For anyone else wondering Jerry entered the league at age 23 and played in a strike shortened year in 87, when he still set the TD record in 12 games. His number would be 610 receptions in 8 seasons. In those 8 seasons he 6 all pro seasons, lead the league in receiving 3 times, and won a super bowl MVP. He also had 10,273 of his 22,895 yards I was just curious as to why he wasn't on this list considering how great he was.

Every time I go to Jerry Rice’s Pro Football Reference page I see something new or crazy that jumps out

When Randy Moss was inducted into the hall of fame he was 41. When Jerry rice was 41 he had 63 catches and 869 yards

Part of Rice's greatness was his mastery of the slant pattern. The slant has always been effective, but WRs didnt like to run it because back then it often lead to getting obliterated by a LB or safety. Rice had no such fear. A lot of the greatness of those 49er teams were because of Rice's ability to consistently punish teams with the slant.

And Rice played in an era where you could almost literally murder a WR as they were trying to catch the ball and the play resulted in you starring in an episode of "Jacked Up!" rather than a fine and suspension

I gotta find this promo but there was some old football television promo where nearly all the clips would be massive penalties today. It was hilarious.

Which also explains why he retired. If football was just about playing your position well, he'd probably still be playing. Unfortunately, football is more about getting hit by the most athletically-gifted men in the world, and that shit takes a toll. And that makes it even crazier that he played as long as he did.

Dude retired after 19 years in the NFL. I don’t think it was because of the hits he took… I think it was because he was 42/44 (conflicting sources). Also… that makes him the oldest player to play WR in the NFL.

I mean, he said the reason he retired is because of took too long to heal up. Part of that is absolutely the hits.

I guess that’s true, but that’s what happens when you get old. Fuck… I wake up in the morning with aches and pains and I just sit at a desk all the day… and there’s no Terry tate office linebacker at work.

In fairness to you, I was 24 years old when I got my first and only office job, and sitting in that chair all day gave me back & neck pain like I’d never had before.

You kill the Joe, you brew some mo'

Route running at Jerry Rice's level puts an enormous amount of stress on the legs too. If he tried to play today he'd tear his knees up in the first drive lol.

Well he is in his 60s today so of course. Someone as talented and hardworking as him would dominate in any era.

Oh yeah if he came out today he'd still be the best WR in the league. Like a bigger, taller prime AB. WR is one of those positions where you can dominate even with non elite athleticism if your technique is amazing (Hopkins, Adams, etc.) so he would translate perfectly to the modern game.

Exhibit A: Thomas, Michael W. Dude’s ankles can’t keep up with all the cuts he’d make running routes. Hasn’t played a full season in like 3 years despite being pretty good at avoiding big hits. just turned 30 a few weeks ago

Players against turf is gaining momentum and this is a reason why

Jerry takes his conditioning *very* seriously and is still in elite shape. He could suit up and play and I think his body could handle the stresses of regular play, except for the hits. Those would break him. But as far as running around, cutting on routes and general movement? He's still got it.

The perfect receiver for the West Coast system. Every snap was an absolute clinic of route running.

Can confirm. He was unstoppable in Backyard Football when running a slant

When Jerry Rice was 869 he had 41 catches and 63 yards.

a whole lot of screens that went no where i guess

And got snubbed for the Pro Bowl

George Pickens 🤝 Jerry Rice

nah, dude was washed at that point

Growing up I seemed to remember post-Niners Rice as completely washed. He had 92-1,211-7 on 150 targets at 40 years old on the Raiders team that made the Super Bowl.

Yep his frost first two years in Oakland Jerry had 80-1100-9 & 90-1200-7. Ages 39&40

I always remembered Tim Brown as better on those teams for some reason but Brown had a good year during that first season but was washed by the second one (at 36 himself!) One of my favorite factoids of all time is Jerry being traded midway through his age 42 season and playing 17 games

Randy moss was on the top two scoring teams of all time at one point . Or top 2 out of 3 I forget

[удалено]

Wait…say that again

I remember watching MNF back when Dennis Miller was commentating and he said something about the best receiving siblings, citing whoever was playing that night, it might have been the Barbers, the Sharpes, or the Bennetts. He finished it by saying of course the leaders are Jerry Rice and his brother Tom, who never played a game.

