Greatest WR's (According to PFT)

[Jae]

Actually, it was Football Outsiders........same difference though
I nearly Sh*t my pants when I read this
Andre Rison/ Michael Westbrook better then Rod Smith?


http://bradbury.sewanee.edu/wordpress/index.php/2005/02/ranking-the-all-time-great-wide-receivers

1. Jerry Rice
2. Henry Ellard
3. Steve Largent
4. Tim Brown
5. James Lofton
6. Andre Reed
7. Paul Warfield
8. Anthony Miller
9. Joey Galloway
10. Harold Jackson
11. Art Monk
12. Cris Carter
13. Anthony Carter
14. Stanley Morgan
15. Irving Fryar
16. Rob Moore
17. Biletnikoff, Fred
18. John Stallworth
19. Michael Irvin
20. Charley Taylor
21. Haven Moses
22. Wesley Walker
23. Eric Martin
24. Harold Carmichael
25. Lynn Swann
26. Mel Gray
27. Gary Clark
28. Mark Duper
29. Jimmy Smith
30. Al Toon
31. Brian Blades
32. Alfred Jenkins
33. Andre Rison
34. Sterling Sharpe
35. Reggie Rucker
36. Charlie Joiner
37. Ken Burrough
38. Terry Glenn
39. Randy Moss
40. Otis Taylor
41. Webster Slaughter
42. Gene Washington
43. Carroll Dale
44. Isaac Bruce
45. John Gilliam
46. Marvin Harrison
47. Drew Hill
48. Lance Alworth
49. Gary Garrison
50. Michael Westbrook

.................................................. .................


(And here's his reasoning)


Before I end today’s entry with the list, keep in mind that a methodology stands or falls on its merits,
independent of the results it generates. If you like the methodology, you are not allowed to complain about the
list. If you don’t like the methodology, you shouldn’t even be looking at the list. But no fair changing your
mind after peeking."

Here is the "methodology":

1. I looked at all wide receivers whose career started in 1960 or later. Essentially, I treat every pair of WRs on
the same team in the same year as a “game.” I only looked at
receiving yards, although TDs and receptions could be easily integrated into the scheme. The winner of the game is
the guy who had a higher receiving yards per game average during that season. I do take into account margin o---br /> victory.

2. Before scoring a game, I make an age adjustment. So, for example,
when Terrell Owens had 1451 yards and Jerry Rice had only 805 yards for the 2000 49ers, I tweak those numbers to
account for the fact that Owens was 27 and Rice was 38 at the time.

3. Just as college football ranking schemes have to decide how to deal with games against I-AA teams, I have to
decide how to treat the multitudes of receivers like Ron
Lewis and Jeff Campbell who are
basically irrelevant to the exercise of ranking the all-time greats. So I deemed a receiver to be relevant if he
is in the all-time top 300 in receiving yards and he averaged 50 yards per game in at least one season. All
the irrelevant receivers in a given year on a given team were combined to form one pseudo-receiver. So Randy Moss
in 1998 played games against not only Cris Carter and Jake Reed, but also Joe PseudoReceiver, who was a composite
of Chris Walsh, Robert Tate, and Matthew Hatchette.

4. Feed all these games into (my modified version of) Colley’s algorithm and let it work.







(P.S) Lenny Walls is the Greatest CB in the League.........

[Rocket 7]

Where is Don Hutson?

[-Slap-]

Anthony Miller @ 8?

Joey Galloway @ 9?

Had to stop reading at that point.

[Rocket 7]

Link doesn't work. This is the worst all time list I have ever seen. Bar-none

[DBroncos4life]

Anythony Carter was the man! Fryar only 15? Come on man thats just sad! Really though I think he only got number 1 right.

[Jae]

Sorry, link should work now........he also had this to say in his article




Wide Receiver is the only position where even small groups of players are actually competing against each other
under nearly identical circumstances. Domanick Davis and Brian Westbrook are competing for statistics under very
different sets of circumstances and for that reason it’s extremely difficult to say with any degree of certainty
who is better. Likewise, Rod Smith and Laveranues Coles are in different environments so simply comparing their
stats isn’t necessarily a reliable way of determining who’s better.

