Cris Carter goes after Jerry Rice

[Timbo717]

Moss was injured for most of the 2004 season, regardless of how much he dressed. He only caught 49 balls, yet this was Culpepper's best season as a pro. He was arguably the best quarterback in the league that season, and it was Moss's worst season.

To put Culpepper's post-Minnesota career floundering on losing Moss is totally unfair. He tore every ligament in his knee and the recovery was totally botched.

This true but in my opinion more context is key to show Moss's role in that offense. 13 of those 49 catches were TDs which was only three off of the league lead....he was still a major weapon for that team, catching 1/3 of Culpepper's touchdowns and consistently drawing double coverage.

Culpepper did have a great year, don't get me wrong but Moss was still a huge factor on that team when he was playing.

 

[Bobsyouruncle]

What Rice failed to understand is that nobody really thinks he's the greatest football player of all time. He's the noncontroversial vanilla pick because if you ignore the fact that he had one of the luckiest streaks of QBs of all time creating numbers that marginally beat guys who played with garbage QBs then you can justify him being the greatest.

Everyone could point out that on a mediocre team his numbers would just blend into about a dozen other guys. But since he was such a nice guy, hard worker and all that nobody wanted to talk ****. Now that he's not a nice guy, but an arrogant prick he's never going to get the kiddy glove treatment from the fans and media again.

He bought his own BS, and now all the things people knew about him but rarely said are being said. Such is the danger of climbing on such a high horse, you can fall off.

 

[Fixit]

Moss was injured for most of the 2004 season, regardless of how much he dressed. He only caught 49 balls, yet this was Culpepper's best season as a pro. He was arguably the best quarterback in the league that season, and it was Moss's worst season.

To put Culpepper's post-Minnesota career floundering on losing Moss is totally unfair. He tore every ligament in his knee and the recovery was totally botched.

And Moss still caught 13 TDs that season. Like I said, Culpepper had two great seasons.

As far as post-Moss, in 2005 he had 6 TDs and 12 picks before he got hurt. In fact, immediately after Moss left, the rest of his career was 20/32.

You're hanging your hat on two really good seasons and flat out ignoring the rest of his dismal career, because your Rice argument hinges on the QB play being relatively equal. Trying to paint Culpepper as being in the same league as Montana/Young is a complete joke.

 

[Bruins29]

What Rice failed to understand is that nobody really thinks he's the greatest football player of all time. He's the noncontroversial vanilla pick because if you ignore the fact that he had one of the luckiest streaks of QBs of all time creating numbers that marginally beat guys who played with garbage QBs then you can justify him being the greatest.

Everyone could point out that on a mediocre team his numbers would just blend into about a dozen other guys. But since he was such a nice guy, hard worker and all that nobody wanted to talk ****. Now that he's not a nice guy, but an arrogant prick he's never going to get the kiddy glove treatment from the fans and media again.

He bought his own BS, and now all the things people knew about him but rarely said are being said. Such is the danger of climbing on such a high horse, you can fall off.

JR is a number of things I have outlined (none being very good) but I will say in his defense that he did put up all world number (Good QBs or not) during a time when defensive backs could light up wide receivers without any fear of repercussions. Rice's worst season in his 14 year career was 67 receptions for 830 and 5 TDs. Worst year!

The guys average yards per game over a 15 year period was almost 76 yards. That is like playing 300 games straight with 76 yards a game each (with 5 receptions each and every game). At age 40 he had 92 catches for 1211 yards. The guy was a robot.

Now he is the tool that fixes the robot.

But if I have one game to win taking him and Moss in their prime, It's Moss hands down.

 

[Fixit]

I mean, come on. Look at these ratios:

15/33 - 45%
10/14 - 71%
7/18 - 38%
17/25 - 68%
13/39 - 33%

Moss caught 48% of Culpepper's 129 TDs. He threw a grand total of 20 the rest of his career, and he passed multiple physicals.

 

[BradyFTW!]

And Moss still caught 13 TDs that season. Like I said, Culpepper had two great seasons.

As far as post-Moss, in 2005 he had 6 TDs and 12 picks before he got hurt. In fact, immediately after Moss left, the rest of his career was 20/32.

You're hanging your hat on two really good seasons and flat out ignoring the rest of his dismal career, because your Rice argument hinges on the QB play being relatively equal. Trying to paint Culpepper as being in the same league as Montana/Young is a complete joke.

Calling Culpepper's career dismal is a stretch. He basically had a five-and-a-half season career, before his knee was blown up and effectively ended his career. He played at a Pro Bowl level for three of those seasons. Once you add his rushing TDs to his TD/INT ratio, the other three look p0retty decent as well.

