Did Hershel do much in the pros? I thought he went to that other league first and then the NFL.
Walker had the most rushing yards in one season playing professional football when he rushed for over 2400 with the New Jersey Generals.
From Wiki:
[10]
In 12 NFL seasons, Walker gained 8,225 rushing yards, 4,859 receiving yards, and 5,084 kickoff-return yards.
[11] This gave him 18,168 total combined net yards, ranking him second among the NFL's all-time leaders in total yardage at the time of his retirement; as of the start of the 2007 NFL season, ten years after his retirement, he still ranks eighth.
[12] He also scored 84 touchdowns: 61 rushing, 21 receiving and two kick off returns for touchdowns.
[11] Walker is the only player to have 10,000+ yards from scrimmage and 5,000+ return yards (all of which were on kickoff returns). He is the only player to gain 4,000 yards three different ways: rushing, receiving, and kickoff returns. He is one of six players (
Jim Brown,
Lenny Moore,
Marcus Allen,
Marshall Faulk, and
Thurman Thomas) to exceed 60 touchdowns rushing and 20 touchdowns receiving. Another NFL record he possesses is that he is the only player with a 90+ yard reception, 90+ yard run, and a 90+ yard kickoff return all in the same season (1994). He is also the only player to record an 84+ yard touchdown run and an 84+ yard touchdown reception, in the same game (December 14, 1986). That same day, he had 100 yards rushing and 100 yards receiving. Walker is currently ranked eighth all time in all-purpose yards with 18,168, despite spending his first three seasons in the USFL.
There will perhaps always be a certain tendency to view Herschel Walker's professional career as a disappointment.[
citation needed] This is likely due to the high, even unrealistic, expectations that were placed on him due to his extraordinary college career and the scrutiny to which he was subjected because of the dollar amount of his trade to the Minnesota Vikings. Another factor working against Walker's legacy is the fact that he never played on a championship team. Others, however, defend Walker by pointing out that he was at least in part a victim of the
rule changes that had been adopted by the NFL in the spring of 1978, which were widely assumed to discourage offenses from running (rather than time; in addition, the NFL teams on which Walker played seldom used the
I-formation, out of which he ran so successfully throughout his career.