For a long stretch, running backs rivaled quarterbacks in terms of importance in the NFL.
That impact has waned as the league moved toward a pass-first philosophy, but the value of a dynamic backfield remains. Find someone who can run the ball effectively — as well as catch passes and redirect blitzers — and you’ve got a rising tide for a team with Super Bowl aspirations.
Great runners can rack up more than 20 touches per game, throwing the spotlight on their position and building superstars. The proliferation of fantasy football into the zeitgeist only heightened the name recognition of workhorses, even as their roles shrunk. Running backs aren’t just important; they’re foundational to the fabric of football both real and imagined.
Some franchises had the scouting and luck to land multiple Hall of Famers. Others have rotated through platoons and retreads in search of someone capable of delivering consistent 1,000-yard seasons. While the footing at the top may not be equal, every team has a player who can stand atop their team’s mountain or gently sloped hill as the best, most successful runner to get it done.
That’s the argument we’re going to stir up today. Using overall impact, their team’s success and longevity, let’s figure out who the best running back in team history is for all 32 NFL franchises.
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Arizona Cardinals: Ottis Anderson
The Cardinals’ list of notable rushers is dotted with players who began their career elsewhere before heading to the desert; Emmitt Smith, Adrian Peterson and Edgerrin James foremost among them. Anderson went the opposite way, running for a franchise best 7,999 yards — and more than 80 per game — en route to offensive rookie of the year honors and five 1,000-yard seasons. He’d later head to the New York Giants, where he won a pair of Super Bowls.
Atlanta Falcons: Michael Turner
This is a genuinely tough call. Gerald Riggs ran for a franchise-best 6,631 yards and was a three-time Pro Bowler. Warrick Dunn revived his career in Atlanta and put up more than 3,600 rushing yards in his age 29-31 seasons. But Turner burned the brightest, emerging from LaDainian Tomlinson’s shadow and living up to even the loftiest expectations after signing with the Falcons. He averaged more than 1,200 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns per season in his five years with the team.
Baltimore Ravens: Jamal Lewis
Lewis ran with the villainous swagger that has defined so many Ravens defenses, craving contact and bowling over defenders with a nearly 250-pound frame. He averaged more than 1,300 rushing yards per season, but even if you discount his 2003 2,066-yard campaign that number only drops to 1,147 — still pretty dang good.
Buffalo Bills: Thurman Thomas
On the field, O.J. Simpson was better — leading the league in rushing yards four times and being the first to crack the 2,000-yard barrier (in a 14-game season) — but … yeah. Thomas was great in his own right, gaining more yards and scoring more touchdowns than Simpson (albeit in 51 more games) and being a massive piece of four straight AFC titles. He broke the 1,000-yard barrier eight times, in eight straight seasons, as a Bill and is arguably as iconic to the franchise as Jim Kelly or Bruce Smith.
Carolina Panthers: DeAngelo Williams
Williams shared the backfield with another viable candidate for this honor, Jonathan Stewart. Ultimately, Williams’ peak (a league-high 18 touchdowns in 2008, All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors) nudged him ahead of his less heralded (but still very good) platoon mate. Williams was solid for nine years in Charlotte and occasionally great.
Chicago Bears: Walter Payton
He doubles up just about every other Bears running back when it comes to counting stats and was an absolute legend off the field, earning namesake honors for the NFL’s community service award. The eight-time All-Pro was a workhorse through and through, running for more than 6,500 yards … after his age 30 season.
Cincinnati Bengals: Corey Dillon
Clock Killin’ Corey Dillon was a grinder of the highest degree, an old school RB1 happy to tote the ball 30-plus times per game if that’s what Bruce Coslet or Dick LeBeau needed. He began his career with six straight 1,100-yard seasons despite playing with a non-threatening cavalcade of quarterbacks like Jeff Blake, Neil O’Donnell, Akili Smith and Jon Kitna. There wasn’t much good in Cincinnati from 1997-2003; the silver lining was Dillon.
Cleveland Browns: Jim Brown
A legend on the field and an inherently complicated human off it, Brown led the league in rushing eight times in nine seasons. He retired after winning the 1965 MVP award — his third — having brought the Browns to back-to-back NFL championship games, winning one. Brown isn’t just an icon in Cleveland, but to the NFL and sport of football as a whole.
Dallas Cowboys: Emmitt Smith
Smith was fine as a rookie and then an absolute madman in the five seasons that followed. He ran for more than 8,000 yards and 85 touchdowns as the Cowboys unveiled their dynasty on the NFL, winning three Super Bowls in that span. He followed up greatness with nearly a decade of pretty-goodness, rushing for 1,000-plus yards each of the six seasons afterward and eventually setting the league’s all-time rushing record at 18,355 yards.
Denver Broncos: Terrell Davis
Davis turned four seasons — one good, two great and one undeniably wonderful — into a Hall of Fame resume. The explosive tailback covered more than 6,400 yards from 1995 to 1998, earning three All-Pro bids, one NFL MVP and, most importantly, the first two Super Bowl victories in Broncos franchise history. He was a firework, blasted high into the atmosphere with dazzling results before falling back to earth in a career cut short by injury.
