06-18-2021, 03:10 AM
(06-17-2021, 11:14 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Fwiw, here are Curtis ranks in receiving yards in his "prime". I know it's hard to judge players across generations, so looking at him vs. his peers may help determine just how good he was in comparison to the guys who came later (Chad and AJ)
1973 - 5th
1974 - 13th
1975 - 2nd
1976- 13th
1977 - 68th
1978 - 23rd
Here's Chad "prime":
2002 - 15th
2003 - 4th
2004 - 6th
2005 - 3rd
2006 - 1st
2007 - 3rd
Here's AJ's prime:
2011 - 17th
2012 - 10th
2013 - 5th
2014 - 20th
2015 - 8th
2016 - 28th
I did learn more about Curtis in doing this. Those first 4 years are no doubt strong for Curtis. Frankly, they're probably better than AJ's ranks in his 4 best years. But Chad Johnson was clearly the better player among his peers than Curtis was. To finish top 6 in receiving 5 straight years blows almost anyone out of the water, including Isaac Curtis. And I mean no offense to Curtis in pointing that out either. I often will gladly point out that Chad blows AJ out of the water too.
Edit: I included AJ's prime as well.
Isaac Curtis was before the Mel Blount rule.
You cannot compare base stats from two eras that far apart. No one could say who was better Chad or Isaac but I can without a doubt say Isaac Curtis would have rather played under the offense friendly heavy west coast pass offenses of the Chad era... Just like I can say Chad could have loved to play in the heavy spread RPO of the AJ Green Era.