Jerry Rice isnt as impressed with Moss' record

[Fahrenhype]

"But I'm surprised the league is taking it upon themselves to give him 16 games to do it."

This is an extremely strange comment. What is the league doing exactly? If he wants to say that 22 in 12 games is more impressive than 23, 24, or whatever Moss ends up with in 16 games, than fine. But this comment makes no sense.

 

[PatsFan24]

I think its funny how everyone is trying to downplay the greatness of this team. The super bowls, Moss record, Brady going for TDs when the game is a blowout. Bunch of crybabys who are mad as hell about what they are seeing. This is a hell of a lot better than the days when the Pats were the joke of the NFL.

 

[MichaelL]

What I said was perfectly fair. And it's absolutely true. If you're really going to sit there and tell me that Randy Moss has always been a team player with a great attitude, good luck with that. So turds can break records. That doesn't mean he isn't one or that his cumulative career wouldn't be markedly different if he gave cr*p about anyone other than himself on the field before five minutes ago.

No it's NOT true and absolutely unfair....do we need to hash over again how Moss has been made much more of a malcontent and even a thug than his actions have warranted? So he had ONE bad season where the Qb is no longer in the league and the coach got fired...boo-frickin-hoo that makes him a turd. Ok, maybe in your world, I guess there are alot of turds, including Jerry Rice who pretty much parted ways with the 49ers because he wanted the ball more and wasn't willing to make way for TO.

 

[PatsFan24]

This is the Ruth Marris thing again, Marris broke the record in more games than Ruth, but it is still considered the record. If Rice wants to claim the most TDs in 12 games then fine, but if people try to say moss does not deserve the record, well than Ruth is still the single season homerun king.

 

[NovaScotiaPatsFan]

Roger Maris > Jerry Rice

 

[RussFrancis]

I dont have a personal dislike for Jerry Rice one bit. For the record, I think he's one of the top 5 football players of all time. And probably atleast top 2 of his own time (Montana or Lawrence Taylor would be the other, imo). But its pretty well known that Jerry Rice is as insecure about his own place in history as any great NFL player has ever been. That '87 season wasnt even Rice's best season. And it was a STRIKE year. Is it any coincidence that even Rice himself wasnt able to come anywhere close to that mark in any of his other 20 seasons in the NFL???? Nowhere close. You cant tell me he was just unstoppable that one year to the tune of 22 receiving TDs and striking players had nothing to do with it. His next nearest mark in SIXTEEN games is only 17TDs. Thats it. Rice was an incredibly hard worker. Probably in the best shape of anyone in the game. Everyone knows this of Rice. Put a player with superior skill, endurance and focus up against other players who've no doubt lost some conditioning and focus because of the effects of a strike season, and he's going to dominate. Which is exactly what happened in 1987 with Rice.

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

his stats could have been skewed though, he might have been playing against scabs in alot of the games instead of regular nfl players

No he didn't play in the 3 scab games and that's why the NFL played 15 but he only played 12. Jerry, the reason you only played 12 games is that your union went on strike.......IIRC some of the SF players with team consent crossed the picket line so that they wouldn't lose all 3 games like some teams did (Philly IIRC) where the coaches wouldn't give the replacement players the time of day since it was and remains a strong union town.....

 

[363839]

Yea, but we need to remember the level of comp Rice was playing against, in some of those games.

Apologies if this has already been posted but my browsers running real slow and my patients is running thin.

Sebman, you're the first person to mention something about the level of competition that year. Because of the strike, the year was shortened to 15 games. The strike lasted 6 weeks. Rice played 12 games. That means he had at least 2 games playing against replacements.
Here are some helpful links.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/players/126/career
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_NFL_season

I'm going to try to look further into the season to see when he got all those TDs.
I hate to discredit Rice because he WAS a great player but if you look at his remaining stats you will see that he never came close to that number.

 

[Lloyd_Christmas]

I don't think it is that relevant.

The NFL doesn't take the 16 game schedule into account for other records, like the perfect season record, or else SEVERAL teams would now be tied with the 72 dolphins for having a 14-0 record.

It works both ways. If the number of games in a season changes, then ALL records are impacted to make it easier or harder to beat them. Rice's record is no different. And, in this case, since the player strike led to the 14 games, I have even less sympathy for him.

I would say that the NFL should try to avoid changing the number of games in a season so that these records actually mean something.

 

[newton_tom_cat]

From Reiss:

Former San Francisco 49ers receiver Jerry Rice, who holds the NFL record for touchdown catches in a season with 22, talks to the Associated Press about Randy Moss' pursuit of his record.

Rice tells reporter Howard Ulman that he will congratulate Moss (19 TDs) if he breaks the record.

"The only thing that bothers me a little bit is that I did it during the strike year," Rice says to the AP. "It was 12 games for me. If he had done it in 12 games, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. But I'm still going to congratulate him and do all of that.

"But I'm surprised the league is taking it upon themselves to give him 16 games to do it."

in that case OJ has the real rushing record, not ****erson. oj was only back to get 2,000 in 14 games.