Most combined points by brothers, NHL history: 2,934: Brent, Brian, Darryl, Duane, Rich, and Ron Sutter 2,861: Wayne and Brent Gretzky Brent Gretzky has 4 career points.

Important addition for people who don't watch hockey. All 6 of the Sutter brothers were good to very good players as well. 5 of the 6 played in at least 700 games, and 2 of them played for over 1000. It took one of the most prolific hockey families a 6 brother generation to surpass Wayne's production.

The sutter brothers were also drafted from 1976 to 1983 while Gretzky was drafted in 1979 and played till 1999. The Sutter brothers had 6 players and and extra 5 years and still barely eclipsed Gretzky.

This reminds me of Gretzky. Don't remember the exact stats, but in the NHL the 2 brothers with the 2nd most points of a brother pair have like 2000 points. Wayne and his brother Brent are first with Wayne's 2850 points and his brother's 4 points.

This has been posted a million times, but I am going to post it again because it is my favorite stat: https://twitter.com/cbswartz5/status/1148348017017270274

At the end of his career, someone sent me a list of records he held and i remember scrolling for way, way longer than i expected. The record for most records is a cool record!

The record for most records is like having the longest road in catan

Jerry Rice is the [Wilt Chamberlain of the NFL](https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/fz6g3r/when_asked_if_jerry_rice_was_the_best_wide/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)

Amazing!

That’s fantastic

It’s so crazy seeing all the bold numbers. From 1986-1995 he was more likely to lead the league in yards or TDs than the entire field of NFL receivers.

He's like football Wilt

I rarely feel bad about a modern receiver's hall of fame case. The numbers are just so much higher. Rice also had 108 total TDs by the end of his age 30 season.

What really hurts them, is people (/voters, who skew older) seem to expect them to be *even* higher, given the high total pass attempts of today compared to the past, ignoring that most of the "additional" attempts went to other players (TE, RB, slot WR). It wasn't uncommon for % of receptions/yards going to the WR1 to be higher in the past than today.

Rice was also still playing in his 40s, which is unprecedented for a WR. Last I checked the only other players to catch a pass in the NFL after turning 40 were Tom Brady and Brett Favre. Rice had 2,500 yards receiving after turning 40.

I have more receiving yards than Brett Farve after 40 though so I should be in the hall of fame over him

I just checked, and you are correct. Total receiving yards after turning 40: 1st - Jerry Rice: 2509 2nd - Tom Brady: 6 3rd (tie) - Everybody else in the world except for Brett Favre, including Bruch_Spinoza: 0 Last - Brett Favre: -2

TO probably would've easily been the other but although he seemed to be less toxic later in his career, the rep killed any chance of that.

I still can't get over how Rice had pretty much an entire 2nd HoF career after hitting an age that would be considered "past his prime" in the current NFL. From his age 32 season in 1994 through his retirement he put up 11119 yards and 79 TDs with 841 receptions. He put up back to back seasons with over 1100 yards at age 39-40. Mind blowing.

To put that in context, that’s roughly Megatron’s career (731/11619/83).

Wtf

scrub needed a whole extra decade to set all those records smh

I checked the same. He would still be a hall of famer if hadn't entered the league until after he turned 30

Rice was something else man

Rice was great, but he's not the clear best WR from ages 23 to 30. He played 124 games 30 and under which is more than some of the players on this list. He was great in that span of course, and might have been the best in that span, but his big thing was he had another entire HOF level career after most of the other greats retired. ​ Heres some players and their stats from ages 23-30 |Player|Games|Rec|Yards|TD| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |Jerry Rice|124|610|10273|103| |Calvin Johnson|120|683|10863|79| |DeAndre Hopkins|113|725|9286|63| |Randy Moss|122|625|9467|96| |Terrell Owens|124|685|9178|69| |Larry Fitzgerald|121|592|8572|81| |Marvin Harrison|108|665|8800|73| |Antonio Brown|121|821|11040|74|

