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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/HowieLongDonkeyKong on 2025-02-18 16:33:36+00:00.
Charlie Garner was a dawg. A 2nd round pick to the Eagles in 1994, Garner had to wait until midway through his career to become the feature back.
While Garner is of course nowhere near Hall of Fame status, he had a four year period where he was arguably the most dominant rusher/receiver combo in the league at that time (not named Marshall Faulk).
Garner has mostly been forgotten over time, but it’s impressive to look at his flash in the pan period and what he was able to accomplish.
- For the first 5 seasons of his career, he was used sparingly and was unable to take feature back status from Ricky Waters and Duce Staley, who were 1,000+ yard backs in every season Garner was with the Eagles. Nevertheless, Garner still had a solid 4.6 Y/A and established value coming in as a change of pace back.
- In 1999, Garner signed with the 49ers and kicked off an extremely impressive four season stretch before injuries got the best of him.
- In two seasons with the 49ers (1999-2001), Garner averaged 1,777 yards from scrimmage per season and 5.7 yards per touch.
- At 29, he signed with Oakland and had 1,417 yards from scrimmage in his first season there.
- His next season he was a part of the Raiders’ AFC Championship winning team that featured an explosive offense under Rich Gannon, with Jerry Rice and TIm Brown continuing to shred secondaries. Garner had 1,903 yards from scrimmage that year, 91 receptions, and nearly eclipsed 1,000 yards in rushing and receiving.
- From there, Garner had a steep dropoff. He failed to get 1,000 yards his final year in Oakland, and then he signed with the Bucs where he didn’t even hit 200 yards in his final NFL season.
Nevertheless, Garner had quite an incredible four year stretch as a Faulk-like dual threat back. Makes you wonder how much more he could have done if he carried the load earlier on in his career.