*As winter drags on, we're circling back on some of the Wulf's Den of yore. *
Last September, we took a look at ' historic production on an inch-by-inch basis. Back then, after his first two games with the Eagles, Sproles ranked 20th in NFL history with 15,854 all-purpose yards. Fourteen games and 887 all-purpose yards later, Sproles now ranks 16th on that list.
| All-Time Leaders In All-Purpose Yards | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Player | Pos. | All-Purpose Yds | |||||
| 1 | Jerry Rice | WR | 23,546 | |||||
| 2 | Brian Mitchell | RB/KR | 23,316 | |||||
| 3 | Walter Payton | RB | 21,803 | |||||
| 4 | Emmitt Smith | RB | 21,579 | |||||
| 5 | Tim Brown | WR/KR | 19,679 | |||||
| 6 | Marshall Faulk | RB | 19,172 | |||||
| 7 | LaDainian Tomlinson | RB | 18,456 | |||||
| 8 | Barry Sanders | RB | 18,308 | |||||
| 9 | Herschel Walker | RB/KR | 18,168 | |||||
| 10 | Steve Smith | WR | 17,672 | |||||
| 16 | Darren Sproles | RB/KR | 16,741 | |||||
Where he's moved into the top 10, though, is on the all-time yards-per-inch leaderboard, where he ranked 15th six months ago. Now with 253.7 all-purpose yards per inch, Sproles ranks 10th, jockeying for position with Steve Smith, the only other active player on the list.
| All-Purpose Yards Per Inch | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Player | Height | All-Purpose Yds | APY/In. | ||||
| 1 | Brian Mitchell | 5-11 | 23,316 | 328.4 | ||||
| 2 | Jerry Rice | 6-2 | 23,546 | 318.2 | ||||
| 3 | Emmitt Smith | 5-9 | 21,579 | 312.7 | ||||
| 4 | Walter Payton | 5-10 | 21,803 | 311.5 | ||||
| 5 | Marshall Faulk | 5-10 | 19,172 | 273.9 | ||||
| 6 | Tim Brown | 6-0 | 19,679 | 273.3 | ||||
| 7 | Barry Sanders | 5-8 | 18,308 | 269.2 | ||||
| 8 | LaDainian Tomlinson | 5-10 | 18,456 | 263.7 | ||||
| 9 | Steve Smith | 5-9 | 17,672 | 256.1 | ||||
| 10 | Darren Sproles | 5-6 | 16,741 | 253.7 | ||||
If Sproles repeats his 2014 production, he'll close in on surpassing Marshall Faulk and breaking into the top five.
