There are drawbacks to everything

Matthew from Placerville, CA

One of my favorite stats about Barry Sanders is that in his MVP year he ran for exactly 2,000 yards in the final 14 games. I think that makes him only the second person to have done this? Either way it suits him well with the two duds to start the season, and degree of difficulty and brilliance to finish it.

Just for grins and giggles, I looked up the 2,000-yard seasons by Eric Dickerson, Jamal Lewis and Adrian Peterson to compare. When Dickerson ran for 2,105 in ’84, he had two games with less than 50 yards (49 and 38), so he had 2,018 yards in 14 games, though not consecutive like Sanders (and O.J. in ’73). When Lewis had 2,066 in ’03, he had just 69 yards in Week 1, so that meant 1,997 over the final 15. The most notable thing about Peterson’s 2,097 in ’12 is he had just one 100-yard game in the first six contests, and that was only 102 yards. He had 499 yards in mid-October and then put up 1,598 over the last 10 games. Mercy.

The term “one-hit wonder” is used frequently in the world of music, but what is the equivalent phrase in sports? Do you use that term, or is “flash in the pan” a better option? I’d love to know if there is a particular Packers player that comes to your mind when thinking about someone who excelled for one year but could never replicate that success.

In sports, it’s often referred to as “catching lightning in a bottle.” In my time covering the team, probably the best example would be receiver Jarrett Boykin. Undrafted from Virginia Tech, Boykin had 49 catches for 681 yards and three TDs in 2013, his second season in the league. The years before and after combined, he had eight catches for 50 yards and no scores. He never made another NFL roster after 2014 and had some tough injury luck in the CFL.

So I am wondering who do you think is the best bargain the Packers have on the current roster?

That’s difficult to answer because it depends how you define bargain. If you mean a proven, productive player with a low cap…