The Oakland Raiders released running back Trent Richardson as they trimmed their roster from 90 to 75 players earlier this week. The former first-round pick of the Cleveland Browns in 2012 was traded to the Indianapolis Colts for another first-round pick in 2013 before the Raiders signed him as a reclamation project this spring.
Since Richardson’s NFL career is probably over, his place in the draft bust Hall of Fame is secure. But is he the worst running back of all-time?
Former NFL safety and current ESPN Analyst Ryan Clark believes he is, but is Richardson just the victim of recency bias? His career 3.1 yards per carry average puts him in the conversation, but how does Richardson really stack up against the worst of the worst?
Richardson is likely better than an undrafted free agent that once got a few carries, so to place him in the pantheon of terrible running backs means setting a few parameters. This is where the process often gets very subjective.
Several first-round picks have been less productive than Richardson. According to Pro-Football-Reference.com‘s draft database, nine running backs have averaged fewer yards per carry. Since Richardson has 19 career touchdowns, he also 13 more total touchdowns than any of those running backs.
In most cases, these players had injuries shorten their careers. To the extent those injuries affected their ability to even get on the field is hard to judge. So while they may be bigger draft busts than Richardson, to call them all worse would be unfair.
Richardson received ample opportunity to provide value to the three teams that took chances on him, but he actually hurt them more than he helped. A bad player that plays a lot actually hurts a team more than a bad player that doesn’t play.
If we assume 3.8 yards per carry is average, we can use a player’s stats to find out just how much a player hurt his team based on both his efficiency and opportunity. If a player averages 3.31 yards per carry like Richardson, he costs his team .49 yards on every carry.
Multiple .49 yards by the number of carries (614 for Richardson) and divide by the number of games played (46) to get the number of yards each player left on the field per game under average. By doing this, the worst two running backs of all-time are Curtis Enis at 6.55 yards per game and Richardson at 6.548 yards per game.
| Player | Games | Starts | Carries | Yards | TD | YPC | YPG Under AVG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Curtis Enis | 36 | 18 | 456 | 1497 | 4 | 3.28 | 6.55 |
| Trent Richardson | 46 | 37 | 614 | 2032 | 17 | 3.31 | 6.55 |
| Leonard Russell | 85 | 71 | 1164 | 3973 | 29 | 3.41 | 5.30 |
| Lawrence Phillips | 35 | 20 | 424 | 1453 | 14 | 3.43 | 4.52 |
| Michael Haddix | 120 | 52 | 543 | 1635 | 3 | 3.01 | 3.57 |
It’s a dead heat, but since Enis tore his ACL in his second career game, we can give him a pass for never being himself again. This means that Richardson becomes quite clearly the worst of all-time. Leonard Russell, Lawrence Phillips and Michael Haddix follow in the distance.
Haddix benefits from the fact that he played in 120 games over seven seasons. The Eagles and Packers were smart enough to never give him more than 100 carries in a season. If we adjust by number of starts, Haddix, Enis and Don McCauley jump ahead of Richardson.
McCauley never panned out, but he played for the Baltimore Colts as a backup for 11 seasons. Using only starts, we ignore other contributions. They may have been worse running backs, but their bad play was spread out over many years. Those teams likely didn’t feel the effects quite like the Browns and Colts did with Richardson.
At least by this method, no running back hurt his team more per game than Richardson. That’s a pretty good test for the worst of all-time. There are hundreds of other ways to define the worst of all-time, but no matter how it’s done, Richardson is in the conversation.