> Rice was great, but he's not the clear best WR from ages 23 to 30 I love the extra context of other greats as well, but holy shit it's hard to argue against those TD numbers. I'd say per game is probably important given the disparity in games played as well. |Player|R/G|Y/G|TD/G| :--|:--|:--|:--| |Jerry Rice|4.92|82.85|0.83| |Calvin Johnson|5.69|90.53|0.66| |DeAndre Hopkins|6.42|82.18|0.56| |Randy Moss|5.12|77.6|0.79| |Terrell Owens|5.52|74.02|0.56| |Larry Fitzgerald|4.90|70.84|0.67| |Marvin Harrison|6.16|81.48|0.68| |Antonio Brown|6.79|91.24|0.61| MBC and Hop were both yardage monsters, even if they didn't put up the same TD numbers. Randy Moss was a freak of nature, but I think people have started sleeping on how good Megatron was already. The same yards per game as AB, with the TD numbers of Harrison, but with a full catch per game less then either.

I was thinking about doing per game as well, but got lazy, so I'm happy you included it. Yeah, I'd still put Rice as #1 but he's no longer undisputed. It really depends on what you want in a WR. The big things that stand out to me on these stats is Rice's low receptions. Him still putting up those yards and TD numbers is insane. He got the ball less, but made up for it by making a big play every time he caught it.

I’m not trying to downplay Rice at all here, but he had a huge benefit of playing with two of the best QBs ever in a system that was way ahead of the rest of the league at the time. Calvin Johnson put up his numbers with average at best QB play for a horribly run franchise. I would have loved to see Megatron playing for an actual contender before he retired…that would have been fun to watch.

Man those Oakland seasons really killed Moss's averages

my god AB was freakishly good at football

Yeah, people don't give him credit for how good he was in that span. He was on a HOF trajectory.

There were fewer pass attempts then, so receivers got fewer receptions. There were plenty of times in which receivers would go an entire game without a catch. That'd be unheard of today.

Clearly you didnt watch Golladay on the Giants last year

Why would I watch the sidelines while a play is happening?

he got out there a couple times

Let me introduce you to the [2014 chiefs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kansas_City_Chiefs_season#:~:text=The%202014%20Kansas%20City%20Chiefs,passes%20to%20a%20wide%20receiver.&text=As%20of%202023%2C%20the%202014,the%20Chiefs%20missed%20the%20playoffs.)

Thank you. Was gonna ask where he was!!

> He also had 10,273 of his 22,895 yards Just want to highlight that he had more yards after 30 than before. Also, a reminder that 3 players have a reception after the age of 40. Brett Favre: 1 catch, 1 target, -2 yards Tom Brady: 1 catch, 2 targets, 6 yards Jerry Rice: 161 catches, 296 targets, 2169 yards and 10 TDs/

The fact that 10,273 ranks higher than most of the guys on that list, makes their rankings less impressive, IMO. (Or at least the idea that a reception on its own is a good measurement for success).

> played in a strike shortened year in 87, when he still set the TD record in 12 games Tbf this feels like when people use 2011 to talk about great QB seasons. It's a lot worse for defences in strike seasons. Still tho, damn did Jerry play against scabs though for that record geez that's silly

The number of games played in 2011 was unchanged, unlike in 1987. Rice missed four games in 1987.

Yeah... he was older. Fitzgerald, was very young. Rice actually was at his peak from age 31-34, those 4 seasons were dominant.... on top of all tge other greatness.

Why he wasn’t on the list is quite simple, the list was sorted by receptions and he like you said he had 610 which was less than the 629 that was at the bottom of the list that displayed the top 25

Receptions were mostly 15+ yards back then. Not as much dink and dunk type of throws like today. Edit: True, I guess not really the case specifically with Rice back then, but otherwise for the most part it was. You didn't really have many 10+ reception games from anyone back then and that's become somewhat commonplace these days with slot receivers and even some regular wideouts.

