Overlooked Patriots for the Hall of Fame

[upstater1]

Mike Reiss is listing Gino Cappelletti who is certainly deserving but I thought Stanley Morgan has the eye-popping numbers and should be the prime candidate.

Put Morgan's numbers against other receivers of his era and he blows them out of the water. He's ahead in yards of a few HOFers of his era but in yards per catch, he is through the roof. Only two HOF WRs are better, Bob Hayes and Paul Warfield. But they are not in the yardage gained range of Morgan. Morgan is the only WR in NFL history with more than 10,000 yards and over 19 yards per catch.

 

[Armchair Quarterback]

Mike Reiss is listing Gino Cappelletti who is certainly deserving but I thought Stanley Morgan has the eye-popping numbers and should be the prime candidate.

Put Morgan's numbers against other receivers of his era and he blows them out of the water. He's ahead in yards of a few HOFers of his era but in yards per catch, he is through the roof. Only two HOF WRs are better, Bob Hayes and Paul Warfield. But they are not in the yardage gained range of Morgan. Morgan is the only WR in NFL history with more than 10,000 yards and over 19 yards per catch.

Totally agree. I even started a thread on the subject some time ago.

 

[mosi]

+1. Morgan was a deep threat and one of the best to play the position.

 

[Armchair Quarterback]

Copied and pasted my case for Morgan. (from 2012)

Yards:

He is currently 29th all time in reception yards. At the end of the year he may get passed by S. Smith, Andre Johnson and Fitzgerald. However at the time of his retirement his 10,716 yards trailed only Steve Largent (13,089), Charlie Joiner (12,146), James Lofton (11,963 at the time) and Don Maynard (11,834).

All four are in the HOF.


Yards Per Catch:

He averaged 19.2 YPC for his career. That is currently 17th all time. Most of the players ahead of him played in the 50's and only for a few years.

The only players with a higher YPC and over 7000 yards are:
Paul Warfield with 8565 yards and 20.1 YPC
Bob Hayes with 7414 yards and 20 YPC
Jimmy Orr with 7914 yards and 19.8 YPC

Warfield and Hayes are in the HOF.

For what it's worth, Lance Alworth has 10,266 yards and 18.9 YPC. Morgan has 10,716 yards averaging 19.2 YPC.


Comparisons against his peers:

Morgans career overlapped by at least one year these 11 HOF receivers

64-77 Paul Warfield 8565 Yards 20.1 YPC 85 TD
64-77 Charlie Taylor 9110 Yards 14 YPC 79 TD
65-78 Fred Bilentikoff 8974 Yards 15.2 YPC 76 TD
76-89 Steve Largent 13089 Yards 16 YPC 100 TD
69-86 Charlie Joiner 12146 Yards 16.2 YPC 65 TD
74-83 Lynn Swann 5462 Yards 16.3 51 TD
74-87 John Stallworth 8723 Yards 16.2 63 TD
78-93 James Lofton 14004 Yards 18.3 75 TD
88-99 Michael Irvin 11904 Yards 15.9 YPC 65 TD
80-95 Art Monk 12721 Yards 13.5 68 TD
85-04 Jerry Rice 22895 Yards 14.8 197 TD

Morgan's numbers would rank 6th in total yards 10716
2nd in YPC at 19.2
7th in TDs with 72 among the 11 HOF receivers he played with.

His yards would rank 8th among the 28 total receivers in the Hall and his YPC, 4th.


His first six seasons his YPC averages were 21.1, 24.1, 22.8, 22, 23.4 and 20.9.

 

[upstater1]

His first six seasons his YPC averages were 21.1, 24.1, 22.8, 22, 23.4 and 20.9.

Unreal, spectacular

 

[jmt57]

While Stanley Morgan certainly deserves consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I can understand why he is not enshrined in Canton.

To me the best way to compare a player statistically is not from one era to another, but instead against his peers. The game has changed quite a bit, so certain statistics from Morgan's era do not accurately relate to today's game. It's like comparing passing completion percentage or yards passing from thirty years ago to today's quarterbacks; it's almost useless.


In Morgan's favor:

As pointed out above, at the time Morgan retired he ranked 5th in career receiving yards, and since he retired only one player has more yards per reception in his career. 10,000+ receiving yards is still a pretty big deal today - only 40 players have reached that mark - but back then that was almost unheard of. Morgan led the league in yards per catch three straight years, and over a five year stretch was among the top four every year: three firsts, a second, and a fourth. All this was accomplished with a team that pounded the rock and with a quarterback that was not considered to be elite in terms of touch and passing accuracy.


Working against Morgan:

It's not fair, but many voters still look at championships - and Morgan has no rings. It makes no sense since the HoF is an individual award and a championship is a result of an entire team playing better than the competition, but unfortunately this factors into voter's decisions.

Personally I like to look at how a player performed in comparison to his peers, to see how dominant he was at that position during his career. Although the figures above work in Morgan's favor, if you look at his year by year stats it shows he wasn't really head and shoulders above other receivers of his time. Here are the number of times he was in the top ten for key receiver stats in his career:

Receptions: just one, when he was 4th in '86
Touchdown receptions: (2) - 1st in '79, 10th in '86
Receiving Yards: (3) - 2nd once, and 9th twice
Yards per Catch: (7) - 1st 3 times, 2nd, 4th, 6th and 10th once

Other than the yards per catch, that's a lot of times that he did not rank in the top ten in key WR categories; that makes it tough for him to get in.