All-Purpose Yardage

A great way to look at the stars of NFL history is to take a peak at the career leaders in All-Purpose Yards. With the help of some information from a great statistics website we are happy to talk about the top National Football League producers of all-time.

Offensive production is becoming more and more important to the NFL game. After all the basic premise of the game is to score more points than your opponent in an alotted time frame. To score points a team generally needs to move the ball, and the more efficiently you can do that, well those are usually the high powered offenses. The players that get get the most of those yards are your playmakers and they do not necessarily need to be strictly offense either. Special teams and in particularly the return men can be of a special value because they can change field position or even score in a heartbeat if they are good. We took some information provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com to provide as of the end of the 2021 season, the top NFL players in history with all-purpose yardage. It is a number that combines career rushing, reception, punt return, kick return, fumble return and interception return yardages all in one tighty sum.

1. Jerry Rice with 23,546 APYds from 1985-2004 on not only the 49ers and Raiders but the Seahawks as well. People may forget that in his rookie year of 1985 he was SF's kick return specialist with 959 yards.
2. Brian Mitchell with  23,330 APYds in his career spanning from 1990-2003  with the Redskins, Eagles, and Giants. 14014 of his yardage total was on kick returns with another 4999 in punt return yardage, while the other 20% of his career total was in the rush and pass catching variety.
3. Walter Payton produced 21,803 APYds during his time in the NFL from 1975-1987all with the Chicago Bears. The one time NFL record holder of career rushing yards also had 4538 in receiving and 539 in kick returns from his first three seasons in the League. 
4. Emmitt Smith the NFL Leader in the clubhouse for yards carrying the ball had 21,564 APYds with 18355 on the ground in his career years that spanned from 1990-2004 on both the Cowboys and the Cardinals.
5. Frank Gore produced 19,992 APYds from 2005-2020 on five differnt teams. 3985 of these yards were of the receiving variety
6. Darren Sproles  accounted for 19,696 APYds in a a career that lasted from 2005-2019 with the Chargers, Saints, and Eagles. He was a Swiss-Army knife as his yards were made up of 8352 kick return yards, over 2900 in punt return, 3552 yards toting the rock and over 4800 yards in pass receiving. Dude was a weapon.
7. Tim Brown had a production numbers of 19,682 APYd in his career with the Raiders lasting from 1988-2003 and then a final year in Tampa. Brown was a threat with the ball in hand both with 14934 catching passes and over 4500 return yards from kicks and punts. 
8. Marshall Faulk gave his NFL employers the Rams and Colts 19,190 APYds during his career lasting from 1994-2005. Most of these were rushing (12279) but he also added receivng numbers of 6875 and 156 in kick/punt return yardage.
9. Steve Smith Sr. churned out 19,180 APYds in his career spanning 2001-2016 with both the Panthers and the Ravens. 14731 of these were catching passes from a variety of QBs, over 4000 yards in returns and even a few hundred running the ball.
10. LaDainian Tomlinson was a master at producing 18,456 APYds with both the Chargers and the Jets during his career that stretched from 2001-2011. LTs numbers  included 13684 on the ground, the rest was catching passes.
11. Barry Sanders retired early with 18,308 APYds in his NFL time from 1989-1998 all with the Lions. 15269 of those were carrying the ball for tough yards.
12. Herschel Walker    18,168    1986-1997    4TM
13. Adrian Peterson    17,808    2007-2021    7TM
14. Marcus Allen    17,648    1982-1997    2TM
15. Larry Fitzgerald    17,560    2004-2020    Cardinals
16. Curtis Martin    17,421    1995-2005    2TM
17. Tiki Barber    17,359    1997-2006    Giants
18. Eric Metcalf    17,230    1989-2002    7TM
19. Derrick Mason    17,150    1997-2011    4TM
20. Wes Welker    16,797    2004-2015    5TM
21. Thurman Thomas    16,532    1988-2000    2TM
22. Tony Dorsett    16,326    1977-1988    2TM
23. Terrell Owens    16,276    1996-2010    5TM
24. Ted Ginn Jr.    15,742    2007-2020    6TM ( Almost 2/3 of these were in punt/kick returns)
25. Henry Ellard    15,718    1983-1998    3TM

Honarable mention on our list of NFL All-Purpose Yardage production are: 

Warrick Dunn, Randy Moss, Edgerrin James, Irving Fryar, Jim Brown, Josh Cribbs, Eric Dickerson, Isaac Bruce, Antonio Brown, Steven Jackson, Tony Gonzalez, Jerome Bettis, Allen Rossum, LeSean McCoy, Glyn Milburn, James Brooks, Ricky Watters, Marvin Harrison, Franco Harris, Matt Forte, Devin Hester, Dante Hall, O.J. Simpson, Reggie Wayne, and James Lofton

Again special thanks to Pro-Football-Reference.com for the information.