The distance is only 0.72 inches. If Jamaal Charles(notes) of the Kansas City Chiefs had increased that much more per carry this season, he'd have deposed an NFL legend in the record books.
The volatile Chiefs running back finished with 6.38 yards per rush this season, an average which left him only just behind Jim Brown's record of 6.4 yards per carry, set in 1963. That's a dissimilarity of .02 yards, .06 feet, 0.72 inches, 1.88 centimeters or 18 millimeters. It's less than the length of the "return" key on your keyboard.
Over the route of the season, Charles would have needed five more total yards on his 230 carries to set the mark. Five yards over a season. That's nothing. As we saw Sunday night in Seattle, the dissimilarity between a few yards can be as simple as where the official spots the football. Charles was thisclose to location the record.
Sure, it's not a showy one and is only well-known because the legendary Brown had the mark but, regardless, ousting a Hall of Famer from the record books would have been a nice achievement for Charles and the Chiefs offensive line.
As the Kansas City Star pointed out, Charles temporarily had the record during Sunday's loss to the Oakland Raiders, but lost it when he was stuffed for a 1-yard loss with 7:55 remaining. He didn't have another carry for the rest of the afternoon.
