The sheer weight of decades of 16-game seasons has largely eclipsed the statistical accomplishments of Leroy Kelly. Though he retired as the game’s fourth all-time leading rusher, he’s now just 55th in career rushing yards.
Inexplicably, it took this legendary Browns running back 20 years and four tries as a finalist to make the Hall of Fame.
Thanks to Chase at Football Perspective, we have one more window through which to view Kelly’s greatness. He found the 31 longest streaks in which a defense didn’t allow a 100-yard rusher, all spanning 25 games or longer. He also listed the back who snapped those streaks.
No name appears on that list more than once, except for Leroy Kelly, who did it no less than three times. In other words, he did what no other back could do against defenses in their most recent 33, 29, and 27 games, a feat no one else accomplished more than once.