This is not true of the offenses that Rice played in. He played in the OG west coast offense, which definitely prioritized shorter timing routes and was more about spreading the field horizontally than vertically.

I saw Bill Walsh explain the WCO once as "Defenses think that a run of four yards against them is a loss, but a pass of four yards against them is a win. So we'll just pass for four yards every time." This is why Roger Craig was a thousand yard receiver, for instance. I have also heard Montana's play at the time be described as "Perfectly throwing pillows through a brick wall."

Jerry Rice is also one of the greatest receivers after the catch ever, he caught a lot of short passes and made them longer.

Seriously. The slant route to Rice was, and I hate to use this trope, but a genuine cheat code. Six yard pass to rice on a slant, Rice takes it sixty yards. Classic Forty Niners WCO.

SLANTBOI

Jerry rice was the guy that really started bringing the short catch in in my opinion. He was great after the catch and caught tons of sun 10 yard passes.

Tjat9s exactly my first thought Thank you for the context

Andre Reed so good he caught 2 balls at the same time, truly remarkable

But how bad were the Bills for him to average 28.6 yards per target and only have 62 first down!!

It’s because the second catch automatically makes it second down. They had to change the rules because one time he caught 5 balls on one target making it fifth down and immediately ending the entire season. Now they only count at most one catch per target. I miss the old days when they’d let them play. That was real football.

When you play with Thurman Thomas, you take what you can get. Thomas was the modern back before it became cool.

Lmao the Randy Moss TD total

His average reception is almost 16 yards too lmao. Everyones stats are all elite, but Moss is like video games.

6' 4" and the fastest man on the field. He was everyone's create-a-player.

Him, Julio, and Megatron all fit that bill imo, just good at everything even with the size

Ya all three stick out on this sheet but Julio’s yards per game is still crazy.

Rice and moss the 2 best to do it. One deep , one slants.

Yardage total as well

Yeah but Julio is right there. And a couple other guys close Nobody is in his realm with TDs in this range

Gotta include Jerry (not enough receptions to show up) who had 102 touchdowns through age 30 in 124 games played, 30 less games played than Randy Moss too.

Nice

Julio's yards per game is acrually disgusting. Dude almost averaged 100 piece per game for a decade.

He also has one of the lowest catch %s along with Larry Fitzgerald and Calvin Johnson. He was really force fed the ball.

Larry and DaVante sitting at 87 each at second place. Randy in there with almost 40 more. Unreal

Be curious to see this list's average production from 30-35 and the % drop off too

A cliff basically. 31 is usually a WR's last good/great year, a select few make it to 32-33. If they are still producing at a Pro bowl or high lvl after that they're a HOF 1st ballot.

Faulk wtfff

Marshall was so fun to watch

RB stands for Receiving Back

Arizona isn't good at anything except for wasting top tier receiver talent in their prime. Go Cards!

Cardinals 🤝 Lions

I wasn't expecting that there was going to be a player on this list that had more teams than Brandin Cooks, [but hello Packers legend Andre Rison](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/R/RisoAn00.htm). He only had 1366 more yards and 11 more TDs in the three years his career lasted after this.

This reminds me how much I hate how PFR abbreviates teams with two word location names. KAN at least makes some sense, but NWE, GNB, NOR, and SDG are all abominations. Like, if you're going to make it the first letter of first word, last letter of first word, and first letter of second word, e.g. GNB and NWE, then why the hell don't NOR or SDG follow that format too??? The inconsistency bothers me as much as anything. If the latter two were NWO and SND they would be marginally better IMO.

I agree. It's a nonsensical system. Do one or the other. Happy cakeday!

I'm also 30 years old and I have the highest amount of unnecessary deaths in tears of the kingdom for any nfl player through age 30. Where's my r/nfl post?

We need your Korok Crucifixions per minute to accurately gauge if you are post worthy

My K/C per minute isn't up to league average, but I more than make up for it with an Aaron Donald-esque outlier of Bomb Flowers unintentionally detonated and a remarkable talent for failing to deploy a paraglider when needed

> a remarkable talent for failing to deploy a paraglider when needed My man

There's a certain set of armor that has a set bonus that negates all fall damage when it's upgraded enough. It's amazing.