Detroit Lions: Barry Sanders
There was no greater Thanksgiving football tradition than tuning into the day game and watching Sanders embarrass linebackers. The diminutive back combined vision and agility unlike anyone who preceded him or has come since. No other player in league history was more adept at turning a pinhole of light into a sunburst, even if its effects on the Lions fortunes as a whole were limited. But hey, he’s responsible for the most recent playoff win in franchise history (1991).
Green Bay Packers: Jim Taylor
With apologies to Ahman Green, Taylor’s ability and the Packers’ team success make this pre-merger stud Green Bay’s top running back. The 1962 MVP carried the ball roughly 20 times per game at his peak and played a significant role for five different championship teams — including the first ever Super Bowl winners, a game in which he ran in a 14-yard touchdown. He averaged more than 90 rushing yards and just under a touchdown per week at his 1960-1964 peak.
Houston Texans: Arian Foster
Houston is the league’s most recent franchise, leading a small sample size for data collection. Foster didn’t have to beat out many notable candidates — Domanick Williams, who played just three seasons, ranks second on the all-time rushing yardage list — but he’s worthy of the top spot. Foster was an undrafted free agent who played sparingly as a rookie, then grabbed the brass ring by leading the league in rushing yards (1,616) and touchdowns (16) in year two. Three more 1,200-yard seasons followed in the next four years, leaving him alone atop the molehill of Texans tailbacks.
Indianapolis Colts: Edgerrin James
The Colts traded away Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk in his prime and it didn’t significantly affect their offense because they landed James. He arrived from the University of Miami and immediately lived up to his top five draft pick status. James racked up more than 3,200 rushing yards his first two seasons in the league and emerged as a valuable cantilever to Peyton Manning’s high-impact passing game — hauling in 356 receptions as a Colt in the process.
Jacksonville Jaguars: Fred Taylor
Maurice Jones-Drew was great, but Taylor filled more than a decade of Jaguars football with great performances. Despite early injuries, he had seven seasons with at least 1,000 rushing yards and averaged more than 107 rushing yards per game in his third season as a pro (13 games). He was unfairly maligned due to those injury concerns — hence the “Fragile Fred” nickname that graces the top of his Pro Football Reference profile — and supremely underrated, making just one Pro Bowl and a single All-Pro team despite being extremely good at football.
Kansas City Chiefs: Jamaal Charles
Priest Holmes has a strong argument in his favor; his peak as a Chief was higher than Charles’. But the former Texas back started his career in Kansas City and gave the franchise nine years of service, five 1,000-yard seasons and three All-Pro campaigns — even if Holmes had the bigger impact as a receiver. Between 2008 and 2015, Charles averaged a robust 5.5 yards per carry for a team without much to fall back on in the passing game.
Las Vegas Raiders: Marcus Allen
With due respect to Rhode Island high school legend Mark Van Eeghan, there’s only one correct answer when it comes to the greatest running back in Raiders history. Allen was a Pro Bowler five times in his first six seasons, an All-Pro three times and league MVP in 1985. His consistency wavered after that, but he emerged as a powerful platoon option late in his career as Bo Jackson, then veteran help like Roger Craig and Eric Dickerson, moved into a primary role. He’d later go on to five effective seasons with the Chiefs in his mid-30s.
Los Angeles Chargers: LaDainian Tomlinson
Tomlinson was a dual-threat thoroughbred, gaining more than 2,000 yards from scrimmage three times as a Charger and hitting 1,500 total yards in eight of his nine seasons with the team. He’s got roughly 250 percent more rushing yards than anyone else in franchise history and ranks fifth — ahead of Lance Alworth — in career receptions. His 31 touchdowns in 2006 are an NFL all-time best by a wide margin.
Los Angeles Rams: Eric Dickerson
Steven Jackson and Marshall Faulk made this a difficult call. But the sheer explosive force of Dickerson’s peak was too powerful to be ignored. He played four full seasons with the Rams and led the league in rushing in three of them. He averaged more than 111 yards per game in Los Angeles and finished runner-up in MVP voting in each of those league-leading years. Jackson was very good for a very long time (nine years, more than 10,000 yards). Dickerson was an act of violence unleashed upon the league.
Miami Dolphins: Larry Csonka
Csonka was a bruiser who shared the backfield with fellow Dolphin legends Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris, earning MVP votes (and a Super Bowl MVP), three All-Pro awards and two Super Bowl rings. He left the team for the World Football League and languished with the New York Giants for a few years before returning to Miami in 1979. He wasn’t incredible, but he ran for more than 800 yards at age 33 to earn Pro Football Writers Association Comeback Player of the Year honors in his final season.
Minnesota Vikings: Adrian Peterson
Peterson was borderline superhuman, whether discussing his impact on the field or ability to recover from injury off it. He returned from a torn ACL in less than a year’s time to lead the league in both yardage and touchdowns in 2015 … and it wasn’t even close to his best season as a pro. His 2,097-yard campaign in 2012 made him the most recent (and possibly last?) non-quarterback to win MVP honors.
