Happy Birthday, Jerry Rice! The 10 Greatest Wide Receivers of All-Time
Today we pay tribute to the greatest football player to ever live who's not named Jim Brown. What's the criteria for a great wide receiver? Great hands, football intelligence, execution, scoring ability, toughness and a bit of charisma, or swag (as the kids call it these days), are what we looked at. You already know who's the top dog of them all, but the other nine are debatable. Numbers don't hold as much weight when it comes to receiving because of different eras and rule changes.
Cats like Paul Warfield and Don Hutson played during a time when running the ball down a team's throat (II) was the name of the game, where do they rank? Then you have dudes like Randy Moss and T.O. that had all the talent but lacked the character needed to win championships. So, in honor of Jerry Rice's 49th birthday (that old? damn!), we give you the 10 Greatest Wide Receivers of All-Time....
Tim Brown
Steve Largent
Paul Warfield
Marvin Harrison
Cris Carter
Michael Irvin
Terrell Owens
Randy Moss
Don Hutson
Jerry Rice
1. Jerry Rice
CAREER: 1984-2004
STATS: 1,549 Rec, 22,895 Yds, 197 TDs
If Jim Brown is Bill Russell, then Jerry Rice is Michael Jordan. He's the greatest to do it by a landslide, it's not even close. And yes a lot of it had to do with Montana, Young and Bill Walsh's revolutionary West Coast offense, but Mike had Scottie and Phil's triangle. On any given sunday, Jerry Rice was the best player on the field, hands down. He owns all the significant WR records, has the most all-purpose yards (23,546), all purpose TDs (208) and all the receiving Super Bowl records. Jerry did all this as a class act and never took a play off, something we can't say with a couple cats on this here list. He can credit his success to his father making him catch bricks with his bare hands. From a little tike, Jerry Rice was bred for football glory. *Cues the Lil B tribute*