Yeah. But ya gotta remember to put it on. I can't tell you how many times after a fight I've realized I was still needlessly wearing my winter gear , when some armor would have been useful. Stupid brain.

Don't forget being too close to the explosive barrels when you shoot them with a fire arrow.

For me, it's forgetting to sheathe my two-handed sword before trying to block a Lynel charge. RIP every time.

There’s absolutely no shame in death by lynel. Most of the time I just run the other way lol

Half my deaths in that game are me blowing myself up with bomb arrows while frantically trying to kill those goddamn hands.

If it makes you feel better, I ran away from Lookout Landing as soon as I could and I spent about 15 hours running through Hyrule aimlessly doing sidequests before I even got the glider. I only went back because one of the sidequests I was doing required >!me to take a photo!< so I had to make some progress in the main story and they gave me the glider along the way.

*[Rapaport] I'm hearing rumors that r/nfl user u/Dryderson is projected to go first overall in the shitposting draft. "Excited to have him on the team," said one user.*

Always nice to see a post that shows how good Witten is too.

It's like a car collection full of rare exotics and one show quality 58 Ford pickup.

We get called homers for saying how good of a player he was, but the stats don't lie. The no helmet catch and run is up there as an all-time "this is football" play. Not a whole lot of exciting plays but he was an incredibly reliable player; good blocker, good hands, and he was almost always just past the first down marker when you needed him to be. [The NFL Films breakdown on the Y-Option they would run shows 1. how good of a player he was and 2. how in-sync he was with Romo.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUNtyTzEfaI) Witten even said this of the Y-Option, "It's the most underrated route in football. It's not sexy, and really, it's tough to make an 8- to 10-yard route look sexy. You won't see it replayed, a zoomed-in shot on the route, with the announcer saying, 'Watch what he does to the defender here!' But it was, and is, dangerous because if it is executed properly, it is nearly impossible to defend."

> We get called homers for saying how good of a player he was, but the stats don't lie. You wont hear Giants fan say that, he fucking destroyed us every time

Slow ass Jason Witten and Nazi ass Desean Jackson are the fucking worst. And now this Boston Scott fucker exists too.

Obviously DHop is not Rice, nobody ever will be, but please consider what he did with the QB's he did it with: ​ 2014: 1210-6 with Fitz, Mallett and Keenun 2015: 1521-11 with Hoyer, Mallett, Yates, Weeden 2016: 954-4 with Brock Lobster and something named Tom Savage 2017: 1378-13 with Savage, baby Watson and Yates ​ I don't know what receiver could have done more with less. Yates started a playoff game for this team!

QBs matter so much more than people think. Rice caught an absurd 69% of his passes from HoF QBs. Aside from that, he caught them from All-Pro and multiple pro-bowl QB Rich Gannon, and a very good Jerry Garcia. Rice had one of the easiest paths to great stats ever (outside of someone like Reggie Wayne). Moss? 17% of his passes were from HoF QBs. Fitzgerald, even lower... and then you have DHop and C. Johnson, etc, most likely sitting at 0%. Pretty wild.

Calvin caught almost all of his passes from a likely HoFer. Stafford has the stats and the ring, he’s almost a lock. Edit: Perhaps you meant Chad.

Nah I mean Calvin. I don't think Stafford is a lock — Hall of very good is even debatable. Only one pro-bowl, no all-pros, and joining an already stacked team for the championship... He's got a shot! He'll need at least two years where he's a top QB in the league... Who knows what his perception will be in a few years.

I don’t think he’s a HoFer either, but he still will be. He will retire as a top 11 QB in yardage and touchdowns with a top 30 career rating and with a ring. You and I both know that he has inflated numbers both from the era he played in and spending a not insignificant percentage of his career hurling garbage time. Was he ever a top 5 qb for even one season? I doubt it. Saying all that, he’s a lock. Time won’t care about the details and the stats and ring will talk.

