Top 9 NFL Receivers of All Time · 1. Jerry Rice · 2. Randy Moss · 3. Terrell Owens · 4. Calvin Johnson · 5. Larry Fitzgerald · 6. Marvin. 20 greatest wide recievers in NFL history, ranked · Lynn Swan · Antonio Nfl best wide receivers ever · Andre Reed · Cris Carter · Art Monk · Julio. Chad Ochocinco or AJ Green? Cris Carter or Randy Moss? Julian Edelman or Wes Welker? Calvin Johnson - Lance Alworth - Marvin Harrison - Larry Fitzgerald - Cris Carter - Steve Largent - Terrell Owens - Randy Moss - Don Hutson - Jerry Rice.
Who is the slowest wide receiver of all time? Mississippi State's De'Runnya Wilson's 4.93 time in 2016 is the slowest on record for a wide receiver.
Who was the best WR in NFL history? Jerry Rice
Monk would lead the league in receptions, receiving yards, and yards per touch at different times in his career on his way to the s All-Decade team a spot in Canton. Julio Jones came into the league with massive expectations as the sixth overall pick of the Atlanta Falcons, and he met them.
Along with Brown, Jones was one of the dominant offensive forces of his generation. Bigger, faster, and stronger than anyone who tried to guard him, Jones helped create one of the best eras of Atlanta football. In their window of contention, Jones was selected first-team All-Pro in back-to-back seasons.
During their Super Bowl run, Jones willed them through the playoffs highlighted by a 9-reception, yard, two-touchdown performance against the Green Bay Packers. You know you're an all-time great when an award is named after you. While Fred Biletnikoff is honored with an award in his name in college football, he did plenty in the NFL too. Drafted into the AFL to the Raiders in , Biletnikoff operated in one of the hardest environments for wideouts in league history.
Despite that, he was a standout on one of the best teams of his era, helping lead the Raiders to an AFL title and then a Super Bowl after the merger. In Super Bowl XI, to cap a season, Biletnikoff led all players with 79 receiving yards, accounting for nearly half of quarterback Ken Stabler's passing yards on the day.
The Dallas Cowboys of the s were known for their big personalities, exciting football, and winning. And it's possible no one embodied that quite like Michael Irvin did. Big, fast, great hands and feet, loud, confident, and most importantly: backing it all up on the field. He deserves a spot on the list of greatest wide receivers. To say Elroy Hirsch played the game in a different era would be a huge understatement.
And despite playing in what was essentially the Dark Ages of football for wide receivers, Hirsch authored perhaps the single greatest receiving season in NFL history. In in a game season, Hirsch had 66 receptions for 1, yards and 17 touchdowns. Across a game schedule, Hirsch would be the current leader for single-season and touchdowns. Even in a game season that extrapolates to over yards, a feat no one has ever accomplished in just the regular season.
Any wide receiver who played during the s and s will have to feel a little overshadowed by a certain player further down this list, but Tim Brown wasn't by much. Nfl best wide receivers ever All Brown did was play the position better than almost anyone else ever had for a very long time.
Brown had nine seasons in a row with over 1, yards receiving. Not to mention he did that with guys like Jay Schroeder and Jeff Hostetler throwing him the ball. Although his son his getting all the headlines now, it'll be hard for anyone to top the career of Marvin Harrison no matter how much genetic material they share. Peyton Manning's favorite target for many years, Harrison got in the league at the same time as a great quarterback and passing revolution and never looked back.
When you make the NFL team though, you would've been great regardless. Harrison twice led the league in receptions and yards and was a fixture on the league's best and most consistent offense during his time playing. Harrison bucked the diva trend for receivers letting his play talk for him, and it sure did talk a lot.
There's a story from Gil Brandt that Raymond Berry was so cerebral in his approach to the game, and understood it so well, that decades after retiring and while coaching the Cowboys, based on instinct alone he could tell the practice field wasn't big enough. No one believed him, but when they measured, sure enough, it was six inches short.