2000: 4,400 yards from scrimmage, 40 TD, 22 turnovers
2001 (11 games): 3,000 yards from scrimmage, 19 TD, 20 turnovers
2002: 4,400 yards from scrimmage, 28 TD, 34 turnovers
2003: 3,900 yards from scrimmage, 29 TD, 17 turnovers
2004: 5,100 yards from scrimmage, 41 TD, 15 turnovers

Sure, the turnover numbers are way too high because he fumbled a ton, but pre-Polian rules that was pretty common. I still think that Moss completely made him as a QB, since Culpepper was bad at reading coverage and having a human cheat code made that a lot easier, but the result was some genuinely good performance.

 

[Fixit]

Calling Culpepper's career dismal is a stretch. He basically had a five-and-a-half season career, before his knee was blown up and effectively ended his career. He played at a Pro Bowl level for three of those seasons. Once you add his rushing TDs to his TD/INT ratio, the other three look p0retty decent as well.

2000: 4,400 yards from scrimmage, 40 TD, 22 turnovers
2001 (11 games): 3,000 yards from scrimmage, 19 TD, 20 turnovers
2002: 4,400 yards from scrimmage, 28 TD, 34 turnovers
2003: 3,900 yards from scrimmage, 29 TD, 17 turnovers
2004: 5,100 yards from scrimmage, 41 TD, 15 turnovers

Sure, the turnover numbers are way too high because he fumbled a ton, but pre-Polian rules that was pretty common. I still think that Moss completely made him as a QB, since Culpepper was bad at reading coverage and having a human cheat code made that a lot easier, but the result was some genuinely good performance.

No, the other two don't look pretty decent. They still look bad.

And, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to disregard literally the other half of a guy's career when he was atrocious. He was terrible immediately after Moss left and before he was injured. He passed physicals and was signed with three other teams, as well, so how injured could he have been?

Edit: At any rate, even pretending that Moss had anything close to equal quarterback play to Rice's is just a flat-out lie, and it looks silly.

 

[Bobsyouruncle]

JR is a number of things I have outlined (none being very good) but I will say in his defense that he did put up all world number (Good QBs or not) during a time when defensive backs could light up wide receivers without any fear of repercussions. Rice's worst season in his 14 year career was 67 receptions for 830 and 5 TDs. Worst year!

The guys average yards per game over a 15 year period was almost 76 yards. That is like playing 300 games straight with 76 yards a game each (with 5 receptions each and every game). At age 40 he had 92 catches for 1211 yards. The guy was a robot.

Now he is the tool that fixes the robot.

But if I have one game to win taking him and Moss in their prime, It's Moss hands down.

Rice joined the league in 85, the major passing rule changes happened in 1979. A few years later Marino threw for 5,000 yards and 48 TDs. So, he didn't play in that Unitas type era.

76YPG is great, makes him 9th all time. Now look at who the 8 guys ahead of him had at QB. Only one guy had a HOFer throwing to him for part of his career. Marvin Harrison. Rice is only .1 ahead of a guy who actually played in the 60's when passing rules were far different.

You can slice and dice the numbers however you feel. I'm not saying he isn't one of the best. But I'm not buying that all those guys who are within a few YPG different than Rice wouldn't have topped his numbers if they played almost their whole career with Montana and Young instead of with nobodies. I mean for **** sakes, Torry Holt has a higher average per game and he played with a dumpster fire at QB most of his career.

 

[SalemPats]

If you look at Rice's history, he was just another WR diva, who should be on hands and knees everyday thanking Bill Walsh, Joe Montana and Steve Young

 

[Deus Irae]

If you look at Rice's history, he was just another WR diva, who should be on hands and knees everyday thanking Bill Walsh, Joe Montana and Steve Young

Jerry Rice was a WR who was good enough to play NFL football until age 42. He had a 1200 yard receiving season at age 40, for the Raiders. By no means was he "just another WR diva".

 

[Bruins29]

Jerry Rice was a WR who was good enough to play NFL football until age 42. He had a 1200 yard receiving season at age 40, for the Raiders. By no means was he "just another WR diva".

And that was with Rich Gannon at QB who was certainly no slouch butwas pretty meh his 20's and early 30's. Give him Tim Brown and he started to produce. By age 36 when most QB's are starting to decline he was even better the next couple of years with Rice who as stated was 40 years old. Most receivers who caught that many balls are petering out at 33-35.