Watching him play against my team twice a year for a decade... accusations of 'inflated garbage time numbers' don't hold up at all when you consider the late-game bullshit he pulled to win games and the roster he had to make those plays with. What's often forgotten about his time with the Lions is that it really was just him and Megatron for a bit. He's been on a team with a 1000 yard rusher just once, had only three of his OL in Detroit ever make a Pro Bowl (none were voted All-Pro), and his top receivers post-Megatron (Golladay and Tate) collapsed the moment they weren't catching passes from him. I will die on the hill the Stafford was that good and masked the deeper problems with the Lions with his play.

And this isn’t a bad argument in his favor at all! He’s going to be a HoFer.

Aww Andre Johnson, what a great dude.

— Courtland Finnegan

It’s Courtland Innegan, Andre beat the F out of him.

I love PFR, but man some of those 3 letter team abbreviations always throw me.

Yeah, I couldn't figure out SDG but it's the Chargers. If the current one is LAC, then why not SDC?

Man AB was really good.

Jerry Rice *not* being on this list only enhances how great people should realize he was. Like Tom Brady, he essentially had two hall of fame careers.

He’s a wide receiver.

That’s cuz all of that potato salad goes right to his hips

He's only 30? Feels like he's been in the league for decades

Technically two decades

It’s not like he had good QBs either! He had like 10+ with Houston

Mike Evans has a 200%+ catch rate, what a baller. Every time he gets thrown a ball he somehow comes down with two. Ball boy must be throwing him an extra ball every throw from the sidelines.

I think you're looking at the Andre Reed stat just below Mike. But Mike is in fact still a baller.

He's such an underrated player. People surely think he's good but with how much shifting personnel he's dealt with in Tampa, going a decade with nothing but +1000 yard seasons is incredible.

He's clearly washed. That's why nobody wants him... except for 2 of the best teams in the league.

Stefon Diggs’ pace from any of his seasons with Buffalo (between 103-127 receptions per year) has him on pace to take over the top spot with 1.7 season still to play before he turns 31.

hes gonna end up on the jets isnt he

How the hell does Andre Reed have 600 catches on 300 targets lol

So what you're saying is he's overdue for a regression?

Damn so he old and high mileage

DeAndre is past his prime. Here's why, PED suspension means he needs them to compete and can't otherwise as his record post suspension Shows. He's done.

You wanna take a second look at his stats from last season or you just wanna keep spouting nonsense? Week 7: 10 for 103 Week 8: 12 for 159/1 Week 9: 4 for 36 (which is bad, but Kyler only passed for 175 the whole game) Week 10 (w/McCoy): 10 for 98 Week 11 (McCoy): 9 for 91 Week 12: 4 for 87/1 Week 14 (McCoy): 7 for 79 Week 15 (McCoy/McSorley): 7 for 60 Even including his abysmal week 16 (where he was probably playing injured), he was on pace for like 119 recs and over 1300 yards for a full season. Definitely looks like he's washed up to me!!! /s

Allow me to clarify, I don't see him retaining the value he once offered. The value he brings to a team has diminished to me anyway due to his age, the PEDs, and performance whilst on enhanced monitoring pain or no pain. If I'm wrong the stats will say so. He's a risky option in my opinion.

He was great post suspension until he had 3rd string qbs throwing to him who couldn't get within 10 yards of his body.

If you had asked me in 2019, I would have thought Michael Thomas would shatter that record.

and..?

Insane that Jerry Rice isn't in that page

Calvin Johnson and Julio Jones were very good in thier prime. Up there with rice moss harrison

Faulk being on that list is kinda crazy.

I am so beyond belief that Wes Welker is not so much higher on that list. I swear I remember him catching everything for a few years there.

I wonder if teams might be a bit hesitant to sign him because he popped for PED's recently? Now he gets tested much more frequently correct? Maybe he won't be the same player?

Justin Jefferson needs 76 receptions a year for the next 7 seasons to break this.

The TEs and RB sneaking in is pretty wild.