Throughout the NFL offseason, The Touchback will uncover some of the best fantasy football seasons you don’t remember. Today, we are looking at Karim Abdul-Jabbar and his unexpected 1997 season. Click here to read about the other best fantasy football seasons you don’t remember.
Karim Abdul-Jabbar had his best season in 1997, finishing the year as the seventh highest scoring running back. Oh, you might be a little confused. No, that’s not Lew Alcindor we are talking about. He was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. However, their two paths did intersect shortly after the 1997 season.
You see, Karim Abdul-Jabbar (the football player), wore number 33 in both college and the NFL. And the college he attended happened to be UCLA. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also went to UCLA and wore number 33. He also wasn’t thrilled with another athlete using his name and sued the football player for trademark infringement and deceit.
Long story short, Karim Abdul-Jabbar would change his name to Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar. It ended up being completely irrelevant as he was out of the league less than three years later. But none of that has anything to do with his outstanding fantasy football campaign in 1997.
Outstanding in the fact he scored a lot and not due to being a particularly good player. As we will get into shortly, this season was kind of a fluke. Abdul-Jabbar led the NFL in total touchdowns with 16 but rushed for less than 900 yards and only caught 29 passes for 261 yards.
The overall body of work wasn’t impressive. He averaged 3.2 yards per carry and 55.8 yards per carry in 1997. Yet, that was good enough to finish as RB7 in PPR leagues and RB6 in non-PPR. Even in 2020, his numbers would have been good enough to place as RB8.
| Position Finish (PPR) | Overall Finish (Standard/PPR) | |
| 1997 | RB7 | 16/24 |
| 2020 | RB8 | 31/45 |
Karim Abdul-Jabbar was a TD machine in 1997 thanks to an odd offense
The 1997 Miami Dolphins offense was weird, man. Legendary quarterback Dan Marino led the league in both completion and passing attempts that season while finishing with the third most passing yards. Despite all this, he could only muster 16 touchdowns in 16 games, the same number of scores as Abdul-Jabbar.
Dolphins Head Coach Jimmy Johnson loved throwing the ball between the 20s which is understandable given the team’s general ineffectiveness on the ground. They had the second fewest rushing yards in 1997 and were dead last in yards per attempt.
Of course, Marino’s supporting cast at this time was brutal. Apart from O.J. McDuffie, Miami had zero viable pass catchers. Tight end Troy Drayton was second on the team with 39 receptions and little-known third down running back Jerris McPhail was third with 34 receptions. That being said, the Hall of Famer made it work.
Apart from the fact guys catching the ball could not find the end zone to save their life. Which means Abdul-Jabbar had plenty of chances to score throughout the year. His 15 rushing touchdowns were four more than Barry Sanders and eight more than Jerome Bettis, two players who had significantly more yards than he did.
Present day comparison
This has nothing to do with the Islamic names, but Ameer Abdullah is very much a present-day Karim Abdul-Jabbar. Both players look good in highlights but are just wildly ineffective running backs. It’s not that they don’t have talent. However, neither managed to effectively harness it into being a consistent player.
