I was thinking about my overabundance of links in my last post. I went back and asked a question I've asked myself many times over and am sure plenty of others have as well. Emmitt Smith broke all the major rushing records (rush. attempts, rush. yards and rush. touchdowns) and Brett Favre broke all the major passing records (pass att., pass completions, pass yards, pass t.d.), including a record he probably isn't too proud of (pass interceptions); all in this decade. So the question is:
Will anyone touch Jerry Rice's records?
And you may be asking yourself, who is Jerry Rice? Or who are these Emmitt Smith and Brett Farve guys? Well, SHAME ON YOU! They are some of the great football players of all time (Plus, has your head been under a rock or something? Brett Farve is still playing!).
Let's just stick to Jerry for now, Emmitt would be a post all by himself. That's right, I'm a Cowboys fan.
Jerry Rice is recognized as the greatest receiver ever to play the game of football. He set many milestones with the San Francisco 49ers. He revolutionized the position in the vaulted west coast offense coach Bill Walsh implemented with his team. Rice was the master of the slant route, a route designed as a safe pass over the middle to the effect of a small rushing gain. But what made Rice dangerous was his ability to take a catch at about 3 or 4 yards reception and turn it into a large gain and possibly touchdown catch.
Jerry had this receiving thing down. So well, in fact, that he set many records over his twenty year career. Too many to try to copy/paste here.
The question was could anyone get near or even break Jerry Rice's records? The answer is not as easy as it sounds.
As we all know, records are meant to be broken. For the longest time, people thought Jim Brown's rushing yardage record would never be touched. Enter Walter Payton. And then it was the same for him; his record would be unbreakable. Enter Emmitt Smith.
The lesson for today, anything is possible.
Jerry Rice set the bar pretty high, to his credit. Let's run through some stats (be prepared for a lot of these number crunching moments in this post):
Jerry Rice's Career Stats (all NFL records):
Rec.: 1,549
Rec. Yards: 22,895
Rec. TD: 197
Records before Jerry Rice broke them:
Rec.: 940 (Art Monk)
Rec. Yards: 14,004 ( James Lofton)
Rec. TD: 100 (Steve Largent)
Wow, just wow.
Now, lets look at where his competitors stand today, that is to say who's in second place of him and who has the most out of current players:
Rec: 1,102 ( Marvin Harrison, retired 2008), 1,024 (Isaac Bruce, 37)
Rec. Yards: 15,208 (Issac Bruce, still 37)
Rec. TD: 148 (Randy Moss, 32)
From that, we know that Issac Bruce, while a sure fire Hall of Famer, is probably too old to make a run at ol' Jerry's records. He's just shy of 8,000 yards and 500+ receptions behind him. So he isn't our guy.
Hmm, Randy Moss? Young for his touchdown numbers. Lets compare him to his contemporaries at touchdowns. Current players, of course:
148 Randy Moss, 32
144 Terrell Owens, 36
91, Issac Bruce, 37
82, Tony Gonzalez, 33
78, Hines Ward, 33
77, Joey Galloway, 38
That's pretty striking, especially considering that the next closest players younger than him are:
63, Reggie Wayne, 31
62, Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson, 31
And even more remarkable is the next closest on the list under 30 are:
59, Antonio Gates, 29
59, Larry Fitzgerald, 26
But what does this all mean? Other than Larry Fitzgerald, who has his whole career ahead of him, most of these players are out of the running to catch Jerry's 197. Moss trails only 49 touchdowns. Where does he stand at the other two stats? Let's see:
Rec.: 926
Rec. Yards: 14,465
That makes Randy's road to greatness a harsh and long one.
(Next comes my compelling arguement on how Randy Moss can and should break Jerry Rice's career records.)
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