Jerry Rice: Greatest Of All Time

When I was doing some research for a post on whether or not Hines Ward belongs in the Hall of Fame, I was impressed by the stats that every contemporary of Ward was able to put up over the course of their careers.  I thought, "Wow, these guys have done some great things.  They all have to be pretty close to Jerry Rice, right?"

Then I looked up Rice's stats.  I had forgotten how much of a gap he had put between him and the rest of the league for the rest of history.  For the post on Ward, I talked about three main components for a Hall of Fame resume: Regular season stats, Pro Bowls and All-Pro nominations, and postseason stats and results.

Here are the regular season stats for the eight guys I looked at (receptions-yards-touchdowns-yards per catch):


Hines Ward: 1,000-12,083-85-12.1
Tim Brown: 1,094-14,934-100-13.7
Torry Holt: 920-13,382-74-14.5
Isaac Bruce: 1,024-15,208-91-14.9
Marvin Harrison: 1,102-14,580-128-13.2
Randy Moss: 954-14,858-153-15.6
Terrell Owens: 1,078-15,934-153-14.8
Cris Carter: 1,101-13,889-130-12.6

And now Jerry Rice: 1,549-22,895-197-14.8

He's about 500 receptions, 7,000 yards, and 50 touchdowns ahead of his closest competition, and most of those guys are in their late 30s.  They need to put up a decent career's worth of numbers to catch Rice.

Next up, Pro Bowls and All-Pros (Pro Bowl, All-Pro):

Brown: 9,0
Holt: 7,1
Bruce: 4,0
Harrison: 8,3
Moss: 6,4
Owens: 6,5
Carter: 8,2
Ward: 4,0

Rice: 13,10

That means he has only five fewer All-Pro nominations than eight of the greatest receivers of the last 30 years combined.  Just amazing.

When I looked up Ward's postseason stats, I was surprised by how productive he'd been and thought that Hines might have gotten pretty close to Rice's records.  Here are the other eight guys (games-receptions-touchdowns-yards per reception-SB appearances-SB wins):

Ward: 18-88-1,181-10-13.4-3-2
Brown: 12-45-581-3-12.9-1-0
Holt: 10-47-630-4-13.4-2-1
Bruce: 9-44-759-4-17.3-2-1
Harrison: 16-65-783-2-13.6-1-1
Moss: 12-47-865-10-18.4-1-0 (18-1, baby!)
Owens: 11-54-751-5-13.9-1-0
Carter: 14-63-870-8-13.8-0-0

Ward has a huge lead over these eight guys, but he can't touch Rice:

Rice: 27-151-2,245-22-14.9-4-3

Add in a Super Bowl MVP, two Offensive Player of the Year awards, and the fact that he is, arguably, the greatest blocking receiver of all time, and Rice seems to have secured his spot as the greatest wide receiver in NFL history.  And, you could make a solid argument that he's the greatest player in the NFL ever, regardless of position.