NFL 101 Part #4 - Wide Receivers and Tight Ends
By: Schwartz
We’ve talked about history’s best defensive backs, now let’s get an idea of the guys that they’ve had to defend over the years - here are the pass catchers, wide receivers and tight ends.
Starters in Italics
Wide Receivers: Jerry Rice, Randy Moss, Larry Fitzgerald, Lance Alworth, Calvin Johnson, Marvin Harrison, Terrell Owens, Don Hutson (flex), Steve Largent, Paul Warfield
Additions: Owens, Johnson
Cuts: Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch, Raymond Berry
Wide Receiver was a position group where making decisions to trim the roster was challenging, but picking the starters took under a minute. Considered by many to be the greatest overall football player of all time, Jerry Rice is the centerpiece of a stacked offensive skill group on my starting offense. Nobody racks up records like Rice, who owns just about every single regular and postseason career record available to a wideout. Most notably, he has caught by far the most touchdowns of anyone in league history, as his total of 197 scores is a staggering 41 touchdowns ahead of second place. Rice enjoyed three Super Bowl titles in as many appearances, including MVP honors in one of those games. He put together two separate runs of 5 consecutive first-team All-Pro selections, with the year separating them resulting in a second-team nod. 6 times each, he led the league in touchdowns and yardage. This insane production was enough to net him two Offensive Player of the Year awards, and an appearance on both the 1980’s and 90’s first-team all-decade roster.
The remarkable receiver who’s in second on the scoring list behind Rice is also going to appear in our starting lineup, and that is Randy Moss. Unlike Rice, who enjoyed the stability of a hall of fame QB and coach duo in San Francisco for much of his career, Moss’s challenging personality caused him to bounce across the league. However, he put up monster numbers and created electrifying highlights on a weekly basis from coast to coast. A scoring machine, he led the NFL in receiving touchdowns for the first time as a rookie, en route to Offensive Rookie of the Year honors, and would top the league in that same statistic four more times including a ridiculous, league-record total of 23 scoring grabs in 2007. While his counting stats don’t stack up favorably with those that Rice put up, it’s not unfair to consider Moss the most physically gifted wideout in league history, or recognize his peak as the pinnacle of receiver dominance. I personally think that this duo has the highest ability of any of the starting position groups in this entire team, and I would love to be able to see these legends tear apart a defense together.
Breaking form a bit, I’d like to discuss two receivers who came extremely close to making the lineup, but fell short. The first of these two is Larry Fitzgerald, who is actually still in the league and adding to his already-monstrous career production. Fitz is second behind Rice on both the all-time receptions and receiving yardage list, and depending on his longevity, has a fair chance to crack Rice’s record for catches as he’s just 171 away. He missed the list as he’s never quite been the very best wideout in the league, and has only been a first-team All-Pro once, possibly a product of languishing on a number of lackluster Arizona teams and catching balls from a carousel of quarterbacks. Still, his overall production, as well as the on and off the field character that netted him a Man of the Year award, made him a real consideration for a starting spot.
A nearly opposite case belongs to Marvin Harrison, whose career lasted 3 years fewer than Fitz’s has already spanned, which accounts for him being slightly below Fitz on both the receptions and yardage list (5th and 9th). However, he played on a fantastic offense and peaked extremely highly, bolstering the Colts air attack as a nearly unstoppable force when at his best. He was a first-team All-Pro three times, including the 2002 campaign when he was a young Peyton Manning’s favorite target, hauling in a then-record, and still insane, 143 catches. He was also a second-team All-Pro, led the league in catches and yards twice each, and once co-led the league in touchdown receptions. Both were hard to leave out of the lineup, but ultimately didn’t have an argument over possibly two of the most physically gifted players at any position, or the league’s first true star wideout.
The last receiver I’d like to talk about in my lineup is Don Hutson, who sneaks into the starting offense as a flex player. I struggled with how exactly to make this decision- whether I should use it as a spot to add the next-best WR or RB, or include the person who could do the most to improve the offense. In the end, I believe Hutson covers both pursuits, narrowly edging out do-it-all backs such as Barry Sanders and Walter Payton, stud possession receivers like Fitzgerald and Harrison, or even the inclusion of a dominant second tight end in Rob Gronkowski. Hutson’s insane dominance and productivity in an early era of the game, before the passing game took the front seat, was enough to convince me that he belonged on the field. He is also considered by many football historians to be the template for the modern receiver, as he pioneered the development of a number of routes that you can still see implemented in games today. In Hutson’s 11-year career, he led the league in yardage 7 times, touchdowns 9, and closed out his career with a run of 8 consecutive first-team All-Pro selections. He also led the NFL’s first dynasty, the Green Bay Packers, to NFL three championships, and managed back-to-back MVP awards, a real challenge for a wide receiver, particularly in a run-first era. Despite teams’ preference for the run game, Hutson found the end zone 99 times through the air, and remains 11th on the all-time list in this category, his scoring highlighted by a truly ridiculous 17 scores in 1942, a staggering total even for today, let alone the era of the second world war.
