While consistancy is a huge attribute as you point out he was never dominant in that he never lead the league in rushing or rushing TDs.
He lead the NFC in rushing in 2009 and led the NFL in yards from scrimmage in 2006. Curtis Martin only had 1 rushing title (by 1 yard) and Marshall never had one. Its not an absolute MUST, but it would certainly help.
While we as Rams fans saw almost every game so we know what a hard nosed player he was he wasn't a highlight reel sort of player (yes there were a few ). He also was never the red zone monster everyone expected (his TD total is way below what you would expect for his yards).
And I make the Curtis Martin comparison again: was Martin known for his highlight reels?
As for the TD knock, he always had the ability is was the fact he played behind putrid OLs, teams stacked 8-9 men in the box because he was our only offensive threat on the goal line, and bad playcalling. Most probably don't remember MNF 2011 in Seattle but the Rams had 5 straight plays from the 1 yardline before SJ got a carry for the 1-yard TD.
I also think you are going to see a swing in the HOF towards the reciever position which means the RB position will likely be the one that suffers as fewer get in so that the backlog at reciever is shrunk.
If anything this HELPS Steven. With teams devaluing the RB in the draft and multiple back systems being as popular as ever, every down, all-around RB/bell cow type RBs are a dying species. He's one of the last great feature backs to take the bulk of his teams offensive touches (outside of AP).
That was the only full season where he consistently hit the hole hard instead of dancing around in the backfield.
I respectfully disagree. This has become commonplace when fans knock SJ, but its simply not true. The "dancing" everyone refers to is SJ trying to shake a DT who is waiting for him as soon as he gets the handoff. The interior lines SJ ran behind for most of his career consisted of weak finesse players, susceptible to speed and power. They were blown back easily and whiffed more than the average OL, allowing quick penetration. Need I remind you of Jacob Bell, Adam Goldberg, Quinn Ojinaka, Robert Turner, Jason Brown, Shelly Smith, Chris Williams, etc. And those are just the interior lines.
Its not a coincidence that the best statistical year of his career was 2006. Our offense had other threats outside of SJ including Holt, Bruce, Curtis, McDonald, Looker that didn't allow defenses to stack boxes. 2004-2006 were also easily the best OL SJ ran behind. In 2006 we had Pace, Stuessie, Incognito, Timmerman, Barron (not bad yet), not to mention Madison Hedgecock, the best FB SJ ever had.