John Stallorth/Lynn Swann VS Jerry Rice/John Taylor

[TanksAndSpartans]

no other player has ever gained a single yard receiving in his 40's.

Not trying to be a trivia wise a$$ here - I'm actually terrible at trivia, but I didn't want one of the early pro players to be overlooked. Bobby "Rube" Marshall received post season honors as an End at the age of 40 in 1920 for the Rock Island Independents.

[conace21]

Taylor was tied for third in receiving touchdowns, which of course is irrelevant given that he made the Pro Bowl as a punt returner....

Dave Meggett was the NFC's Pro Bowl returner in 1989

Taylor didn't play in the game.
http://www.nflgsis.com/1989/Post/05/53348/Gamebook.pdf

https://newspaperarchive.com/independen ... 1989-p-10/

This December 21 Pro Bowl roster lists Meggett as the Kick Returner" (I believe only one combined punt/kick returner was selected. ) Taylor is listed as a reserve wide receiver.

Getting back to the original discussion, I did consider the era that each played in, and the rules they played under. That's why I didn't say "Swann never had a 900 yard season; Taylor had three!" Taylor was definitely the weak link of the 4. But Rice just blows away any competition, which is why I'd take him and Clark over S&S. Laugh at that if you will, 70DenBrnc53. I laughed out loud when you said Rice was a product of his system. I just didn't see the need to mock or belittle.

Swann and Stallworth each had 1 All Pro season (Swann also made a solitary All Pro team in two other seasons.) Rice was a near-consensus All Pro 10 times in 11 seasons.
S&S led the league in one receiving category (Swann led the league with 11 TD catches.) Rice led the league in catches 2x, receiving yards 6x, and touchdown catches 6x. Rice was the best receiver in football for ocer a decade. Swann and Stallworth rarely were.
Having Walsh and Montana/Young certainly helped. But Rice went beyond his quarterbacks. He led the league with touchdowns catches in 1986, and only 6 of them were from Montana. He caught 8 of his 22 touchdowns the next year from Young, who was certainly talented, but hadn't yet mastered the "system," which you claim made Rice.

Swann and Stallworth did shine in football's biggest game. But #80 didn't do so badly himself in the Super Bowl.

[Bryan]

Taylor didn't play in the game.
http://www.nflgsis.com/1989/Post/05/53348/Gamebook.pdf

which of course is irrelevant given that Dave Meggett made the Pro Bowl as the returner....

My point remains. I don't think Taylor is historically underrated. I think he is rated just fine. He made one pro bowl as a WR, a year in which he finished 11th in his conference in receiving yardage. Many WRs in the NFC had 1000-yard seasons in 1989.

I think the comparison is unfair to Rice, because he is clearly on a different level than the other 3 WRs. Judging from both regular season and postseason performance, you could make a case for Rice being the greatest NFL player in history regardless of position. Taylor is just "a guy" in this comparison. It reminds me of inane Bill Barnwell/Football Outsiders quarterback rankings where they say the Bears have better QBs than the Colts because while Peyton Manning is pretty good, Kyle Orton is a much better backup than Curtis Painter.

For a dumb comparison, combining the pairs' receiving stats for SB XIII-XIV & XXIII-XXIV:

Swann-Stallworth - 18 catches, 439 yards, 24.4 AVG, 5 TDs
Rice-Taylor - 22 catches, 422 yards, 19.2 AVG, 6 TDs

[7DnBrnc53]

Swann and Stallworth each had 1 All Pro season (Swann also made a solitary All Pro team in two other seasons.) Rice was a near-consensus All Pro 10 times in 11 seasons.
S&S led the league in one receiving category (Swann led the league with 11 TD catches.) Rice led the league in catches 2x, receiving yards 6x, and touchdown catches 6x. Rice was the best receiver in football for ocer a decade. Swann and Stallworth rarely were.
Having Walsh and Montana/Young certainly helped. But Rice went beyond his quarterbacks. He led the league with touchdowns catches in 1986, and only 6 of them were from Montana. He caught 8 of his 22 touchdowns the next year from Young, who was certainly talented, but hadn't yet mastered the "system," which you claim made Rice.

The offense that the Steelers ran wasn't as sophisticated as SF's. Swann and Stallworth (among others) could have put up the same type of numbers as Rice if they came up in that system.

[Bryan]

The offense that the Steelers ran wasn't as sophisticated as SF's. Swann and Stallworth (among others) could have put up the same type of numbers as Rice if they came up in that system.

When you parenthetically say 'among others', I assume you mean Tony Latone, because Pottsville's offense wasn't very sophisticated either.