But the same does not apply to Rod Smith and Ashley Lelie. Smith and Lelie are working in the same system with the
same quarterback, the same offensive line, even the same game conditions. Raw numbers probably are a good
way to
determine to what extent Smith is better than Lelie. Likewise, Coles and Rod Gardner can be fairly compared.
Every season, every team has a group of 3 to 5 guys that can, for the most part, be rank-ordered by their numbers.
This
situation is unique to wide receivers.

But how does this help us compare Rod Smith to Laveranues Coles? Think college football. USC didn’t play Auburn
this season.
So who was better? Well, we know USC is good because, among other reasons, they crushed
Oklahoma, who we suspect was
pretty good; they beat Texas, for example. We know
Auburn was good, in part, because they beat Tennessee, Georgia, and LSU, all solid teams. While there is
unfortunately no direct
evidence to help us settle the Auburn/USC debate, there are piles and piles of indirect evidence. Every game
played by either team, or the opponents of either team, or the opponents of those teams, serves as a tiny
sliver of indirect evidence about how good USC and Auburn were

[Atlas]

Anthony Miller @ 8?

Joey Galloway @ 9?

Had to stop reading at that point.

That was funny. Rod Smith is better than Haven Moses and Lance Allworth should be much higher.

Anthony Miller???

[Rocket 7]

Tell me what this guy is drinking? I want some! It must be some very good stuff.

[Atlas]

Moss and Harrison should both be much higher and how did Andre Rison make it that high. The only awesome numbers he ever put up was in the run and shoot. Where is Isaac Bruce?

[Sir Mawn]

Worst. List. Ever.

[Blueflame]

Moss and Harrison should both be much higher and how did Andre Rison make it that high. The only awesome numbers he ever put up was in the run and shoot. Where is Isaac Bruce?

Looks like he has Isaac Bruce listed at #44...

[watermock]

Anthony Miller @ 8?

Joey Galloway @ 9?

Had to stop reading at that point.

That must be some killer moonshine. Or LSD. or Both.

My jaw dropped. He should stick to the rumor mill rather than making up his own equations. This guy obviously isn't a rocket scientist. I'm not sure that I have ever seen anything so ludicrous.

He has Randy Moss at #39.

[Atlas]

Looks like he has Isaac Bruce listed at #44...

My bad, I didn't see him. Still a pretty horrible list.

[24champ]

But how does this help us compare Rod Smith to Laveranues Coles? Think college football.

:saywhat: zowie! Im thinking NFL .........whats this guy smoking? Dont get me wrong I like college football because its football but to use the Bowl formula to determine who is a great receiver loses credibility since we all know the bowl formula is a JOKE.

[watermock]

Gary Garrison is listed but Terrell Owens isn't? Or Steve Watson? I don't even know who Gary Garrison is! T.O. is a prick, but he's allready got great numbers.

[Rocket 7]

This guy obviously isn't a rocket scientist.
This guy shouldn't be allowed to mix baking soda and vinegar to make a volcano. He'll screw that up like he screwed his list up. Stephan A Smith and Skip Bayless look like "average intelligent sports fans" compared to this bozo!

[Atlas]

Gary Garrison is listed but Terrell Owens isn't? Or Steve Watson? I don't even know who Gary Garrison is! T.O. is a prick, but he's allready got great numbers.


He played for the Chargers. Shouldn't even be in the top 200

[watermock]

I didn't even notice. Rod Smith isn't even listed. This is funny. Not even listed! Yeah, as WR's you can't put Sharpe in there.
Rod Smith:
TOTAL 151 126 712 9772 13.7 85 59 124 20 482

I don't think I have ever seen an example of garbage in/garbage out in my lifetime.

