What in the world was up with Johnny Lujack?

[TanksAndSpartans]

Thanks Rupert - when @JameisLoseston pointed that out (I had never noticed) it looked bad, historically bad - now you've confirmed it. I hope you get a chance to see some early 50s Giants highlights at some point - wouldn't want that to be your main impression of him

[JameisLoseston]

That bit of trivia about Price was something I stumbled across in research for my upcoming book; it was really the only thing I knew about Eddie Price.

Looking at Price's 1953 season gamelogs at PFR.com:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... elog/1953/

He didn't have a single game where he rushed for over three yards per carry. In the five games he did rush over 10 times, his YPC were 1,93, 1,64, 2,90, 2.56 and 2.10. It wasn't that he had a couple bad games, he didn't have a single good game. He was clearly nursing an injury and it's a wonder Steve Owen kept him out there as much as he did.

Price probably had the worst season of any running back ever with over 100 carries, but as far as seasons for a player with more than 100 rushing attempts, there is one player who has Price beat as the worst, and this performance will never be beat:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... riDa21.htm

In 1940, Heisman Trophy winner turned Eagles QB and soon to be FBI agent Davey O'Brien rushed 100 times for negative 180 yards, and this was in the days before they had the kneel-down play. I don't know if those were actual runs or sacks credited as runs.

Oh my goodness, Davey O'Brien! I was going to make a thread about him soon. He's another one of my favorite historical curiosities, and he has a legitimate case to be the worst football player who ever saw significant playing time, which is sad considering how dominant he was in college. He threw a ton, but was the compiler of all compilers and did next to nothing with it; an 11-34 TD-INT is poor in any era. But his rushing is what puts him among the worst of the worst, and I know sacks were counted as negative rushing yardage before 1948 (as they still are in college), but what makes DOB so downright fascinating is that no one else ever had a season anything like his 1940. He was doing much more than just getting sacked. The 5 most similar seasons I could find are:

Tommy Thompson: 92 carries, -32 yards
Ronnie Cahill: 62 for -11
Sid Luckman: 36 for -119
Tommy Thompson: 34 for -118
Otto Graham: 30 for -125

The last three are obviously almost all sacks; no one would mistake those guys for tailbacks, although Graham did develop a bit of a running game later. Cahill was an absolutely worthless excuse for a replacement player in the war year of 1943 and never played again afterwards, but Thompson and Luckman, in particular, are excellent case studies in how the stat counting change for sacks affected rushing stats. Both were profoundly immobile, Luckman perhaps even more so than Thompson, and he had next to no rushing after the change; Thompson had about 10 carries for 20-30 yards the next few years. Assuming they had similar actual rushing stats in previous years, we can say each of them got sacked, let's say 30 times for about 150 yards, in the particular years referenced. They were probably the most immobile QBs in the league, so that's probably about as high as sack rates got; the most abjectly useless scramblers in the NFL were getting sacked no more than 30 times in their worst year, not looking good for DOB. For Cahill, that means he might have picked up over 100 yards on the 30 other carries; not bad, for him! For Thompson's 92 carry year, that means he had about 120 yards on 60 carries... that's pretty terrible, but it's Tommy Thompson.

But Davey O'Brien? If this estimation holds, he would have had approximately 70 actual rushes for NEGATIVE THIRTY YARDS. In 1940, very few running backs even had 100 carries. This guy was legitimately trying to be a primary ball carrier for his team, and was going absolutely nowhere. He left the team to work for the FBI after that ill-fated season, but I can't imagine the team wasn't glad to see him go... nor can I imagine how he managed to win one game that year. He was so colossally ineffective that he singlehandedly managed to reduce the Eagles' rushing output from reasonably close to league average, to LESS THAN ONE YARD PER CARRY. FOR THE ENTIRE SEASON.

Definitely a contender for worst player in NFL history.

[TanksAndSpartans]

Just to nitpick, I think Graham was a pretty good athlete, tailback in college, when he did play defense made some interceptions, seemed able to take off and run at the right time, etc. Not as sure about Luckman other than to say, its not like the QBs of today or even the 60s, the guys from the 40s all played some defense even though they were on the tail end of the single platoon era (And I'm 99% sure I've seen video of Luckman returning a punt). Surprised Thompson's rushing numbers are that bad - he was pretty good in the '48 title game on the ground.

[JameisLoseston]

My point wasn't that they didn't have other skills besides passing, it was that of all those 30+ carries they had those years, almost every one was a sack. Davey O'Brien was not just getting sacked; rather, he was the most catastrophically incompetent ball carrier imaginable, and I could gain more yards than him on 100 carries if you guarantee I won't get injured. It's especially strange because he was a totally capable runner in college, with 128 carries for 466 yards in his last year even after the sacks.

[JeffreyMiller]

Looks like everyone has been wrong all along about, well, everything.

[TanksAndSpartans]

Looks like everyone has been wrong all along about, well, everything.

I don't get it. Haven't seen this much discussion in one day before - what's wrong with that?

[JeffreyMiller]

Not a thing.

[TanksAndSpartans]

Not a thing.

Just wanted to make sure it wasn't because I said something that could be taken as unflattering towards the AAFC again.

[Rupert Patrick]

Not a thing.

Just wanted to make sure it wasn't because I said something that could be taken as unflattering towards the AAFC again.

I remember back in ye olden days when the Remember the AFL guy was here, and you couldn't have any sort of discussion about anything here without him arguing that the AFL was better than the NFL, and it was annoying to the point where he was banned.

[JeffreyMiller]

Wasn't me!! LOL