With Derrick Henry set to eclipse 10,000 rushing yards, can Vikings RB Aaron cross that historic milestone?
10,000 rushing yards is a plateua that few running backs have ever reached. Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry is only 18 yards away from becoming the 32nd running back in NFL history to ever reach that historic milestone. It's becoming increasingly difficult for running backs to reach that elusive milestone. Only three players that […]
10,000 rushing yards is a plateua that few running backs have ever reached. Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry is only 18 yards away from becoming the 32nd running back in NFL history to ever reach that historic milestone.
It's becoming increasingly difficult for running backs to reach that elusive milestone. Only three players that have played football after the 2011 season have ever reached that milestone:
- LeSean McCoy
- Adrian Peterson
- Frank Gore
It's an elusive milestone for any running back to hit and it raises questions about if any running back will ever hit the mark after Henry.
Can Aaron Jones reach 10k rushing yards?
After being a fifth-round pick out of UTEP by the Green Bay Packers in 2017, Aaron Jones has had a really nice career. He made the Pro Bowl in 2020 but shockingly didn't in 2019 when he scored 19 touchdowns (16 rushing).
He's played in 101 out of the 119 games he's been able to play in during the regular season but the amount of injuries he's dealt with has been an issue. Jones has played in every game just two times in his career: 2019 and 2022.
Those injuries have impacted his overall rushing totals, as he's rushed for just 62 yards per game in his career. At that rate, Jones would need to play an additional 60 games to reach 10,000 yards. Being that he will turn 30 years old on December 2nd this year, how much confidence can you have that Jones will reach that milestone?
The one intriguing element that could help Jones reach that mark is how successful he's been with the Vikings. It's a limited four-game sample size, but his efficiency is at an all-time high. Currently, he has a success rate of 60.9%, which is the second-highest of his career thus far and he's averaging a career-high 80.3 yards per game with his Pro Bowl season of 2020 being the only one close at 78.9 yards.
If Jones is able to keep up that 80.3-yard pace, he would only need 47 games to reach that mark, which would mean Jones would have to keep this pace up into the 2027 season. With running backs having shorter careers than ever before, Jones reaching that mark feels like a lofty goal that isn't very likely.
However, the one thing that could help Jones is a Frank Gore career arc. If he can be a solid second option in a backfield that has trended toward platoon backfields for the last decade, it's not an impossibility.
Sauce Gardner vs. Justin Jefferson is the matchup everyone wants to see in Vikings vs. Jets
The Minnesota Vikings take on the New York Jets on Sunday morning at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, England. If the Vikings win the game on Sunday, they will be the first team to start 4-0 in international games with all of them having been in London. Previously, the Vikings beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in […]
