Countdown to Kickoff: 98 Days

The countdown to kickoff has started.

The Tennessee Titans will open the 2020 regular season Sept. 14 at Denver. That is 98 days away.

First downs are not the first things that come to mind when you talk about Chris Johnson in 2009, the year he earned the CJ2K moniker. Of course, there are the 2,006 rushing yards that made him the sixth player in NFL history to top 2,000. Then there are the 2,509 yards from scrimmage, which set an NFL record that still stands.

All of those yards, however, kept the chains moving.

That brings us to another area in which Johnson led the league that season – first downs. He had – you guessed it – 98 of them.

Johnson accounted for 80 rushing on 358 attempts and added another 18 on 50 receptions. That meant that 22.3 percent of his runs, 36 percent of his receptions and 24 percent of his total touches resulted in the necessary yards – and often more.

By comparison, when Derrick Henry led the NFL in rushing last fall, he also finished third in rushing first downs with 73 (Dallas’ Ezekiel Elliott had a league-best 78). In 2000, when Eddie George set the franchise record with 403 carries, he managed 78 first downs on runs, which meant he moved the chains 19.4 percent of the time.

Tennessee finished 21st overall in first downs in 2009 with an average of 18 per game. More than one-third of those came from one player.

“That’s what every guy wants who plays any sport – they want to be the next Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant or whoever you want to name,” Johnson said at the end of that season. I’m just going to continue to run hard.”

In eight seasons that followed, he never got close to 2,000 yards. And he never produced more than 68 combined first downs.