06-17-2021, 06:12 PM
(06-17-2021, 11:02 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: I don't want to answer for Shake but speaking for myself, I agree with him. I never saw him play so that might be unfair but that stats aren't there. Maybe someone can better help me understand why he's better than his numbers indicate.
---He only had 1 season out of 12 where he reached 900 yards.
---He only had 2 seasons out of 12 where he reached 800 yards.
---He only had 4 seasons out of 12 where he reached 700 yards.
---8 of his 12 seasons resulted in totals of 633 yards or less.
---He never hit 50 receptions in his entire career. (His high was 45)
---He averaged 4.5 TD's a season over his 12 years.
---The 2nd half of his career (years 7-12) he fell completely off the map.
---He didn't make a single Pro Bowl after his first 4 seasons.
---He never once was a 1st team All-Pro
I do understand that it was a different game and teams threw the ball less. I also understand he was playing a 14 game season early in his career. And I know about the Issac Curtis rule too. But it sure looks like he had a solid 4 year stretch to his begin his career and then didn't do a whole lot after.
I'm not saying he wasn't a damn good player but Chad Johnson in his prime was one of the elite receivers in the league. He had 6 year run that almost no other player in the league could compete with over that same timespan. I just don't see where I can say the same for Curtis.
I was fortunate enough to have seen Curtis several times in person. Our family would go to Wilmington College for training camp every year and also attend one or two regular season games in the 70's. Curtis is still my mother's favorite all time Bengal. I'm saying all this because I watched DB's do everything they could legal and illegally to throw Curtis off his routes. Even during training camp. Holding and going for the knees wasn't called like it is today. A flag for hitting pass 5 or 10 yds was unheard of.
Also did you take a look at Ken Anderson's stats then. He wasn't hitting 2,500 yds too much in Curtis's prime. The Bengals was a 3 to 4 yds and a cloud of dust running team back then. Curtis receiving yards was probably close to one third of Anderson's total yards passing for the season the 1st 7 years or so (that's a guess). And when Collinsworth got there, teams still focused so hard on Curtis that it helped Collinsworth excel.
Curtis was so good and dangerous, think about this, they made the rule for a receiver that couldn't put up the stats because they were literally mugging him on the field. They said he had world class speed.
