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Note: Updated for Edgerrin James’ 2020 Hall of Fame selection.
In the 1999 NFL Draft, the first three picks overall were quarterbacks – Tim Couch to the Cleveland Browns (bust), Donovan McNabb to the Philadelphia Eagles (very good career), and Akili Smith to the Cincinnati Bengals (bust). Then, with the fourth overall pick and having traded away star running back Marshall Faulk, the Indianapolis Colts were in a position to draft a running back; though Ricky Williams had just won the Heisman Trophy, the Colts surprised many by drafting Edgerrin James instead. This led to a domino effect where Mike Ditka and the New Orleans Saints essentially traded away their entire draft to take Williams at fifth overall, thus forever intertwining the careers of James and Williams. Both running backs had productive careers and in comparing the two in hindsight, the question is:
Who was better – Edgerrin James or Ricky Williams?
The Beginning
En route to becoming back-to-back draft picks in 1999, James and Williams both had spectacular college careers, each setting a slew of school and/or NCAA records in the process.
After playing high school football in his native Florida, James stayed close to home and attended the University of Miami AKA “The U” during its heyday (other NFL Hall of Fame-type players who came through the Hurricanes program around the time included Ed Reed and Andre Johnson, among others). There, he became one of the best in a line of great running backs (e.g. Willis McGahee, Frank Gore, Clinton Portis, etc.), rushing for 1,098 yards and 13 touchdowns as a sophomore and then, following up with 1,416 rushing yards and 17 rushing touchdowns as a junior. In the process, he earned First Team All-Big East honors and became the first running back in school history with consecutive 1,000-yard seasons and the school’s leader in 100+ yard games (14). Following his standout junior season, James declared for the NFL and was selected fourth overall in the 1999 NFL Draft by the Indianapolis Colts. Replacing Marshall Faulk, who had just been traded to the Rams, James teamed with quarterback Peyton Manning and wide receiver Marvin Harrison to form a potent offensive triplet and led the league in rushing attempts (369) and rushing yards (1,553) as a rookie, while also scoring 13 rushing touchdowns and adding 62 receptions for 586 yards and 4 touchdowns; as a result, he was not only named Offensive Rookie of the Year, but also a Pro Bowler and First Team All-Pro, and was the last rookie to win the rushing title until Ezekiel Elliott did it for the Cowboys in 2016.
At the same time, following a multi-sport high school career in California (football, baseball, track, and wrestling), where he was named the San Diego Union-Tribune’s 1994 Player of the Year, Williams chose to attend the University of Texas for college, where he would go on to set a number of NCAA records. In both his junior and senior years, he was Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year, an All-American, and the winner of the Doak Walker Award; in particular, as a senior in 1998, Williams rushed for an astounding 2,327 yards and 29 touchdowns to become the career Division I-A rushing leader with 6,279 yards (though that record was broken just a year later by Ron Dayne of Wisconsin) and added AP Player of the Year, the Maxwell Award, the Walter Camp Award, and the Heisman Trophy to his list of accomplishments. With the Colts choosing to select James fourth overall in the 1999 NFL Draft, the New Orleans Saints essentially traded all of their draft picks that year, plus first and third-round picks in 2000, to move up to fifth overall to select Williams. With sky-high expectations, Williams had a so-so rookie year, rushing for 884 yards and 2 touchdowns and adding 28 catches for 172 yards, heavily overshadowed by James’ aforementioned standout rookie campaign.
Career Comparison
Over the course of their careers, both James and Williams would accumulate 10,000+ rushing yards; James was consistently one of the best running backs in the league during his time with the Colts, while Williams would gradually become a Pro Bowl talent, though his career was plagued by a number of drug-related incidents.
As a follow-up to his scintillating rookie season, James once again led the NFL in rushing in 2000 with a career-high 1,709 yards and 13 touchdowns, along with a career-high 63 receptions for 594 yards and 5 receiving touchdowns to earn another Pro Bowl and Second Team All-Pro selection. However, six games into the 2001 season, he tore his ACL and missed the remainder of the year. Though he was able to come back in 2002, it was a down year for James, with only 989 rushing yards and 2 rushing touchdowns; he remained a dangerous receiving threat, putting up 61 catches for 354 yards and a touchdown.
