Second-year running back James Conner has started eight games this season for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He has rushed for at least 100 yards in five of them, and that includes the past four games, during which span he has scored at least once in each. He had two rushing touchdowns in each of the first three games, and added the first receiving touchdown of his career today.
It was yet another big game for the Steelers’ latest starting running back, posting 163 yards from scrimmage with 107 rushing yards on 24 carries and adding another 56 yards on seven receptions. It is the fourth game this season in which he has put up over 150 yards from scrimmage.
With his 100-yard game on the ground, he also became just the sixth player in Steelers history to record four consecutive 100-yard rushing games, with the eighth total occurrence. Hall of Fame running back Jerome Bettis did it three times, first in 1996 and then in 2001 and 2004. Franco Harris accomplished it once, but ran the streak to six games.
The most recent running back to accomplish the feat was Le’Veon Bell in 2016. It was also previously matched by Willie Parker across the 2006-2007 seasons and Barry Foster in 1992. During Bell’s four-game streak, he totaled 620 rushing yards on 118 carries with five rushing touchdowns, adding 203 receiving yards on 22 receptions and two more scores. How does that compare to Conner’s current streak?
Conner entered today’s game with just 64 carries over the past three, for 367 yards, but with six rushing touchdowns. He also had 159 receiving yards on 13 receptions. His numbers from today’s game give him 473 rushing yards on 88 carries (averaging 5.4 yards per carry) with six rushing touchdowns, plus another 215 yards through the air and another touchdown.
Bell totaled an incredible 823 yards over a four-game span, with seven scores. Conner didn’t quite match that yardage output, finishing this four-game stretch with 688 yards from scrimmage, but he also scored seven times, and set a new team record for the most scores in the team’s first eight games with 10.
Of the four-game streaks in Steelers history, Conner’s actually had the lowest rushing total, but also the highest receiving total, with only Bell’s posting at least 200 receiving yards. Foster’s 1992 run included 139 receiving yards. Harris had 111 receiving yards over six games.
Conner is averaging 172 yards from scrimmage per game during his current streak and now has 1085 yards from scrimmage over eight games raising his season yardage from scrimmage per game total up to 135.6 and putting him on pace for 2170 yards from scrimmage for the season, just 45 yards shy of Bell’s total of 2215 yards in 2014.
