By Mark Curnutte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Corey Dillon is close to another piece of NFL history. With 52 yards against the Baltimore Ravens today at Paul Brown Stadium, the Bengals' tailback would become just the fourth player to rush for 1,000 yards in each of his first six seasons.

The New York Jets' Curtis Martin, one of the three already there, along with retired stars Eric Dickerson and Barry Sanders, understands the achievement.

"It's a testament to consistency and hard work," said Martin, who has run for 1,000-plus in each of his first seven seasons. "To me, Corey Dillon is one of the best backs in the league. He has the strength, the speed and agility, and has proven it every year.

"That's a very hard thing to do. Six years in a row. It seems like something that is simple. But you don't see many people do it because it's hard."

The Ravens' Jamal Lewis is a talented young tailback who won't reach the milestone.

"If you don't have 1,000 yards rushing a year, maybe you're not doing things that you need to do," said Lewis, who ran for 1,364 yards as a rookie but missed his second season with a training-camp knee injury. "As long as you can run the ball efficiently and your line is blocking for you, you can get 1,000 yards easy."

Lewis, who has three 100-yard games in three starts against the Bengals, is just 77 yards from another 1,000-yard season.

But Lewis - unlike Dillon, Martin, Dickerson and Sanders - couldn't avoid serious injury early in his career.

Dillon has missed just two of a possible 91 NFL games. He was inactive for Game 15 in 1998 because of a lower back bruise, and he was out of the 1999 season finale because of a left knee strain.

Since then, though, Dillon has started 43 consecutive games, rushed for 3,698 yards and caught 82 passes for another 601 yards.

Dillon is on pace for a projected 1,379 yards this season, which would bring his six-year average to 1,265. Dillon, like the other three, has gone over 1,100 yards in his first five seasons and is on pace to better that mark again in Year 6.

And if he plays out the three remaining seasons after this one on his contract, Dillon is on pace for a Hall of Fame-worthy 11,383 rushing yards for nine seasons.

Dillon is not talking to reporters, but New York's Martin had plenty to say about his Cincinnati contemporary.

"What I like about Corey is his power," Martin said. "When you hear people talk about him around the league, defensive guys, they all talk about how he 'brings it.' They say Corey Dillon is 'bringing it.' He runs hard. But, at the same time, he's agile. You don't usually find people who are very hard runners and also very quick. Then you see him break away. He's a complete back."

Bengals coach Dick LeBeau, who played defensive back for the Detroit Lions from 1959-72, faced the top backs of that generation - Jim Brown, Jim Taylor, Gale Sayers, to name just a few.

LeBeau takes Martin's compliment of Dillon a step further.

"The thing that makes it easy to talk about Corey is if it's a passing play, he rarely misses his pass protection. He's very good at picking up (the blitz)," LeBeau said. "If it's a running play, he generally is making a very effective block. He doesn't just carry the ball.

"In the last two years, his productivity at receiving has really come up quite a bit. He's become our third-down back also. I don't think you can overstate the effort Corey puts into our program."

And it's not a winning program.

Martin, Sanders and Dickerson played for winning NFL teams. Dillon has not. His six Bengals teams haven't even sniffed the postseason and have won just 25 of 91 games.

Dickerson was in the playoffs in his first five NFL seasons - four with the Los Angeles Rams and the fifth with the Indianapolis Colts.

Sanders' Lions were in the playoffs in three of his first six seasons.

Martin's New England Patriots went to the Super Bowl in his second season and were back in the playoffs his third. He also played in the AFC Championship Game with the 1998 Jets. Martin's 695 rushing yards this season put him on pace for 1,011, which would make him and Sanders the only members of the eight-year club.

Dillon could be there, too.

"I think it speaks to his character," Martin said of Dillon's excellence with the Bengals. "To be on a losing team - and they haven't just lost, not to talk bad about the Bengals, but the reality is they haven't had a winning season in a long time, it seems - and for him to be able to do that in those circumstances, it speaks to his character and determination, his ability to focus beyond the circumstances. That's hard to do, and he has been able to do it."

E-mail mcurnutte@enquirer.com

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