[conace21]

Swann and Stallworth each had 1 All Pro season (Swann also made a solitary All Pro team in two other seasons.) Rice was a near-consensus All Pro 10 times in 11 seasons.
S&S led the league in one receiving category (Swann led the league with 11 TD catches.) Rice led the league in catches 2x, receiving yards 6x, and touchdown catches 6x. Rice was the best receiver in football for ocer a decade. Swann and Stallworth rarely were.
Having Walsh and Montana/Young certainly helped. But Rice went beyond his quarterbacks. He led the league with touchdowns catches in 1986, and only 6 of them were from Montana. He caught 8 of his 22 touchdowns the next year from Young, who was certainly talented, but hadn't yet mastered the "system," which you claim made Rice.

The offense that the Steelers ran wasn't as sophisticated as SF's. Swann and Stallworth (among others) could have put up the same type of numbers as Rice if they came up in that system.

Like Jeremy said earlier, there have been hundreds of wide receivers who played in that sophisticated offense....and none of them put up Rice's numbers.

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

Dave Meggett was the NFC's Pro Bowl returner in 1989

Taylor didn't play in the game.
http://www.nflgsis.com/1989/Post/05/53348/Gamebook.pdf

https://newspaperarchive.com/independen ... 1989-p-10/

This December 21 Pro Bowl roster lists Meggett as the Kick Returner" (I believe only one combined punt/kick returner was selected. ) Taylor is listed as a reserve wide receiver.

Thanks! Yeah, that certainly makes more sense. I took a look at the 1989 stats as of week 14 -- my recollection was that that was when they made the announcements, and Taylor was 6th in yards, 3rd in touchdowns -- 20 yards behind Flipper but 6 TDs ahead of him, so I get that he would go in as a WR. He did virtually nothing in the last two weeks, so a guy or two passed him in the home stretch.

[TanksAndSpartans]

When you parenthetically say 'among others', I assume you mean Tony Latone, because Pottsville's offense wasn't very sophisticated either.

lol - Pottsville's passing game was actually ahead of it's time. I don't think anyone was close to 1st Team All-Pro Charlie Berry's 33 catches for 364 yards in '25, but even I don't think he could have been Jerry Rice if we put him in SF's offense, first 1000-yard receiving season sure, but not Jerry Rice In all seriousness, if it were that easy to be Jerry Rice, I feel bad for Al Toon and Eddie Brown, they were only a few picks away from winning the lottery.

[7DnBrnc53]

Swann and Stallworth each had 1 All Pro season (Swann also made a solitary All Pro team in two other seasons.) Rice was a near-consensus All Pro 10 times in 11 seasons.
S&S led the league in one receiving category (Swann led the league with 11 TD catches.) Rice led the league in catches 2x, receiving yards 6x, and touchdown catches 6x. Rice was the best receiver in football for ocer a decade. Swann and Stallworth rarely were.
Having Walsh and Montana/Young certainly helped. But Rice went beyond his quarterbacks. He led the league with touchdowns catches in 1986, and only 6 of them were from Montana. He caught 8 of his 22 touchdowns the next year from Young, who was certainly talented, but hadn't yet mastered the "system," which you claim made Rice.

The offense that the Steelers ran wasn't as sophisticated as SF's. Swann and Stallworth (among others) could have put up the same type of numbers as Rice if they came up in that system.

Like Jeremy said earlier, there have been hundreds of wide receivers who played in that sophisticated offense....and none of them put up Rice's numbers.

1. Jeremy also said that Walsh started the short pass offense (what would later become known as the WCO). Not true. In fact, Fran Tarkenton said once that the short passing offense (or what they call the WCO today) was started in New York in 1967 with him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeIYdifUf3M

2. For his first four seasons there, TO wasn't the #1 receiver, so he couldn't put up that kind of production. From 2000-02, though, he was putting up Rice-like numbers in that SF WCO (97 in 2000, 93 in 2001, 100 in 2002). Then, in 2003, the 49ers changed to a spread system under Dennis Erickson, and he had 80 catches. Rice never really had a year outside the WCO.

3. In closing, here is a list of why Rice isn't the best WR ever (from a 49er watchdog site):

https://web.archive.org/web/19980422063 ... html#jerry

[JohnH19]

You don’t have to be a 49ers fan, and believe me I’m not, to see that Jerry Rice is clearly the greatest receiver, and maybe the greatest player, of all time.

Disputing that is as misguided as not admitting that Tom Brady is one of the top half dozen QBs in history.