Ranking All 20 Seasons of Jerry Rice's NFL Career
Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas would make a legit quarterback version of Mount Rushmore.
Okay, maybe we could make some room for Brett Favre. Or Dan Marino. Possibly John Elway.
Point being, there isn't one clear-cut best-ever quarterback.
Things get a tad simpler when it comes to the G.O.A.T. wide receiver. It's Jerry Rice, period, end of discussion, good night Felicia.
In his 20 NFL seasons, the Mississippi Valley State alum racked up numbers beyond comprehension. His 1,549 catches, 22,895 receiving yards and 197 touchdown grabs placed him first in all three categories, and in two of those three, it's not even close: He's nearly 7,000 yards ahead of second place Terrell Owens, and 41 scores ahead of number two man Randy Moss.
Rice was brilliant year in and year out, so how do you grade and rank 20 seasons of such an outstanding and unrivaled career? Touchdowns? Receptions? Yards? Dances?
No, we'll turn to Pro Football Reference's approximate value (AV) metric, a method that attempts to give each player-season a single value to allow comparisons across both positions and -- for our purposes -- years. For reference, an AV of 18 lands a player in the top 200 all-time while double-digits serves as the line between average and above-average seasons.
In instances where Rice earned identical approximate values, we'll use touchdown totals to break the tie.
Using this process, we'll answer the question, which season was the G.O.A.T. from the G.O.A.T.?