Two years removed from injury, James bounced back to the tune of 1,259 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns in 2003. From there, he would return to his early-career superstar form with back-to-back 1,500+ yard Pro Bowl seasons in 2004 and 2005:
- 2004: 1,548 rushing yards and 9 touchdowns, 51 receptions for 483 yards
- 2005: 1,506 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns, 44 receptions for 337 yards and a touchdown
Following the 2005 season, James signed as a free agent with the Arizona Cardinals; overall, he holds a number of Colts records, including most career rushing yards (9,226), rushing touchdowns (64), 1,000-yard rushing seasons (5), and single-season rushing yards (1,709 in 2000). While he was no longer a dominant force in Arizona, James remained a highly serviceable running back and went over the 1,000-yard mark in both of his first two seasons with the Cardinals (1,159 in 2006 and 1,222 in 2007). Moreover, at the start of the 2007 season and upon Corey Dillon’s retirement, James became the NFL’s active rushing leader, a distinction he held until being surpassed by LaDainian Tomlinson in 2009. However, his role became diminished in 2008 and he was released after the season to spend more time with his family. At the start of the 2009 season, a 31-year-old James signed with the Seattle Seahawks, but only played seven games in the Pacific Northwest and gained only 125 rushing yards (reminiscent of Franco Harris’ forgettable final season in Seattle); that was the last time he would play in the NFL, but James did not formally retire until 2011.
Williams ultimately spent two more seasons in New Orleans and reached the 1,000 yard milestone both years (including exactly 1,000 rushing yards in 2000). His best season came in 2001, when he rushed for 1,245 yards and 6 touchdowns, while also adding 60 receptions for 511 yards and a touchdown. This somewhat disappointing stint with the Saints came to a close when Williams was traded to the Miami Dolphins in 2002 for four draft picks, including two first-rounders.
2002 would be a career year for Williams – he led the NFL with 383 rushing attempts for a career-best 1,853 yards and scored a career-high 16 touchdowns on the ground, and also had 47 catches for 363 yards and a touchdown, to earn his only career Pro Bowl and First Team All-Pro selections. After another strong year in 2003 (1,372 rushing yards and 9 touchdowns, plus 50 catches for 351 yards and a touchdown), Williams tested positive for marijuana and facing fines and a suspension, decided to retire ahead of the 2004 season at age 27.
This retirement did not last long – after a year-long hiatus, he returned to the Dolphins in 2005 and rushed for 743 yards and 6 touchdowns while splitting time with top draft pick Ronnie Brown. Unfortunately, Williams violated the NFL’s substance abuse policy once again and was suspended for the entire 2006 season, which he spent playing for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League (CFL). Upon his reinstatement to the NFL in 2007, he only played in one game before tearing his pectoral muscle on Monday Night Football and missing the remainder of the season. After bouncing back in 2008, Williams had his last great season in 2009 – with Brown going down with injury midway through the season, Williams stepped into the starting role and had his last 1,000 yard season (and best year since 2003) with 1,121 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns, plus 35 catches for 264 yards and 2 touchdowns. Returning to a timeshare role in 2010, he then joined the Baltimore Ravens for the 2011 season and spent a year primarily in a reserve role before retiring for good at age 34.
Overall, both James and Williams played 11 NFL seasons and are separated by only one game played (148 for James vs. 147 for Williams). However, James had higher usage that resulted in a generally more productive career – not only does he have more career rushing yards, receptions, receiving yards, touchdowns, and 1,000-yard rushing seasons (7x to 5x), but also more Pro Bowls (4x to 1x), though both were 1x All-Pros. Likewise, on a per-game basis, James has the edge, averaging 106 total yards (83 rushing yards, 2.9 receptions for 23 receiving yards) and 0.61 touchdowns per game to Williams’ 86 total yards (68 rushing yards, 2.3 receptions for 18 receiving yards) and 0.50 touchdowns per game. Currently, James is a 2020 Pro Football Hall of Fame member (as well as part of the Colts Ring of Fame, having been inducted in 2018), while Williams is likely to remain on the outside looking in for Canton.
Regular Season Statistics
| Edgerrin James | Player | Ricky Williams |
| 11 (1999-2009) | Seasons | 11 (1999-2003, 2005, 2007-2011) |
| 148 | Games Played | 147 |
| 3,028 | Rushing Attempts | 2,431 |
| 12,246 | Rushing Yards | 10,009 |
| 4.0 | Yards Per Attempt | 4.1 |
| 80 | Rushing Touchdowns | 66 |
| 433 | Receptions | 342 |
| 3,364 | Receiving Yards | 2,606 |
| 11 | Receiving Touchdowns | 8 |
| 4x | Pro Bowls | 1x |
| 1x | All-Pro | 1x |
| – | MVP | – |
| – | Super Bowls | – |
| Offensive ROY | Other Awards | – |
| 2020 | Hall of Fame Induction | – |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
Perhaps as a result of playing with Peyton Manning, James had significantly more postseason experience (nearly a full season’s worth of games) than Williams and came close on a number of occasions to winning the Super Bowl.