 

[Ring 6]

Uh, what. The league is giving him 16 games to get it? It's a regular season record Jerry - there are 16 games in a season. If you had it your way, the record books would be full of most TD's for the first 5 games, 7 games, etc.

The truth of it is, Jerry, is that you had multiple seasons of 16 games to set the record. So if you couldn't beat your own 12 game record in other seasons of 16 games, then it should stand as still being impressive.

I was about to respond to this thread, then read this post, which is almost exactly what I would have said.

 

[Xzibit23]

I dont have a personal dislike for Jerry Rice one bit. For the record, I think he's one of the top 5 football players of all time. And probably atleast top 2 of his own time (Montana or Lawrence Taylor would be the other, imo). But its pretty well known that Jerry Rice is as insecure about his own place in history as any great NFL player has ever been. That '87 season wasnt even Rice's best season. And it was a STRIKE year. Is it any coincidence that even Rice himself wasnt able to come anywhere close to that mark in any of his other 20 seasons in the NFL???? Nowhere close. You cant tell me he was just unstoppable that one year to the tune of 22 receiving TDs and striking players had nothing to do with it. His next nearest mark in SIXTEEN games is only 17TDs. Thats it. Rice was an incredibly hard worker. Probably in the best shape of anyone in the game. Everyone knows this of Rice. Put a player with superior skill, endurance and focus up against other players who've no doubt lost some conditioning and focus because of the effects of a strike season, and he's going to dominate. Which is exactly what happened in 1987 with Rice.

Bingo. Rice didn't cross the line, but make no mistake he was playing against "sub par" players.

 

[nokturnal]

it's pretty obvious that rice benefitted from the strike season. that's not to deminish the accomplishment, but he clearly took advantage of the situation.

in the eight 16-game seasons following 1987 rice's TD totals were 9, 17, 13, 14, 10, 15, 13, 15. while impressive, he never really came close to matching the record, suggesting the strike had more to do with it than people would like to admit.

 

[DaedalusX]

What I find sad about Rice's comment, as well as Shula's and others' whose records are being broken, is that their greatness has been polished with the passing of time, but their words now tarnish those achievements.

For instance, if Don Shula never made the asterisk comment and simply commended the Patriots on their historic run, his legacy would remain untarnished and he would still be in arguments as "one of the greats." People respect and give more credit to legends who are humble at the changing of the guard. It's a historic equalizer, if you will.

But instead, he made his comments and now people are taking the time to look back with a more critical eye and point out that the '72 Dolphins had been docked a draft pick themselves for tampering and went undefeated in a shorter regular season than the Pats might. And Shula himself is being viewed more and more as a bitter old man clinging to former glory. Now you hear non-Pats fans hoping for the Pats to break the record, just to shut the '72 Dolphins up.

It's unfortunate, but I think the same is true of Rice here, even if he has a legitimate point (though on that issue I make no judgement either way). Greatness of an achievement defends itself.

If you look at how Joe Montana has handled the comparisons between him and Brady, and Brady being talked about as possibly the best of all-time, Joe has been humble and even gone as far as to say that he couldn't compare with how Brady is playing now. In my mind, that just gives me even more respect for him and what he brought to the game.

 

[HEY BRO! WHAT UP?]

Seriously, you can't argue against Rice. He did it in 12 games. Had it been a 16 game season, he would have had over 30. However, if Moss breaks it, he will go down as catching the most td's in a single season.

 

[RodThePat]

Seriously, you can't argue against Rice. He did it in 12 games. Had it been a 16 game season, he would have had over 30. However, if Moss breaks it, he will go down as catching the most td's in a single season.

You can also make an argument that Moss is facing much tougher competition. Rice had arguably the greatest season ever and now Moss has a real shot at breaking his TD record. Dminishing Randy's feat just makes Rice sound like a crybaby.

 

[Jimke]

With expanded sport's schedules, you can't compare today's

feats against those of the past.

 

[wpdougie2180]

Everyone is making a big deal about when Rice was joking with that last statement. Everything can be taken out of context just like the "I play when I want to Play" statement. The league has been playing a 16 game season since before Rice was the league. Rice has said numerous times that if anyone had a chance to break any of his records it would be Moss because he was so much more talented than everyone including himself. Now everyone is jumping on Rice as a bitter ex-player because he was joking.

P.S. As others have said Rice did have a big ego but he always gave credit where it was do.

 

[onegameatatime]

For better or worse, we've always used the full season, whether 12, 14, or 16 games as the basis; just baseball did not adjust for changes in games, except for babe Ruth and that was considered a farce.

I think it is important to put players in the context of their times. IMHO, one of the best QB TD seasons was Sonny Jurgenson's 32 TD passes in 1961 in 12 games (although he did have 24 picks) and in a different era of play.

By the way Jerry, the league is not "giving" Moss any more games.

 

[Captain Cliche]

He had to put that "but" in there. His ego wouldn't let it go.

Most records get beaten eventually.

How a person handles it gives a little insight into their personality.

You don't own it, you just put it out there and let history judge it. Just like this year's Pats season.

Shula comes off as a bitter turd. He sounded like he was in panic mode during the Raven's game...the Ravens need to do this..they need to do that.