Cincinnati Bengals: All-time rushing leaders in franchise history

1. Corey Dillon (8,061)

Bengals RB from 1997-2003

Leading the charge as the all-time rushing yards leader by quite a margin is Corey Dillon. The Bengals spent their second-round pick on Dillon in the 1997 draft after he had quite the career at Washington.

Dillon immediately exploded onto the scene as a rookie, rushing for 1,129 yards and 10 touchdowns and hauling in another 259 yards as a pass-catcher. He was second in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting losing out to Warrick Dunn of the Buccaneers.

For the first six years of Dillon’s NFL career, he never had less than 1,100 rushing yards and never had fewer than four touchdowns. His first down year was in 2003 when he rushed for less than 600 yards but missed three games. That ended up being his final year as a Bengal and he joined the Patriots the next year.

Dillon bounced right back during his first year with the Patriots totaling career-highs of 1,635 yards and 12 rushing touchdowns. Despite only playing in New England for three years (compared to the seven he spent in Cincy), Dillon had 37 rushing touchdowns with the Patriots and 45 in Cincinnati.

It’s no surprise to see Corey Dillon lead the pack as the franchise’s all-time leading rusher.

A question to ask now that we’ve revealed the top rushers is — How long will it take someone to break this record? Joe Mixon is under contract in Cincinnati through the 2024 season so it’d take three massive seasons for him to get past Dillon here, assuming he even makes it through the entire contract.

Another question to ask is — Where will Mixon be on this list when I update it following the 2022 season? Assuming he remains healthy, he should be able to pass Pete Johnson in the four spot and maybe even Rudi Johnson in the three spot as well. Anything beyond that would take an incredible season from Mixon.

We’ll see how things change when the next update takes place!