline of six to seven, and 17% of the runners in this research experienced a decline of five or fewer scores.
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