I do know that once the offensive line was shaken up with the departure of Hutchinson, there were no longer wide open running lanes, and as a result, Alexander struggled to put up numbers. It wasn't his foot injury, because look at his first three games in 2006 before that happened. Averaged less than 3 yards per carry, and less than 1 TD a game. He couldn't make things happen by himself.
It's been objectively proven that Dickerson could put up better yards and touchdowns in a season than Walter Payton ever could. But if you watched them play and look at the situations, you gotta say Payton was the better RB.
Either way, when I say he's the second best RB in team history, I mean that as a compliment, not a slight. We have had probably a hundred running backs or more on the active roster in team history, so that puts him well within the top 1%. So I think it's a compliment, and I'm glad he's in the ring of honor.
It's such a shame that the entire legacy of Shaun Alexander's ability comes down to a 3 game stretch with a new O-Line at the start of a season.
I could say the same for Marshawn, who ran behind the league's highest paid O-line (and, who we now know looked much worse than they actually were because they had to accomodate for Russell Wilson).
In the first 3 games of 2015 (his last season with us, before he got injured), he averaged 3.4 YPC - clearly the line was shaken up without Max Unger, and with running lanes not as open as they used to be, Lynch struggled to put up numbers.