Chris Johnson's Decline: Historically Unprecedented

There's no precedent to explain how CJ2K has become CJ.7K.

Awful.  Unwatchable.  Killing Pete's fantasy team.  These are all terms that have been used to describe Chris Johnson's season, and they're all justified.  After averaging 1,500 yards rushing in each of his first three seasons, Johnson is on pace for less than 700 this season.  Watch a Titans game, and you'll see him constantly hesitate and stutter-step behind the line of scrimmage.  After looking like Tony Dorsett for three years, CJ2K has turned into Laurence Maroney.  I'll throw out another phrase that can describe what his 2011 campaign has been: historically unprecedented.

Along with Johnson, 15 other players in NFL history have started their careers with three straight 1,000 yard rushing seasons.  Names on those list include Hall of Famers, like Barry Sanders and Erik Dickerson, who continued that production for their entire careers.  Only a handful of times did one of these 15 players lose half of their production while still in their prime.  Ottis Anderson and William Andrews each rushed for under 600 yards in 1982, but that was in a strike-shortened eight-game schedule.  John Brockington was a bruising back for the Packers whose hard-running style quickly caught up with him in his fourth year. Eddie George, Marshall Faulk, and Corey Dillon all had down years due to injury before rebounding the next season.  Torn knee ligaments prematurely ended Terrell Davis' career.

The point is, every drop in production for one of these players could be explained. Elite running backs don't plummet in the middle of their prime for no reason.  It just doesn't happen.

This is what makes Chris Johnson's fall from grace as unprecedented as it is frustrating. Everything else considered, he should be having one of the best seasons of his career. He has the same offensive line that led him to 1,364 rushing yards last year.  His head coach, the former o-line coach who crafted that running game, remains committed to him.  He is playing alongside the best quarterback he's ever played with.  His elusiveness has protected him from hard hits and left him with plenty of tread on his tires.  He has no reported injuries.

This leaves us with the only true difference between Chris Johnson now and Chris Johnson in the past three years: his salary.  Johnson's holdout was big news in August, and I sympathized with him.  Unlike veterans like Osi Umenyiora, players working on their rookie contract have the right to renegotiate their deals because they were unable to do so when they were drafted.  However, the minute Tennessee gave Johnson a raise, his performance plummeted.  (For the record, blaming his lost training camp doesn't hold up.  Emmitt Smith held out of the first two games of the 1993 season and still rushed for 1,486 yards when he returned.)

Is it possible that money was the only thing driving Johnson towards his 5,606 total yards in the previous three seasons?  It sounds bad, but it's the only explanation for his awful season.  A running back just doesn't go from a Hall of Fame pace to a backup role for no reason.  If Johnson does, then he'd set a new historical precedent.  One that no future back will want to follow.

Image found here.