Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Sometimes, Player A has an outstanding season that gets overlooked because of what Player B did

What are some examples of this you recall?

Here are a few:

Fred Taylor's 1998 rookie season: 1,223 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns in 14 games

9 times out of 10, he would have won rookie of the year

But that was the year Randy Moss went beast mode (17 touchdowns)


1997: Terrell Davis ran for 1,750 yards the year Barry Sanders went over 2000

A great example is 1995 ... Favre had a great season without Sterling Sharpe but Robert Brooks had replaced him. Though Favre was MVP, I felt Jerry Rice had his best season ever and should have been the MVP. Emmitt Smith had his best season as well and won it all ...

Brian wolf wrote:A great example is 1995 ... Favre had a great season without Sterling Sharpe but Robert Brooks had replaced him. Though Favre was MVP, I felt Jerry Rice had his best season ever and should have been the MVP. Emmitt Smith had his best season as well and won it all ...

They got the MVP vote right. Favre did more with less in a tougher division than the NFC East/NFC West. He also didn't have the star studded rosters Rice and Emmitt did.

Daunte Culpepper's 2004 season - he ranked 5th all time on the single-season lists for passing yards, TD passes, and passer rating. This came in a season where Randy Moss was limited to 13 games and 700+ yards with a hamstring injury.

Unfortunately, that was the same season in which Peyton Manning set the single season record for both TD passes and passer rating, so Culpepper's season was kind of an afterthought.

I dunno ... had Thigpen caught the easy TD pass for the Steelers, the Packers might have been a wild-card team again despite Favre's season and Rice was playing great football bringing SF back from a 5-4 record to the division title, even with Grbac getting five starts. Favre was deserving but Rice was OPOY in my view. Yes, Rice still had Young, but the running game was bad and Stokes and Taylor only combined for under 900 yards receiving ...

Another example of QBs was 1976 ...

Bert Jones won various MVP and OPOY awards from AP/UPI etc, yet Ken Stabler also got the Bert Bell award, Sporting News POTY -- with Walter Payton--and of course won the SB ...

Sir Francis certainly deserved the 1975 MVP award but nobody would have argued very hard if Chuck Foreman or OJ Simpson would have won it instead.

In 1983, Curt Warner rookie season was overshadowed by fellow rookie Eric Dickerson. Warner would have been Rookie of the Year every other year.

In 1999 Steve Beuerlein led the NFL with 4436 passing yards and was second with 36 touchdown passes, but was overshadowede by Kurt Warner's great season.

Marino's season in 1984 overshadowed Dickerson, despite him setting the rushing record. Nobody thought a QB would get over 5000 yards passing though Fouts had been close.