Simpson's Record-Breaking Year
Running back O.J. Simpson broke the 2,000-yard barrier for rushing yards in a season, and was voted NFL Most Valuable Player. Simpson began and ended the fourteen-game season with bookend five-game streaks where he ran for at least 100 yards. 1973 was the fifth of nine consecutive seasons that Simpson led the team in rushing yards.
It was also the first time Simpson would lead the NFL in rushing touchdowns, first time he would lead the league in yards from scrimmage and the second time he would lead the league in rushing yards. (Although Simpson posted a career best 6.0 yards per carry in 1973, he was surpassed by Mercury Morris who posted a 6.4 yards per carry average for the 1973 Miami Dolphins. The only season that Simpson led the league in yards per carry was two years later when he averaged 5.5 yards per carry.)
Although Simpson's 2003 yard total has now been eclipsed by 5 other runners, as of 2010, his 143.1 yards per game remains an NFL single-season record due to being achieved in a fourteen-game season. (All subsequent 2,000-yard seasons took place in 16 games.)
Simpson was named Associated Press Athlete of the Year.
Read more about this topic: 1973 Buffalo Bills Season
Famous quotes containing the words simpson and/or year:
“In my grandmother’s house there was always chicken soup
And talk of the old country—mud and boards,
Poverty,
The snow falling down and necks of lovers.”
—Louis Simpson (b. 1923)
“The golden mean in ethics, as in physics, is the centre of the system and that about which all revolve, and though to a distant and plodding planet it be an uttermost extreme, yet one day, when that planet’s year is completed, it will be found to be central.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)