Dalvin Cook and the “Curse of 370”
Joe Johnson
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The curse of 370 is an idea first posited by Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders in the good old days of 2004. Strictly stated, the curse states that any running back that amasses 370 or more touches in a season will end up having a down year the following season.
Every running back takes more punishment than any other position in football, and it appears that 370 is the magical tipping point for how much of that W & T is too much. Schatz points to Terrell Davis, Eddie George and Jamal Lewis as proof of this theory. Every theory like this has an exception, with the exception here being Eric Dickerson.
What does this have to do with the Minnesota Vikings? The answer there should be obvious as the Vikings have relied on running back Dalvin Cook tremendously this season. According to ESPN.com, who originally covered this topic:
“Through 12 games (he missed Week 6 with a groin injury), Cook ranks second in the NFL with 310 touches and is the league leader in touches per game at 25.8. He’s on pace to finish the regular season with 388 touches.”
As all Vikings fans know, Cook has had a history with injury in his first three seasons in the league. He missed 16 of his first possible 32 games courtesy of a torn ACL and hamstring injury, and then missed time at the end of the 2019 season thanks to an AC joint injury. Cook wasn’t himself in the playoffs last season, either.
In my opinion, there hasn’t been nearly enough talk this season surrounding the sheer amount of touches the Vikings have piled on Cook, especially when it’s pretty widely understood that running backs all tend to hit a wall when they reach a certain amount of carries on their careers.
It isn’t as much their age (which most used to think was around 30) as career touches that turn once elite backs into shells of their former selves. With a guy like Cook, who the Vikings recently extended and who has a history of breaking down, it’s worth at least keeping an eye on even if it irks Cook.
“I don’t know what that is. What is that — wear down? What does that mean?” Cook said in the video of the virtual press conference posted to the team’s official site. “I’m a running back. I’m a running back just like anybody else. I don’t think that’s a question you’ll ask Derrick Henry or anybody else. I’m a running back. There’s no wearing down. i’m ready to tote the ball.”
As I stated at the time, we wouldn’t ask Henry that for a (obvious) reason.
Hopefully Cook will be the exception to the above, which isn’t impossible (just ask Frank Gore or Adrian Peterson). However, from what we’ve seen from Cook thus far it doesn’t look like that’ll be the case and with the Vikings future success very much tied to his success, that is a bit disconcerting and worth noting.
The Vikings are and will be a run-first team as long as Mike Zimmer is head coach, but with the other talent that they have on the roster there’s no reason why Cook needs to amass this many carries moving forward.