When you retire with more rushing yards and more rushing touchdowns than any player in NFL history, your place among the greatest running backs ever is pretty difficult to argue against.
Emmitt Smith is still the NFL’s rushing king.
Before becoming the centerpiece of one of football’s greatest dynasties, Smith was already putting together a legendary résumé in Florida.
At the University of Florida, Smith became a star almost immediately. He rushed for more than 1,000 yards as a freshman and eventually finished his three-year college career with 3,928 rushing yards and 36 rushing touchdowns. He left Florida as the school’s all-time leading rusher at the time despite playing only three seasons.
Yet when the 1990 NFL Draft arrived, there were questions about whether Smith had the physical tools to become an elite NFL running back. He wasn’t the biggest back. He wasn’t considered the fastest. He didn’t have the overwhelming physical profile scouts fall in love with.
The Dallas Cowboys selected him 17th overall.
That worked out pretty well.
The Beginning of a Dynasty
Smith rushed for 937 yards and 11 touchdowns as a rookie and was named NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Then the explosion began.
In his second season, Smith led the NFL with 1,563 rushing yards, beginning a stretch in which he would win three consecutive rushing titles from 1991 through 1993.
And that third season of the run became one of the defining years of his career.
Pay the Man
Before the 1993 season, Smith and the Cowboys reached a contract standoff. Smith had already led the NFL in rushing in back-to-back seasons and helped Dallas win the Super Bowl, and he wanted to be paid accordingly.
So he held out.
Dallas apparently needed a quick reminder of how important its running back was.
The defending Super Bowl champions opened the season 0-2 without Smith.
That was enough.
Jerry Jones and the Cowboys got the message, Smith received a new contract, and he returned for Week 3.
Dallas then went 12-2 with Smith in the lineup during the remainder of the regular season.
And despite missing those first two games, Smith still rushed for 1,486 yards, won his third consecutive rushing title and was named NFL MVP.
There might not be a better way for a player to prove his value.
Smith essentially said he deserved to be paid like one of the most important players in football, Dallas tried playing without him, lost twice, paid him, and then watched him lead them back to the Super Bowl.
Case closed.
The Separated Shoulder Game
Dallas faced the New York Giants in the final game of the 1993 regular season with the NFC East title and a first-round playoff bye on the line.
During the game, Smith suffered a separated shoulder.
He kept playing.
Smith finished with 168 rushing yards, added 61 receiving yards, and helped Dallas win 16-13 in overtime.
It wasn’t his biggest statistical game. It wasn’t a Super Bowl.
But it became one of the performances that best represented Emmitt Smith.
Durability. Toughness. Reliability.
When Dallas absolutely needed him, he stayed on the field and delivered.
A few weeks later, the Cowboys won another championship, and Smith was named Super Bowl XXVIII MVP after rushing for 132 yards and two touchdowns against Buffalo.
That meant Smith finished the 1993 season as the NFL MVP, Super Bowl champion and Super Bowl MVP.
Not a bad year.
The Heart of the Cowboys Dynasty
Dallas became the defining team of the early 1990s, with Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Smith forming the famous “Triplets.”
And while Smith benefited from one of the greatest offensive lines ever assembled, reducing his career to the players blocking for him misses the point.
Great offensive lines don’t automatically create an all-time rushing leader.
Smith had elite vision, balance and patience. He rarely wasted movement and had an incredible ability to find the opening his blockers created. He wasn’t built around spectacular highlight runs. He was built around getting the yards available to him over and over and over again.
And nobody did that for longer.
The Cowboys won three Super Bowls in four seasons, with Smith playing a central role in all three championships.
His best statistical season came in 1995.
Smith rushed for 1,773 yards and an NFL-record-at-the-time 25 rushing touchdowns, leading the league in both categories while helping Dallas capture its third Super Bowl of the decade.
By that point, his résumé was already approaching historic territory.
He wasn’t finished.
Chasing Walter Payton
As the Cowboys dynasty faded, Smith continued accumulating yards.
Season after season.
Carry after carry.
Eventually, only Walter Payton remained ahead of him.
On October 27, 2002, Smith passed Payton’s career total of 16,726 rushing yards to become the NFL’s all-time leading rusher.
More than two decades later, he still owns the record.
Smith finished his career with an almost ridiculous 18,355 rushing yards.
He also scored 164 rushing touchdowns, another NFL record that still stands.
Think about the combination of those two numbers.
Nobody in NFL history has rushed for more yards.
Nobody in NFL history has rushed for more touchdowns.
A Résumé Built for Canton
Smith’s career accomplishments go far beyond the two records.
He won four NFL rushing titles, was selected to eight Pro Bowls, earned four First-Team All-Pro selections, won the 1993 NFL MVP, was named Super Bowl XXVIII MVP, and won three Super Bowl championships.
He recorded 11 consecutive 1,000-yard rushing seasons from 1991 through 2001, one of the clearest demonstrations of sustained excellence you will ever see from an NFL running back.
After leaving Dallas, Smith spent his final two seasons with the Arizona Cardinals before retiring following the 2004 season.
He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2010, his first year of eligibility, and was later selected to the NFL 100 All-Time Team.
There are running backs who were faster.
There are running backs who were bigger.
There are running backs whose highlight reels might look more spectacular.
But there has never been another running back who accumulated what Emmitt Smith did.
18,355 rushing yards.
164 rushing touchdowns.
Three Super Bowl championships.
An NFL MVP.
A Super Bowl MVP.
Those aren’t numbers built from one unbelievable season. They represent years upon years of production, durability and winning.
The debate with Emmitt will always include the offensive line he ran behind, and that’s fair. Context matters when ranking players across NFL history.
But eventually, production becomes too overwhelming to dismiss.
You don’t accidentally become the NFL’s all-time leader in both rushing yards and rushing touchdowns.
And until somebody finally takes those records away from him, the NFL’s rushing throne still belongs to Emmitt Smith.
Emmitt Smith is number four on my list of the greatest running backs in NFL history.
Next up: #3 Walter Payton.
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