Rod Smith has 482 first down catches. He has a 95.8 QB rating. He has 9 20+ punt returns and a TD. He has ZERO fumbles lost. He has recovered 4 of opponents. He's fumbled, but Denver has NEVER turned the ball over on a Rod Smith fumble. It's an amazing stat. It says fumbles forced! Look at his stats! It even shows a forced fumble returned for a TD!

http://www.nfl.com/players/playerpage/1220

[listopencil]

Jesus, what's that smell in here? Oh. It's the list. It's ****.

[Atlas]

I didn't even notice. Rod Smith isn't even listed. This is funny. Not even listed! Yeah, as WR's you can't put Sharpe in there.
Rod Smith:
TOTAL 151 126 712 9772 13.7 85 59 124 20 482

I don't think I have ever seen an example of garbage in/garbage out in my lifetime.

Rod Smith has 482 first down catches. He has a 95.8 QB rating. He has 9 20+ punt returns and a TD. He has ZERO fumbles lost. He has recovered 4 of opponents. He's fumbled, but Denver has NEVER turned the ball over on a Rod Smith fumble. It's an amazing stat. It says fumbles forced! Look at his stats! It even shows a forced fumble returned for a TD!

http://www.nfl.com/players/playerpage/1220

Good post. Check out his rushing stats. They are also very impressive along with punt returns he is the complete football player.

[Rocket 7]

Good post. Check out his rushing stats. They are also very impressive along with punt returns he is the complete football player.
Synopsis-Just another fool who doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.(not you atlas but the man who came up with this list)

[Atlas]

Synopsis-Just another fool who doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.(not you atlas but the man who came up with this list)

There are plenty of times when I don't know what I'm talking about. That's why I'm wrong so often!! I do however have no doubt that I could come up with a list that is much more accurate than the crap that this guy put out. I hope somebody didn't pay him to do it.

[Jason in LA]

"Worst list ever" is right.

Raider fans will hate this, but I wouldn't have Tim Brown in my top 15 or so. He was always very good, but never dominant.

[Rocket 7]

"Worst list ever" is right.

Raider fans will hate this, but I wouldn't have Tim Brown in my top 15 or so. He was always very good, but never dominant.
I have Tim Brown a top ten all time collegiate receiver with Desmond Howard and Randy Moss

[watermock]

I would put Tim Brown in top 50, but not where he's listed. It's amusing and has to be embarrasing to even put out. It's like getting out of a cold pool and pulling your pants down. It's laughable.

[Drek]

See, now this is a case of statistical analysis gone wrong. Comparative analysis by the other WRs on their team? Please. Thats just designed to make guys who never won a damn thing look great.

As Lee Flowers once said, "Ain't nothin' but paper champions." You tell 'em Lee.

[NaptownChief]

Anthony Miller @ 8?

Joey Galloway @ 9?

Had to stop reading at that point.

That is exactly where I stopped also...You could go 100 deep before Galloway should even get a sniff.

[Rohirrim]

Lance Alworth at 48... yeah, right.

[-Slap-]

Lance Alworth at 48... yeah, right.
Worst mistreatment of Bambi since hunters shot his father.

[bendog]

man that site sucks, lol. Does disney own it too?

[watermock]

We had a thread about statistical analysis. This made that make sense.

Terrell Owens wasn't even on his list.

How someone could totally discredit themselves with that is astounding. He makes some absurd parameters and draws conclusions.

He might as well given us the hollow earth theory. Ever hear that one? we live on the INSIDE of a shell, and the sun rotates, half on, half off.

Of course they lived in a florida swamp so they probably were all mad with malaria.

[bendog]

Lance Alworth at 48... yeah, right.
below Carrol Dale, lol

[Billy Clyde Puckett]

Only had to get to number two before I stopped reading the list. Ellard was very good, but no way he was the second best of all time.

[Jason in LA]

I'd say Ellard doesn't get the credit he deserves, but he didn't deserve that much credit. #2 is way too high.

[Alkazar]

Personally, I think this idiot just plucked the names of his personal favorite WRs and plunked them down in no particular order. There are names that definately belong on that list that aren't there, Rod Smith and (ugh) T.O. to name two, and quite a few on the list that have no business being there.