By John Turney
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| Bill Groman—20th on the list |
Using Pro Football Reference's "Stathead" device, we made our own list of most receiving yards per game. However, their database goes back to 1950, not to 1940, so we added Don Hutson and Jim Benton's fine seasons. Pre-1950 he may have missed a season that qualified for this list, but we do doubt it. However, if someone finds one let us know.
Here is the list—
Cooper Kupp's season (which we think was the NFL's MVP season) ranks ninth in yards per game, including playoffs. In our view per game is the only way to family measure seasons. Much had been made of Kupp's 2,425 receiving yards but he did it in 21 games. Also, we are not familiar with when playoff yards counted in a season total. We missed that memo.
We get that NFL Network and ESPN need fodder for segments, but let's keep our head. Is exaggeration the way to keep people's interest? Isn't truth and accuracy enough?
Perhaps we've passed that time and need extra stimulation and the bigger numbers based on adding playoff games.
Regardless shout out to Charley Hennigan who tops the list.
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| Charlie Hennigan |
I always believed Rice's best years in 1995 and 1988 along with Moss in 1998 and Chandler in 1982 were the best years but Kupp's might be the best, though pass defenses arent as good in my view ...
ReplyDeleteI know Rice had the great 87 year but his clutch play in the 88 playoffs got him a SB win and made people start speculating he could be the best ever ...
DeleteHennigan's total appears to include the 43 yards he had in the AFL Championship and Hirsch's total also seems to include the 66 yards in the NFL Championship. That's per PFR game logs. They didn't have a game log option for Benton's career so that may or may not include the 45 Championship Game. The box score said he had 125 yards in that game.
ReplyDeleteGreat article. It would be interesting to see if the mean yardage would affect the standings. Agreed that Hennigan's season was better than Kupp's and this is a good way to illustrate that.
all total include playoffs---including Benton . . .
ReplyDelete