Record Watch: Can Jason Witten Catch Jerry Rice?

May 9, 2013 Receiving

Jerry Rice’s records are essentially unbreakable. Over a marvelous twenty-year career, Rice caught 41 more touchdowns than Randy Moss, 44 more than Terrell Owens, and 67 more than every player other than Moss and Owens. He also holds the overall touchdowns mark, with 33 more touchdowns than Emmitt Smith, 46 more than LaDainian Tomlinson, and [...]

Read the full article →

Randy Moss: Jerry Rice had two HOF QBs his whole career

January 30, 2013 Checkdowns

I was planning on ignoring the latest Randy Moss news, using that word liberally as it applies to things said on media day. In case you missed it, Moss said yesterday that he believes he is the greatest receiver of all time. Moss is an obvious future Hall of Famer, but Jason Lisk gave Moss’ [...]

Read the full article →

Checkdowns: Career receiving stats in wins and losses

January 6, 2013 Checkdowns

Last weekend, I looked at career rushing stats in wins and losses, and yesterday, I did the same for quarterbacks. Today we will check out the splits for receivers. I looked at all games, including playoffs, from 1960 to 2011, for all players with at least 4,000 receiving yards over that time period. The table [...]

Read the full article →

NYT Fifth Down: Post-week 13

December 4, 2012 NYT

This week at the New York Times, I blush when discussing Andrew Luck, praise the great Calvin Johnson as he tries to surpass Jerry Rice (but with a caveat), and take a look at some other random stats (including some absurd numbers from Adrian Peterson). Trivia: Brandon Marshall has gained over 1,000 yards on both [...]

Read the full article →

Game Scripts, Part II: Analyzing team seasons

November 27, 2012 Statistics

Yesterday, I rolled out Game Scripts, a way to measure the flow of every game since 1940. The sum of each team’s Game Script in each game can be used to give us an average Game Script score on the season. You might think that this number would be a good proxy for how dominant [...]

Read the full article →

The best fantasy football players since 1950

August 24, 2012 Fantasy

Bill Simmons wrote about LaDainian Tomlinson last month and called him the best fantasy football player of all-time. “Greatest ever” debates are always subjective, but at least when it comes to fantasy football, we can get pretty close to declaring a definitive answer. Joe Bryant’s landmark “Value Base Drafting” system explained that the “value of [...]

Read the full article →

The best and worst wide receiver records

June 22, 2012 Receiving

On Tuesday, I looked at running back records and argued that Steven Jackson had taken the mantle from Ollie Matson as the most prominent elite running back to have toiled for losing teams for the majority of his career. It’s easy to feel bad for a player like Jackson, relegated to consistent attack as the [...]

Read the full article →