Who's the 2nd-greatest NFL WR ever?

I have posted already on this thread about Hutson but, for the record, I have never said he was better than Rice, only that he is not getting enough respect from some.

Slugga, I think you are oversimplifying when you say that Hutson only had to run by DB's in bump and run on fly routes his whole career. He is widely credited with inventing modern pass routes. Furthermore, although your observation about not having to face zone defenses is correct, he was frequently double and even triple teamed.
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1. I agree that Rice is #1.

2. Has anyone brought up that Hutson also played DE (all in the last half of his career) and had 30 INTs?
 
I like to think there are times when there is a No. 1... the Best...and then there's the rest.

No #2. Just the rest of the pack assorted in a variety of ways.

For me, this is a list I can think of. (see below)
Here, there is a No. 1, but there is no #2. Just the best, and then the rest.

Joe Montana, best NFL quarterback.
Jim Brown, best back.
Jerry Rice, best wide receiver.

I can't rate a #2 guy behind those. All the rest in each category can fight it out for the top 3 behind the clear #1.

Those players are in a league all to themselves.
 
In Super Bowl 23, he caught 11 balls for 215 yards and a TD. A performance that earned him the game's most valuable player.

In Super Bowl 24, he caught 7 balls for 148 yards and 3 TD's.

In Super Bowl 29, he caught 10 balls for 149 yards and 3 TD's.

In 3 Super Bowls, he totalled 28 catches, 512 yards, 7 TD's.

Postseason records:
22 Touchdowns
151 catches
2,245 yards receiving
Touchdown receptions in a single game (3, three times; 10 others have had 3 in a game once)
8 games with at least 100 receiving yards
Consecutive games with at least one reception (28)

Super Bowl records:

39 catches
589 yards receiving
604 all purpose yards
8 TD catches
48 points scored
11 catches in a single game
215 yards receiving in a single game
Touchdown receptions in a single game (3, twice)
Points scored in a single game (18, twice)

This is some info, draw your own conclusions.
 
As Huckleberry just pointed out, Hutson was not just some really fast guy who succeeded because defenses hadn't faced guys that fast before. Bob Hayes was faster and yet he only a few good seasons and faded quickly.

In reply to:
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Simple. Dominate the position during their time more than Hutson did.

Jerry Rice was very close, in my opinion. Clearly ahead in yours and many others.

As for your numbers, I disagree with your posting them without context. How about the fact that Hutson averaged 68.9 yards per game and Rice averaged 75.6 yards per game? That's not as big a difference as total stats from longer seasons makes it seem.

When Hutson was 29 years old he caught 74 passes for 1211 yards and 17 touchdowns. When Rice was 29 he caught 80 passes for 1206 yards and 14 touchdowns.

We can all throw numbers around and make them mean what we want them to mean. Then there's the context.

Anyway, rate stats are far more important than raw totals. Of course then you have to adjust for career length, other contextual situations, etc. Jim Brown's career totals don't look like anything special, relatively speaking to his mythological stature. Take a look at his rate stats.

I mean, really, just look at the career leaderboards. Hpslugga wants to call it an indictment of his peers, but it's not just his peers. Hutson had 99 career TD receptions between 1935 and 1945. This still puts him at #8 on the leaderboard.

There is only one other player in the Top 100 that ever played at the same time as Hutson. There are no other players in the Top 50 that played even one year in the 1940s. That's not just being ahead of your time, that's being a dominant freak. His career TD receptions mark was broken 44 years after he set it. By a man that played in 200 career games to Hutson's 116. Hutson had .85 TDs per game. Rice had .69 TDs per game.

Obviously Texas Jack went overboard ripping on Rice. But it's no comparison to you guys that refuse to acknowledge Hutson's greatness. Doing so is foolish.
 
What if Don had 16 game seasons and played 200 total games? Who knows. That's why this stuff will always be subjective. What if Rice was born around WW1 and didn't have modern nutrition/conditioning/supplements programs and research? Who knows - but I imagine he'd still have been pretty darn good and one of the best if not the best of his era. It's silly to say that either guy is so far ahead of the other as to make an argument for the other wrong before it begins.
 
Barry Bonds very recently had a couple of seasons where he dominated the league more than Babe Ruth did in terms of hitting stats. Obviously many people have questions about how that was attained, but the stats do indeed exceed Ruth's best seasons.

And Jerry Rice was very close to dominating like Hutson. I wouldn't be surprised to see another receiver do it in the next decade or so. It's not impossible, not nearly.

Here's another interesting point I looked up. Obviously Rice's per game averages went down in part due to his longevity. Hutson had .85 receiving TDs per game during his 11-year career as mentioned above. Rice had .85 receiving TDs per game in his first 11 years. Kind of freaky.
 
Did find Hutson also had 30 career interceptions as well as did some place kicking.

Unfortunately there is much found on the internet about the games other that Hutson caught a touchdown pass in 1936, the Packers lost the 1938, the 1939 game was played in very cold weather and 35 mph winds, and Hutson was pretty much a decoy in the 1944 game.
 
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