New England Patriots: Kevin Faulk
The Patriots are unique; in their most successful years they cycled through running backs, often relying on low-cost platoons and veteran retreads rather than investing in a single star at a volatile position. Faulk was a constant through much of that success, a receiving back whose impact with the ball wasn’t huge but whose hands and blocking helped turn Tom Brady from backup into legend. His 431 catches are most in franchise history from a running back.
New Orleans Saints: Deuce McCallister
McCallister played his full eight year career in New Orleans and released in the offseason just before their 2009 Super Bowl breakthrough. That was rough, but he meant enough to the team to earn a Super Bowl ring regardless and signed a one-day contract before the 2010 playoffs to serve as honorary captain before his official retirement. His bruising running style and work ethic made him an easy sell for Saints fans — as did averaging more than 100 rushing yards per game in the 2003 season.
New York Giants: Tiki Barber
Like McCallister, Barber’s career wound down just before things got good; his 2006 retirement preceded a 2007 Super Bowl win. But Barber was more prolific; a consistent 10 year presence who only missed six games in his career and covered 1,200-plus yards in each of his final five seasons in the league. He opted for the broadcast booth with gas left in the tank; he ran for more than 3,500 yards and 14 touchdowns in his age 30 and 31 seasons before leaving the locker room behind.
New York Jets: Curtis Martin
Bill Parcells wooed his former Patriots draft pick to New York as a restricted free agent and landed a legend in 1998. Martin went from Pro Bowler to All-Pro with the Jets, starting his career with 10 straight 1,000-yard seasons and leading the league in rushing yards at age 31. New York made the playoffs in four of his eight years with the club, which doesn’t sound like a big deal until you realize the team’s quarterbacks in that stretch were Vinny Testaverde, Ray Lucas, Chad Pennington and Brooks Bollinger.
Philadelphia Eagles: Brian Westbrook
Westbrook was Philly through and through, playing his college ball at Villanova (OK, Philly-adjacent) before spending eight years with the Eagles. There, he emerged from role player to All-Pro thanks to his capabilities as a runner and receiver. Between 2006 and 2007 he averaged more than 130 yards from scrimmage per game and ranks first among all Philadelphia running backs in receiving yards.
Pittsburgh Steelers: Franco Harris
Listen, if you want to make this about Jerome Bettis I will not stop you. The Bus scratched his name into the steel beams of the city he called home for a decade. But Harris played longer in Pittsburgh, won more Super Bowls (four), made more Pro Bowls and All-Pro teams and, crucially, is the icon behind one of the greatest plays in NFL history.
And he did it all on the unforgiving, carpet-over-concrete turf of Three Rivers Stadium.
San Francisco 49ers: Roger Craig
Frank Gore is the franchise’s all-time leader in rushing yards, but your first instinct with Gore may not be to identify him as a 49er, but as the guy who kept busting out 100-yard performances well into his 30s (six after turning 33!). He also played in a fairly underwhelming stretch for San Francisco, making the postseason only three times in his 10 seasons. Craig, on the other hand, never missed the playoffs as a Niner and won three Super Bowls. He also had 1,500 more receiving yards than Gore and his 508 receptions are third-best in team history.
Seattle Seahawks: Marshawn Lynch
Shaun Alexander leads the team in rushing yards and has an MVP award. Curt Warner has more All-Pro honors. But Lynch was a tsunami, an unstoppable force on the field and undeniable personality off it. He had six 100-yard games … in the postseason alone over his first five years as a Seahawk. He’s probably one Pete Carroll handoff call away from being a two-time Super Bowl champion. And he set the tone for Seattle’s revival by giving the world one of those plays so iconic it gets its own nickname: the Beast Quake.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Mike Alstott
James Wilder toiled for some very bad Buccaneers teams en route to the franchise rushing record. But Alstott was part of a transformative force that took the team from creamsicle-clad bottom feeders to world champions. The muscled-out fullback was a staple of Monday morning SportsCenters thanks to his crushing runs. While he never cracked the 1,000-yard barrier, his presence as a piledriver, receiving threat and blocker opened up the Tampa offense in ways stats alone can’t describe.
Tennessee Titans: Earl Campbell
Both Eddie George and Derrick Henry can lay claim to this title, but Campbell’s work for the Houston Oilers was absolutely ludicrous. He led the league in rushing in each of his first three seasons, tallying 600 more total yards from 1978 to 1980 than second place Walter Payton and 1,400 more than third place Tony Dorsett. He was a monster in the era of great workhorse running backs, and while injuries shortened his career he made enough of an impact to live on in highlight reels and discussions like these until the heat death of the universe.
Washington Commanders: John Riggins
Riggins didn’t arrive in Washington until his age 27 season and sat out the entire 1980 campaign due to a contract dispute and STILL holds the franchise records for rushing yards and touchdowns — the latter by a significant margin. He led the league in rushing touchdowns twice, incredibly during his age 34 and 35 campaigns. He wasn’t the most efficient runner and he added little value as a receiver, but Riggins sought out contact, ran through defenders and got the tough yards his team needed en route to a revival (and Super Bowl title).
