Top 5 seasons from Baltimore Ravens players of All-Time
2. Jamal Lewis’s 2003 season
Jamal Lewis had 12 games over 100 yards rushing in 2003. He had two games over 200 yards rushing, including a record at the time, 295 yards against the Cleveland Browns. Lewis was the definition of a workhorse in the 2003 season. The Ravens gave him 387 carries. The Ravens wanted to run the ball and they weren’t shy about it. There were three games where Lewis had over 30 rushing attempts. Lewis took a beating that season, but he doled out more punishment than he took.
He made good use of being handed the rock so much and that’s an understatement. Lewis had 5.3 yards per carry as his season average. In that record breaking game against the Browns he averaged over nine yards per carry. Lewis was unstoppable. Lewis may not be an all-time great like Walter Payton or Jim Brown. That season though, he was the best running back I have ever seen.
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He was fast, he was powerful and he was so hard to bring down. When you talk about Lewis’s case for the Hall of Fame, you have to throw longevity out the window. He had over 300 carries in his first three seasons and in 2003 he picked up 2,066 yards.
Lewis is one of six players in NFL history to have over 2,000 yards in a season. This season wasn’t just one of the greatest by Ravens standards. We’re talking about a season where Lewis averaged almost 130 yards a game. That’s almost unheard of. This would be a top five season for every team in the NFL. The main talking point is the yards he gained but think about this from another perspective. He scored 14 rushing touchdowns. That’s a lot of points he put on the scoreboard. You could make an argument that this is the best season a running back has had in the modern era.