Josh Allen keeps moving up the NFL’s rushing touchdown ladder, and on Sunday he landed next to a familiar name for Bills fans.
The Buffalo quarterback scored twice on the ground in the Bills’ Week 3 game against the Los Angeles Chargers, pushing his career total to 85 rushing touchdowns. That ties Marshawn Lynch for 17th place on the NFL’s all-time list.
Allen’s first score came in the second quarter, a one-yard run that moved him past Pro Football Hall of Fame back Jim Taylor. Taylor had sat at 83 rushing touchdowns, and Allen entered the day tied with him after scoring twice against the Detroit Lions in Week 2.
The second one arrived in the fourth quarter, again from the one-yard line, and that was the touchdown that put Allen alongside Lynch. Lynch reached 85 over a 12-year career that started in Buffalo, where he was taken 12th overall in the 2007 NFL Draft. He spent parts of four seasons with the Bills before the bulk of his career unfolded with the Seattle Seahawks.
Now the next targets are starting to look a lot more interesting. Priest Holmes is ahead of Allen with 86 rushing touchdowns. After that come Eric Dickerson and Curtis Martin at 90, then Jerome Bettis and Franco Harris at 91.
Allen has averaged just under 10 rushing touchdowns per season in his career, but over the last three years that number has climbed to nearly 14 per season. At that rate, Dickerson, Martin, Bettis and Harris are all in striking distance this season. And with six rushing touchdowns through three games, even Barry Sanders’ 99 is no longer sitting as far off as it once was.
A two-touchdown rushing pace every week would be wild. Then again, this is Josh Allen, and by now nobody should be too quick to say he can’t keep making the impossible look routine.
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