And I think Rice is a major twat and that was before the whole stickum thing.

 

[Bruins29]

You can slice and dice the numbers however you feel. I'm not saying he isn't one of the best. But I'm not buying that all those guys who are within a few YPG different than Rice wouldn't have topped his numbers if they played almost their whole career with Montana and Young instead of with nobodies.

I hear what you are saying, and I am not trying to SKU stats any direction to support some opinion I have, I am just trying to be objective.

Look, you can Say Montana would have just been another QB if he did not have Rice and a team of HOF players and an limited budget to keep the clan together. You can say Welker was made by Brady. Manning was made by his receivers compared to what Brady had. Yeah, some of that is credible.

But even if Moss had Young, Montana, Brady, the ghost of Ottom Graham throwing him the ball I doubt he would have out produced Rice because Randy would still have been done by age 33. The body is what the body is. Longevity counts in my book.

Moss is still a more dangerous receiver and a better person too for not stooping to the levels *Rice did.

 

[primetime]

Sure, the turnover numbers are way too high because he fumbled a ton, but pre-Polian rules that was pretty common.

Culpepper also had famously tiny hands for a man his size, which caused all sorts of problems despite being a pretty good runner.

Again, not taking anything away from Moss here, but Rice wasn't just better because of longevity (though the longevity says something too), either.

 

[Koma]

How about the Broncos and their silicone...

http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_6966937

These guys had better start realizing that they just need to keep their mouths shut but they're so dumb, they're going to get caught up in their own little hypocritical nonsense.

I remember Mark Schlereth back in 2007 saying he felt "violated" by the Patriots rules infraction. He's softened his stance since then, but here's a guy who had his greatest success playing for Denver. While he was there, the Broncos broke the salary cap rules to field a better roster, had the offensive linemen coat their jerseys with vaseline (or similar substance), and, if Hugh Millen is accurate, installed radio receivers in the helmets of the offensive linemen. If any player should have taken the stance of "A lot of teams push the envelope looking for an edge. I don't think this was a big deal." it should have been Schlereth.

By the way, these examples, plus the violations Denver has had more recently (taping another team's practice, having a player successfully bribe the person administering drug tests), are much more indicative of a "culture of cheating" that the Patriots get labeled with.

 

[RedSleevesPinkStripes]

I remember Mark Schlereth back in 2007 saying he felt "violated" by the Patriots rules infraction. He's softened his stance since then, but here's a guy who had his greatest success playing for Denver. While he was there, the Broncos broke the salary cap rules to field a better roster, had the offensive linemen coat their jerseys with vaseline (or similar substance), and, if Hugh Millen is accurate, installed radio receivers in the helmets of the offensive linemen. If any player should have taken the stance of "A lot of teams push the envelope looking for an edge. I don't think this was a big deal." it should have been Schlereth.

By the way, these examples, plus the violations Denver has had more recently (taping another team's practice, having a player successfully bribe the person administering drug tests), are much more indicative of a "culture of cheating" that the Patriots get labeled with.

Another guy I change the channel on. What a clown...Not to mention he's about half the size now than his playing days...hmmmm

 

[RedSleevesPinkStripes]

Also as far as Rice being the GOAT football player, am I the only one who thinks that belongs to Deion Sanders? One of the best CB/PR/KR/athletes in league history...and definitely could have been a prolific receiver if he went that route, pun intended.

 

[primetime]

Also as far as Rice being the GOAT football player, am I the only one who thinks that belongs to Deion Sanders? One of the best CB/PR/KR/athletes in league history...and definitely could have been a prolific receiver if he went that route, pun intended.

Deion was incredible, I love Deion... but Deion didn't tackle.

There's a number of guys who you could argue were the best ever (ignoring QBs for a moment). Jerry Rice and Lawrence Taylor are the first two who come to mind, and I think it's Rice. John Hannah, Jim Brown, Anthony Munoz are a few others...

 

[RedSleevesPinkStripes]

Deion was incredible, I love Deion... but Deion didn't tackle.

There's a number of guys who you could argue were the best ever (ignoring QBs for a moment). Jerry Rice and Lawrence Taylor are the first two who come to mind, and I think it's Rice. John Hannah, Jim Brown, Anthony Munoz are a few others...

True, I almost said LT, he's right there

 

[mosey threetupu]

To quote an earlier poster - I thought this thread was about what a douche Chris Carter is.

 

[Fixit]

This is a serious question, but was Rice a good blocker? Because if all he did was run and catch, I'd have a hard time calling him the best "football player" ever.