This past season the Buffalo Bills saw Devin Singletary have the best rookie season for a running back in their franchise since Marshawn Lynch’s first year in the league in 2007.
The Buffalo Bills have a tremendous history of great running backs with players like O.J. Simpson, Joe Cribbs and Thurman Thomas as well as more recently with Marshawn Lynch, Fred Jackson and LeSean McCoy.
After this past season, it looks like Devin Singletary is well on his way to putting his name in with these running backs. This past season, he finished with 775 rushing yards and 194 receiving yards, for 969 yards from scrimmage. This was the highest total for a rookie season since Marshawn Lynch had 1,299 total yards from scrimmage.
After Marshawn Lynch, there wasn’t another Bills rookie running back to surpass Singletary’s total since Antowain Smith had 1,107 total yards from scrimmage in 1997. Over that time frame, the Bills drafted 15 running backs with only these two having better years than Singletary.
This is one of the reasons why Bills’ fans are so excited about what the future holds for Devin Singletary entering his second season and beyond. The former third round pick got off to a slow start due to a hamstring injury suffered in Week 2 against the New York Giants.
He was forced to miss the next three games and after two lackluster performances against the Miami Dolphins and Philadelphia Eagles, he found a groove and became a key part of this offense. Singletary was that home run threat that could pick up big chunks of yards either on the ground or through the air.
The biggest challenge for Singletary moving forward will be if he can remain this big play threat with what is expected to be a larger workload next season. As a rookie, he averaged 12.5 carries per game and if the coaching staff envisions him being a featured back that total should increase to 15 or more carries per game. This would amount to about 89 more carries over a 16 game season.
The Buffalo Bills have a long history of great running backs to play for this franchise. Hopefully, Devin Singletary will be able to build off a special rookie season to continue to build a career that can join this group.