Seven backs and two receivers who played for the Green Bay Packers are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
None of them ever made the type of splash that Randall Cobb has.
Green Bay won consecutive games for the first time this season by defeating the St. Louis Rams 30-20 on Sunday in the Edward Jones Dome. As he has done five times already this year, Cobb contributed more than 100 yards to the Packers’ cause.
The 64th player selected overall in the 2011 draft is a jack-of-many-trades. His talent and willingness to be utilized as more than a wide receiver have allowed him to tie a Packers record that has stood for 62 years.
By gaining 146 combined net yards against the Rams (yards from scrimmage plus yards on returns), Cobb pushed his season total to 1,076. Billy Grimes, in 1950, is the only other player in team history to surpass 1,000 yards in the first seven games of a season.
One-thousand yards has been a milestone sought since the dawn of statistics. To reach it so quickly is an accomplishment worth noting.
Forty-three players have amassed 1,000 or more combined net yards in at least one season for Green Bay since Don Hutson first did it in 1942. In all, the benchmark has been achieved 107 times.
Six players reached the summit in the first eight games of a season: Hutson (1942), Al Carmichael (1956), Jim Taylor (1962, 1964), Dave Hampton (1971), Roell Preston (1998) and Ahman Green (2001-2003). Only Grimes, a return specialist like Cobb, got there in seven.
In opening at receiver against the Rams, Cobb was making only the second start of his career. His first came against the Texans last week when he posted a career-best 102 yards receiving.
Cobb’s first touch from scrimmage in St. Louis was a 19-yard run. It was the longest gain on the ground by a Packer, and it set up Mason Crosby’s 47-yard field goal that put Green Bay up 10-3.
Cobb also caught two passes for 20 yards in the opening quarters. But the wideout saved his best work for the second half.