Keeping with the theme of selecting dominant touchdown scorers, Terrell Owens is the first wide receiver on my list who didn’t make the NFL 100. I can’t understand the rationale of leaving the league’s third leading touchdown catcher of all time off of the roster, so that was an amendment I quickly decided on. Owens, like Moss, was a challenging character to deal with, but his production is undeniable, as he checks in at third place on both the all-time touchdowns and yardage list for wide receivers. Only he, Moss, and Rice rank in the top five all-time on both lists. Making room on the roster for Owens was the departure of Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch, a dominant scorer in his own right. However, his 1951 campaign, during which he racked up nearly 1500 yards to go along with 17 scores in just 12 games, is by far the peak of his career, as it is the only season where he led the league in any of the main 3 categories - yards, receptions, and touchdowns. Crazy Legs also never topped 6 touchdowns in any other season of his career. He put together one of the great receiving performances of all time, but one admittedly incredible season is not enough to be enshrined alongside players whose entire careers were characterized by dominance.
A closer call was between Calvin Johnson and Raymond Berry, as both enjoyed a relatively short career highlighted by a transcendent peak. Johnson’s unique physical ability set him apart, however, and he gets a certain benefit of the doubt from playing almost entirely on terrible offenses, so that opposing defenses were able to devote a lot of attention to slowing him down. This is quite the opposite of Berry’s career, during which he was lucky enough to catch passes from the legendary Johnny Unitas and be part of some truly dominant Colts squads. None of these players are ones I wanted to cut, and my dive into the candidates for this position showed me just how deep the talent pool has been at the wide receiver position.
Tight Ends: Tony Gonzalez, Rob Gronkowski, John Mackey, Antonio Gates, Shannon Sharpe
Additions: Gates, Sharpe
Cuts: Kellen Winslow, Mike Ditka
The decision for who to start at tight end was not about evaluation, but about defining the philosophy of this exercise- was I rewarding the most distinguished career, or selecting the players who, at their best, give a team the best chance to win? I ultimately decided on the former, as selecting the latter would have meant starting Crazy Legs Hirsch over Don Hutson, or even giving the flex role to current Panthers phenom Christian McCaffrey, both of whom enjoyed wildly productive peak seasons but really have very little case to be on any all-time team, let alone the offensive starting 11. So, this decision led me to make the tough decision of choosing Tony Gonzalez over Rob Gronkowski.
At his best, Gronk is quite simply THE best. He’s the most unstoppable weapon of the league’s current offensive explosion, blending speed, power, skill and finesse in ways that have absolutely never been seen on a football field. On any given Sunday, Pats fans were equally likely to watch Gronk lay down a fearsome block, tiptoe the sideline to secure extra yardage, run directly through a middle linebacker, or leap over a safety and expertly bring down a high ball for a touchdown. NFL officials have admitted to officiating the Patriots instant-legend differently, since it’s simply not fair to let him play by the same rules as everyone else; he’s just that much better. Of course, he owns the all-time record for touchdowns in a season for a tight end, with 17, and racked up a first-team All-Pro nod every season he played at least 14 games, save for his rookie campaign. Of course, that only amounts to five seasons, which is the issue with Gronk’s case as the GOAT of tight ends. His peak was stunning, but his longevity is simply not there. However, since I initially concluded work on this project, Gronk has un-retired to join his longtime quarterback, Tom Brady, on the Buccaneers, so perhaps the story has a few more chapters left before we can conclude that Gronk is or is not the greatest, as he now has a chance to pad his resume.
One tight end who did have a timeless talent was Tony Gonzalez, our starter. Truly the best tight end in the entire league for most of his career, he earned first-team All-Pro nods 6 times, with his first selection coming 13 years before his last. Second among all tight ends on the touchdown list, Tony found the end zone 111 times across his 16-season career which also included 14 pro bowl appearances and amazingly, a receptions title, a true rarity for tight ends. It pains me to not be able to include Gronk in my starting lineup, but I’m more than happy to recognize one of the true all-time greats and the blueprint for today’s tight end position, Tony Gonzalez.
I truly could not believe that Antonio Gates was left off of this list. With 116 career touchdowns, he leads all NFL tight ends in all-time scoring. For a position that is characterized by dominant goal line threats, I didn’t understand the decision to ignore the group’s leading scorer. Maybe it’s because his amazing career actually began on the hardwood, as a forward for Kent State’s basketball team, and didn’t play his first football game beyond the high school level until he reached the NFL. Still, he more than made up for lost time, as a perennial threat who had a strong early peak during which he was a three-time consecutive first-team All-Pro. His addition comes at the expense of Kellen Winslow, who had a similar early peak to Gates, but didn’t have the same longevity, as injuries cut his career short after just 9 seasons. As such, he scored less than half as many times, which was enough for me to make the tough call to leave him off.
Another swap I made on this list was removing the legendary Mike Ditka in favor of Shannon Sharpe. While Ditka was an admirable tight end, embodying the toughness at the line of scrimmage that characterized the early years of the position, he had a phenomenal first season that he was never able to quite equal, and it seems to me that his career - while extremely strong - has been somewhat romanticized in the wake of his iconic coaching tenure as the leader of perhaps the greatest football team of all time, the 1985 Bears. Sharpe, however, helped the Denver Broncos to their first two Super Bowl titles, as well as winning the first in the Baltimore Ravens’ young history. He had a dominant peak, putting up three of his four first-team All-Pro selections in consecutive years during the height of the Broncos’ strength. One of the rare tight ends to enjoy a long and consistently productive career, topping 1,000 yards three times (and reaching 995 one other season) Sharpe earns a spot on this list over some highly talented players.
