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Jamal Anderson career statistics

Is Jamal Anderson the biggest one-year wonder of all time?

His 1998 season earned him 185 "VBD" points, which was by far his best season. His second best season, value-wise, was 1996. He earned 63 "VBD" points that year. That's 82 points between his best season and his next-best, making his 1998 a pretty wondrous year. But he's not the biggest one-year wonder of all time, really not even close. Below you'll find a list of players whose best season was 100+ "VBD" points better than their second-best year (note: strictly by the letter of the law, guys like Shaun Alexander would be on this list, but I'm only including players who don't figure to add any more seriously productive seasons).

Heading the list is Timm Rosenbach. Remember him? He had some injury issues and retired at a young age, citing the fact that being chased by 300-pound monsters wasn't a lot of fun. Anyway, he really doesn't belong here, because he really only got substantial playing time in one season. Other highlights include Don Majkowski, Barry Foster, Erik Kramer, Scott Mitchell, Dalton Hilliard, Steve Beuerlein, and Ickey Woods. There are a few guys on the list who are probably only there because of an unfortunate injury, and a few other guys on the list (Wes Chandler, James Wilder) who were good players that had one off-the-charts year. It's probably not fair to call them one-year wonders. Really, Anderson probably belongs in the latter category as well.

Anyway, here's the list. Enjoy.

                       best      2nd-best 
Player                season      season          Diff
------------------------------------------------------
Timm Rosenbach           28         -176           205
Don Majkowski           126          -64           190
Mack Herron             111          -68           180
Don Woods               122          -36           158
Steve Beuerlein         155            1           154
Jeff Moore               65          -84           149
Dalton Hilliard         172           23           149
Charles White           132          -13           145
Derek Loville            76          -64           141
Terdell Middleton        75          -63           138
Steve Owens              89          -37           126
Barry Foster            159           34           124
Elvis Peacock            25          -97           123
Ickey Woods              76          -45           122
Ty Detmer                 0         -122           122
Jamal Anderson          185           63           121
Wes Chandler            190           72           117
Erik Kramer              79          -36           116
Scott Mitchell          136           20           115
Terry Miller             30          -80           111
Earl Cooper              55          -54           109
Scott Brunner             4         -104           108
James Wilder            182           73           108
Chris Jones               0         -108           108
Reggie Brooks            30          -75           106
Eddie Ray                 4          -98           102
Otis Armstrong          170           67           102
Bill Kenney              88          -12           101