Neal Anderson ranks in the all-time elite tier for running backs — a career that places Anderson in the top 3% of all players at the position. The Knox value model assigns Anderson a career score of 84, reflecting sustained impact that most players at the position never approach.
Reached 34% of the all-time Rushing Yards leader — a rotational/depth all-time profile at the position.
A 0–100 scale where 100 = matched the all-time leaderat this position. Built only from visible encyclopedia data — career production vs. the all-time leader, plus efficiency (EPA) and comparable-player confidence — so it's a transparent context score, not a subjective rating. Tiers: Elite ≥ 85 · Strong ≥ 65 · Solid ≥ 45 · Depth < 45. Comparable-player confidence: 94%.
Career Value · VORP
210 career value over replacement — #338 all-time of 4,649. 26.3/season above a replacement-level RB.
Pick #27 (Rd 1) · CHI · 1986 · +29.2 vs expected KV-H
Fan Rating
Rate Neal Anderson — All-Time
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StatVault aggregates multiple open-licensed and proprietary sources into a single profile. The depth indicator above shows which layers are available for this player.
Pre-1999 players have bio + draft data but counting stats are not available from any freely-licensed source. Players with ★ Career Only see verified career aggregates from nflverse draft_picks.
Amber = this player (normalized to own peak). Indigo = average RBs aging curve. Group peak age: 21. Source: StatVault KV-H era (1999+).
Major career thresholds crossed, derived from regular-season totals (1999+).
Rushing
Receiving
Proprietary StatVault Metrics
College stats are not imported for this profile yet.
StatVault has the verified college attribution (Florida), but no parsed college box-score table is present in this profile artifact. The section stays here so every profile has a consistent college-stats landing point without fabricating unavailable rows.
Career teammates and draft class, derived from year-by-year rosters — every name is linked.
Neal inherited the Chicago Bears RB room from Thomas Sanders (1985–1989), and handed it to Brad Muster (1988–1992).
The room is reconstructed from arrival order among durable members (≥4 seasons with the club) at the player’s position group — a lineage by arrival, not a week-by-week depth chart. Distinct from the league-wide positional GOAT torch.
Statistical + physical similarity across every player in the database, position-relevant (0–100%).
Last recorded season with CHI
Drafted by CHI — Round 1, Pick 27
StatVault's proprietary player intelligence, informed by full career data. How Knox works →
Era-normalized career quality — z-scored against 8-season peers. See all →
Career durability — games played vs. scheduled, across 8 seasons.
Composite score across availability, IR frequency, and injury severity. See all →
Calibrated Hall-of-Fame probability — fit against actual enshrinement. See all →
What carries the case
Monitor score 58.7 · components sum to the score (All-Pro ×12 · Pro Bowl ×3 · League Lead ×4 · ranks/era/longevity weighted).
Career Fingerprint
Statistical profile across 5 dimensions
Rush Yds translated to the 2025NFL — each season's standing among its own-era peers, projected onto 2025's scoring environment. Modern-era (1999+) coverage.
| Season | Actual Rush Yds | Rush Yds/G | → 2025 Rush Yds | → 2025 /G |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | 146 | 10.4 | 329+183 | 19.4 |
| 1987 | 586 | 53.3 | 1,282+696 | 75.4 |
| 1988 | 1,106 | 69.1 | 1,665+559 | 97.9 |
| 1989 | 1,275 | 79.7 | 1,888+613 | 111.1 |
| 1990 | 1,078 | 71.9 | 1,774+696 | 104.4 |
| 1991 | 747 | 57.5 | 1,416+669 | 83.3 |
| 1992 | 582 | 36.4 | 959+377 | 56.4 |
| 1993 | 646 | 43.1 | 1,100+454 | 64.7 |
Data: nflverse:draft_picks, nflverse:players, wikipedia:season-stats (CC-BY-SA, facts-only), espn.com:stats-api (games-played, facts-only reference) · multi-source verified via the StatVault Oracle · updated 7/31/2026
Thurman Thomas
RB
92% match
1986 Draft ClassmatesFull class →
Gave the Chicago Bears an entire corpus-attributed career — 8 seasons (1986–1993), one crest. The rarest loyalty in the sport.