Frank Gore passes Marshall Faulk, Jerry Rice in career yardage milestone

Frank Gore doesn’t generally come to mind when listing the all-time great talents carrying the football.

Workhorse, reliable and relentless are a few terms that come to mind when playing word association with the Indianapolis Colts running back. Words more associated with a Chevy pickup than, say, a Ferrari Enzo.

But the achievement he clinched during Thursday’s loss to the Denver Broncos puts him in class company.

While Gore’s 12th straight season with 1,000 yards from scrimmage leaves him trailing only Emmitt Smith in that category, it’s whom he just passed that shines a brighter light on his achievement. He now sits ahead of Jerry Rice and Marshall Faulk, who each tallied 11 consecutive 1,000-yard seasons.

That is elite company, indeed, all of them high-performance sports cars.

And while his game may not have the prestige or stack up with some of these truly great players, his numbers insist that he is one of the more unheralded players of his era.