Herschel Walker - Legacy

Legacy

Walker rushed for 5,562 yards in his USFL career. His combined rushing numbers for the USFL and the NFL (13,787 yards) would place him 5th All-Time on the NFL's career rushing list. In 12 NFL seasons, Walker gained 8,225 rushing yards, 4,859 receiving yards, and 5,084 kickoff-return yards. for 18,168 total combined net yards, ranking him second among the NFL's all-time leaders in total yardage as of his retirement; as of the start of the 2007 NFL season, ten years later, he still ranked eighth. He scored 84 touchdowns: 61 rushing, 21 receiving and returned two kick-offs for touchdowns. Walker is the only other player besides Derrick Mason to have 10,000+ yards from scrimmage and 5,000+ return yards (all of which were on kickoff returns).

He is the only player to gain 4,000 yards three different ways: rushing, receiving and kickoff returns. He is one of six players (Jim Brown, Lenny Moore, Marcus Allen, Marshall Faulk and Thurman Thomas) to exceed 60 touchdowns rushing and 20 touchdowns receiving. He is the only NFL player with a 90+ yard reception, 90+ yard run and a 90+ yard kickoff return in one season (1994). He is the only player to record an 84+ yard touchdown run and an 84+ yard touchdown reception in the same game (December 14, 1986). He had 100 yards rushing and 100 yards receiving that day.

Walker is regarded as one of the top college running backs of all time. In 1999, he was selected to Sports Illustrated's NCAA Football All-Century Team. On the Fox Sports Net show Sports List, Walker was named the best college football running back of all time and was selected as the third greatest player in college football history by ESPN. Georgia retired Walker's number "34".

While Walker had a successful NFL career, he never played on a championship team. The move to Minnesota was the turning point in his NFL tenure. In 2008, the trade was selected by SI.com as the worst sports trade of all time. It was the subject of an episode of ESPN Classic's The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame.... In 2003 Johnson County High School named its football field in his honor. Walker was a highly popular and visible personality, even in his college days, as evidenced by the fact that both a thoroughbred and a standardbred race horse were named after him, the former while he was still in college. He made several appearances in the sports documentary (2004).

On January 29, 2011 Walker announced that he was considering a return to the NFL. "I've told everyone that at 50 I might try football again to show people I can do that," Walker said. "I want to be the George Foreman of football, come back and do that one more time... The two teams I would come back to play for are Minnesota or Atlanta. It would probably be Atlanta because that's home for me." According to Walker, his mixed martial arts training made him, "a much better-conditioned athlete now than when I was playing football. I'm 48 and in better shape now than I was when I was in my early 20s, playing football."