He was a pioneer for the route trees that are foundational to today's game. And while people love to talk about Tom Brady getting drafted in the sixth round , Berry went in the 20th. So maybe there's someone else we should consider for greatest draft steal of all time, considering Berry was an innovator and fixture at the top of the receptions and yardage leaderboard as a player.
Terrell Owens was as polarizing as he was talented, and he was a generational talent who is one of the greatest wide receivers to ever step on a field. Embodying and cementing the stereotype of the loudmouthed brash diva for wide receivers, when it was good in the locker room with Owens it was amazing.
When it wasn't…well, we all have our own flaws don't we. Blessed with immaculate footwork and hand-eye coordination, Owens lived in the end zone as much as he liked to live in his opponents' heads. Although towards the end of his career, he bounced around with plenty of drama, he still spent a long time in the league as one of the best.
For every big personality like Terrell Owens, there is a Larry Fitzgerald. Perhaps no player in the s and s was as universally beloved and respected as Larry Legend. Fitzgerald's consistent excellence despite a laundry list of mediocre-to-terrible quarterbacks feeding him passes is amazing. He was great no matter who was throwing to him, and so consistently so that he worked his way up all the way to number two all-time in receiving yards.
Fitzgerald is the first person who pops into your head when you think of the Arizona Cardinals and helped lead them to all of their best moments in the last half-century if not their entire existence. Lance Alworth was another receiver playing in a tough era for the passing game who still managed to excel. Even in today's environment, seven straight seasons over receiving yards would be considered impressive, let alone in the mids.
Not to mention during that time Alworth led the league in yards, receptions, and touchdowns three times. Perhaps the first great wide receiver ever, Don Hutson dominated the league at a near-unparalleled level in the s and s. Hutson's numbers by today's standards aren't much to look at. But it's possible no receiver has ever outclassed their peers more.
Across 11 years in the league, Hutson led the league in receptions eight times, receiving yards seven times, and touchdowns nine times for Curly Lambeau's Green Bay Packers. Steve Largent was an unmatched model of excellence and consistency at the time of his retirement. The first truly great Seattle Seahawk, Largent spent much of his career largely toiling away on mediocre teams with mediocre quarterbacks.
Largent retired as the league's leader all-time in receptions, receiving yards, and touchdowns. Back then it was all about the rushing game, and receivers could only dream of the numbers that today's players put up. That was true for everyone except Hutson, whose 99 career receiving touchdowns was not surpassed for 40 years after he retired. When he retired in he was the only player to have topped 3, receiving yards - and he had more than doubled that figure with 7, He remains the only wide receiver to top yards in a season for five different teams, and is the only player to score a touchdown against all 32 NFL franchises.
Throughout his career Owens notched up 15, yards and touchdowns, both of which put him in the top three in NFL history. Antics aside, the six time Pro Bowler is one of the very best to play the position, but unlike the others in this list he had real competition from another player active at the same time.
That player was Randy Moss. He may not have totalled as many yards as Owens in his career but at his peak was arguably better. Other than Rice, Moss is the only wide receiver to top 1, receiving yards in 10 different seasons. It did not take Moss any time to settle into the NFL after being drafted by the Minnesota Vikings, as he scored 17 touchdowns in his rookie season - still an NFL record.
Moss' 23 receiving touchdowns in also remains an NFL record to this day, and at one stage he looked on course to break some of Rice's records having reached 5, career receiving yards in the fewest number of games Steve Largent was drafted by the Houston Oilers in before being traded to the Seattle Seahawks before the season start - hindsight is wonderful but that may not have been the best bit of business ever.
Largent topped 1, receiving yards in eight of his first 11 seasons with the Seahawks, twice leading the league for single season tallies and During his career, Largent was given the nickname 'Yoda' for his ability to seemingly use 'the force' to catch balls which looked impossible to reach.
At the time of his retirement, Largent's catches, 13, yards and touchdowns all stood as NFL records. Largent's numbers are even more impressive when you consider he, unlike Moss and Owens, was playing at a time when the NFL was still better suited to the run game.