Bills running back Frank Gore is one big game away from catching Barry Sanders for the third-most rushing yards in NFL history.
Gore has 15,136 rushing yards in his career, while Sanders retired with 15,269 rushing yards. So if Gore has 134 or more rushing yards on Sunday against the Eagles, he’ll move ahead of Sanders for the top spot in NFL history.
Gore and Sanders got to these places in very different ways. Sanders’ career lasted just 10 years, but he led the league in rushing four times and never finished outside the Top 4 in rushing yards in any of his 10 seasons. Gore has never led the league in rushing and finished in the Top 5 just once, in 2006. But he has had an extraordinarily long career, and is the only player in NFL history to rush for more than 6,000 yards after turning 30.
Soon, possibly as soon as Sunday, Gore will have more career yards than Sanders, something that would have seemed impossible on Gore’s 30th birthday.