I think you guys are playing up the 55 games missed number a bit. A big chunk of those games were during his last 2 years when he was in New England when he was 33 and 34 years old. Running backs don't tend to fare well in the league at that age. You could easily make the argument he should've retired when Jacksonville decided to not retain him after his contract ran out. It looks like he was holding on and hoping his body would not let him down so he could make a better case for HOF, but his body didn't cooperate.

You take those missed New England games away and he missed a total of 36 games while in Jax which is still considerable. Many of those missed games came in his first 4 years in the league which are prime years for running backs. What could have been, indeed. If you apply his per carry average and attempts per year average to those injury seasons conservatively he'd probably be somewhere near Bettis and Tomlinson in career rushing yards (currently ranked 6th and 5th respectively) and would have been a slam dunk first ballot hall of famer.

I wonder if those two years in New England hurt him more than helped him.

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