He came out of that Dallas game in the 3rd Q. He exited games early very often that year. On this program, Sharpe just said that TD could have rushed for 2,500 yards that season, and that's not hyperbole. That rushing offense was a machine. I kind of wish Shanahan would have let him run up the numbers. His total for that season would likely never have been matched, especially with the run game so de-emphasized in the league now.
No he didn't. The play-by-play is right there in the link you provided! Denver's 2nd-to-last drive:
1 10 DEN 20 John Elway pass complete to Rod Smith for 11 yards (tackle by Fred Strickland)
1 10 DEN 31 Terrell Davis left end for 2 yards (tackle by Deion Sanders)
2 8 DEN 33 John Elway pass complete to Ed McCaffrey for 14 yards (tackle by Kevin R. Smith)
1 10 DEN 47 John Elway pass complete to Ed McCaffrey for 7 yards (tackle by Hurvin McCormack)
2 3 DAL 46 Terrell Davis up the middle for 2 yards (tackle by Randall Godfrey)
3 1 DAL 44 Bubby Brister left guard for 2 yards (tackle by Greg Ellis)
1 10 DAL 42 Bubby Brister pass complete to Ed McCaffrey for 38 yards
1 4 DAL 4 Terrell Davis up the middle for 1 yard (tackle by Randall Godfrey)
2 3 DAL 3 Terrell Davis up the middle for 3 yards, touchdown
Denver's last drive:
1 10 DEN 46 Terrell Davis left tackle for 6 yards (tackle by Dexter Coakley)
2 4 DAL 48 Terrell Davis left tackle for 2 yards (tackle by Randall Godfrey)
3 2 DAL 46 Terrell Davis left end for 6 yards (tackle by Darren Woodson)
1 10 DAL 40 Derek Loville up the middle for 1 yard (tackle by Artie Smith)
2 9 DAL 39 Derek Loville up the middle for 4 yards (tackle by Darren Woodson)
3 5 DAL 35 Derek Loville right tackle for 1 yard (tackle by Darren Woodson)
4 4 DAL 34 Derek Loville right tackle for 2 yards (tackle by Michael Myers)
Other than those four carries right there at the end, Loville only had two carries on the day, both in the second quarter. Otherwise it was the Terrell Davis show from start to finish.
Look, obviously I'm a massive fan of Davis and think he's one of the most deserving players not in the Hall of Fame. I think it's ridiculous that he can't even get up for debate. I think it would be borderline criminal if Jerome Bettis- JEROME BETTIS!- somehow managed to make it in while Terrell Davis kept sitting on the sidelines. In 1997, counting regular season and postseason, Terrell Davis had the 2nd most rushing yards in NFL history. The only player who has ever had more rushing yards in a single year was... Terrell Davis in 1998. His peak was just so ridiculous, so obscene, so transcendent.
With all of that said, the legend of just how many times Terrell Davis got pulled from games in 1998 is overblown. Terrell Davis had 83.6% of Denver's non-QB runs in 1998. That's a huge percentage. As a point of comparison... Adrian Peterson had 81.7% of Minnesota's non-QB runs in 2012. It's not like Minnesota was benching Adrian Peterson for huge stretches of blowout wins, or like Adrian Peterson should have rushed for 2500 yards.
Putting aside the mythology, if you add up all of the little bits and pieces of blowout games that Terrell Davis sat out, it adds up to just a shade more than four quarters worth of action. Certainly not enough for him to have gotten up to 2500 rushing yards. And while Davis might have sat an unusually large amount late in games, this was partially offset by the fact that he sat an unusually SMALL amount early in games, where Denver rarely rotated in other backs to keep him fresh. The biggest stretch he sat, for instance, was the Philadelphia game. Terrell Davis rushed for 168 yards and 2 TDs... in the first half. He didn't play a single snap after halftime, as Denver already had a 35-2 lead. Sure, that was a big opportunity to pad some stats, maybe even make a run at the single-game rushing record... but Davis had a ridiculous 20 carries in the first half. It's not like they could have just given him 40 carries on the day and seen what he could do with them. If Davis *had* played those extra four-ish quarters, it's possible he would have gotten injured and rushed for 500 fewer yards, instead. Even as it was, Davis had the 5th most carries in NFL history up to that point, and that was just during the regular season- he added 78(!) more in the playoffs, giving him 470(!!!) for the season. Realistically, how many more carries could he have gotten?
There's really not a lot of "what might have been" for me surrounding Davis' 1998. I'm pretty sure that that season was about as great as it possibly could have been for TD. And by that, I mean it was the single greatest RB season in NFL history. All due respect to O.J. Simpson's 1972 and 1975, but when you add in the postseason, it's not really a discussion. 2476 rushing yards, 2762 yards from scrimmage, 26 TDs, league MVP, SB champion. Whatever Denver did to make that season happen, I'm thrilled, and I wouldn't have them change a thing.