Jerry Rice: What If He Played in 2011?

In case you all haven't noticed, the NFL has become a passing league.  Rule changes have shaped the game into a more exciting offensive explosion in which teams are putting up ridiculous numbers.  In 2011, Drew Brees and Tom Brady eclipsed Dan Marino's NFL record for passing yards in a season.  In addition to that, a total of three quarterbacks threw for more than 5,000 yards.  Four of the top six seasons for passing yards and four of the top 10 seasons for passing touchdowns in NFL history were achieved in 2011.  Despite these gaudy passing numbers, only one wide receiver in 2011 (that would be Calvin Johnson) had a Jerry Rice-in-his-prime type of season.  So this got me thinking.  What would Jerry Rice in his prime have done in 2011?  After all, Rice didn't play that long ago, so his greatness certainly would have translated into today's NFL.  Since there is no exact way to do it, I came up with a formula to attempt to determine how Mr. Rice would have done in 2011.  I used Rice's 1986-1995 seasons in my analysis, since those were the years that I determined as his "prime" years.  And since that is a 10-season period, it makes for nice, round numbers.  First, I will explain the formula and follow it up with a sample year.  The formula I used is:   Rice's receiving numbers (catches, yards and touchdowns) divided by the total receiving numbers for the 49ers in that corresponding season, which equals the percentage of the 49ers' receptions, yards and touchdowns that went to Rice.  We'll call this the "JR%".  I then took the 49ers' NFL rank in each of the three categories, and compared to the same ranked team in 2011, and used the 2011 numbers multiplied by the JR%.  So for example, I'll use 1995.  Jerry Rice caught 122 of a possible 431 passes (28.31%) by the 49ers, who ranked No. 1 in the NFL in completions in 1995.  He recorded an NFL-record 1,848 receiving yards out of a possible 4,738 (39%) by the 49ers, who ranked No. 1 in the NFL that year in that category as well.  His 15 out of 28 receiving touchdowns (53.57%) had the 49ers No. 4 in the NFL in 1995.   So had Rice played in 2011 for the No. 1 team in completions and receiving yards, and the No. 4 team in receiving touchdowns, his numbers would be as followed:   472 completions at Rice's 28.31% = 134 receptions 5505 receiving yards at Rice's 39% = 2,147 receiving yards 39 receiving touchdowns at Rice's 53.57% = 21 receiving touchdowns  WOW!  Some amazing numbers!  Now for all of you Don Hutson people that are about to come out of the woodwork, like it or not, Hutson's case is futile at best.  He played far before the NFL had any defensive schemes, before the NFL had it's first African-American player; and during the WWII years, Hutson flourished because the level of competition was even worse than before. Using the same formula for each corresponding year between 1986 and 1995, here is how each year would have broken down based on the 49ers' team rankings and JR%, had Rice played in a pass-happy season like 2011.  1986: 103 receptions, 1,927 receiving yards, 15 receiving touchdowns 1987: 103 receptions, 1,709 receiving yards, 30 receiving touchdowns (12-game strike year projected to 16) 1988: 76 receptions, 1,545 receiving yards, 10 receiving touchdowns 1989: 102 receptions, 1,701 receiving yards, 25 receiving touchdowns 1990: 117 receptions, 1,806 receiving yards, 19 receiving touchdowns 1991: 93 receptions, 1,521 receiving yards, 19 receiving touchdowns 1992: 99 receptions, 1,529 receiving yards, 16 receiving touchdowns 1993: 117 receptions, 1,763 receiving yards, 26 receiving touchdowns 1994: 112 receptions, 1,743 receiving yards, 18 receiving touchdowns 1995: 134 receptions, 2,147 receiving yards, 21 receiving touchdowns The totals for the 10 seasons: 1,056 Receptions, 17,391 Receiving Yards and 199 Receiving TDs. As great as Calvin Johnson's CAREER YEAR was in 2011, let's compare it to an AVERAGE Jerry Rice season in his prime as it would have statistically projected to 2011. Calvin Johnson (2011): 96 catches, 1681 yards, 16 TDs Jerry Rice AVG Proj. (2011): 106 catches, 1,739 yards, 20 TDs I guess the point I am trying to make in this article is that if the NFL continues it's aerial assault, and Rice's career records are broken at some point, a serious curve needs to be applied.