In nine playoff games with the Colts, James’ longest postseason run came in 2003, when Indianapolis advanced to the AFC Championship Game before falling 24-14 to their nemesis the New England Patriots. Over the course of three playoff games, James rushed for 281 yards and 3 touchdowns, including a personal playoff-best 26 rushes for 125 yards and 2 touchdowns in a 38-31 Divisional victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. Despite leaving for Arizona in 2006, he nevertheless received a Super Bowl ring after the Colts captured the title that year. During his time in Arizona, he helped propel the Cardinals to Super Bowl XLIII in 2008 by rushing for 236 yards and a touchdown in four playoff games; however, during the 27-23 Super Bowl loss to Troy Polamalu and the Pittsburgh Steelers, he was held to only 33 rushing yards and an additional 28 receiving yards.
As for Williams, he only played in four total playoff games in his career and produced uninspiring numbers – one game with New Orleans in 2000 (6 rushes for 14 yards), one game with Miami in 2008 (4 rushes for 17 yards), and a couple of games with Baltimore in 2011 (a combined 12 rushes for 49 yards).
Playoff Statistics
| Edgerrin James | Player | Ricky Williams |
| 13 | Games Played | 4 |
| 218 | Rushing Attempts | 22 |
| 852 | Rushing Yards | 80 |
| 3.9 | Yards Per Attempt | 3.6 |
| 6 | Rushing Touchdowns | – |
| 35 | Receptions | 2 |
| 284 | Receiving Yards | 10 |
| – | Receiving Touchdowns | – |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
Every athlete goes through a natural career lifecycle, from starting off as a rookie to reaching peak years of performance and finally, declining into the inevitable retirement due to a combination of age and/or injury; both James and Williams missed essentially entire seasons due to injuries and were much less effective in their last couple of seasons, with Williams also missing significant playing time for drug-related offenses. For Hall of Fame caliber players across sports, I like to look at a concept I call a “decade of dominance.” The thinking behind this is that for most Hall of Fame type careers, there are roughly 10 great seasons that define an athlete ( this idea is embodied in a sense by the NFL’s All-Decade teams, which James is part of for the 2000s), though due to injury or other factors, they might not be 10 consecutive years. However, given the shorter careers most running backs have due to the physical toll of the position (very few running backs are effective after age 30), I have modified it in this comparison to a “(half)-decade of dominance”.
(Half)-Decade of Dominance
| Edgerrin James | Player | Ricky Williams |
| 1999-2000, 2003-2005 | (Half)-Decade of Dominance | 2000-2003, 2009 |
| 76 | Games Played | 74 |
| 1,760 | Rushing Attempts | 1,577 |
| 7,575 | Rushing Yards | 6,591 |
| 4.3 | Yards Per Attempt | 4.2 |
| 59 | Rushing Touchdowns | 50 |
| 271 | Receptions | 236 |
| 2,292 | Receiving Yards | 1,898 |
| 10 | Receiving Touchdowns | 6 |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
Similarly, across their respective (half)-decades of dominance, James was used more heavily in a similar number of games played, which results in better numbers across the board; in fact, James arguably had four of the five best individual seasons, with only Williams’ 2002 season cracking the top five.
My Thoughts
Due to their unique draft circumstances, people will always compare the careers of Edgerrin James and Ricky Williams. One interesting hypothetical is what if the Colts had drafted Williams instead of James, how differently would each player’s career have turned out? Also, if Williams did not have his documented substance-abuse issues, would he have been a Hall of Fame running back? Alas, we can only look at what actually happened and when we do, James was pretty clearly the better player – while Williams did have a number of 1,000-yard rushing seasons and accumulated just over 10,000 career rushing yards (a very impressive feat by any measure), he really only had one truly great year (2002), whereas James was a key cog of the high-powered Colts offenses of the early 2000s and one of the best running backs in the NFL for nearly a half-decade. In my mind, Williams falls just short of the Hall of Fame, whereas James is richly deserving of his Hall of Fame membership alongside his former Colts teammates and “Triplets” Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison.
Thus, after weighing their careers against each other in terms of statistics, achievements, and impact, the winner of this faceoff is:
Edgerrin James
As always, vote for your choice and leave your thoughts and comments below.
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