Is Jerry Rice the NFL's Babe Ruth?

[brahmanknight]

That's the opinion of this writer.

As mentioned above, Odell Beckham Jr. just enjoyed one of the most electric rookie seasons -- at any position -- in NFL history. His final numbers: 91 catches for 1,305 and 12 touchdowns. Now, for the sake of this exercise, give Beckham that annual production for 14 more years. What a career that would be: 1,365 catches, 19,575 yards and 180 touchdowns. Hall of Fame, right?

Now, realize that those incredible numbers would be 17 touchdowns, 184 catches and a healthy 3,320 yards behind Jerry Rice. The yardage total is the truly incredible piece here, as it is hard to even wrap your football brain around Rice's 22,895 career receiving yards.

Over 20 NFL seasons, Rice averaged 1,090 receiving yards. Seriously? It doesn't even cognitively compute.

Firstt of all, who is going to play that long? Secondly, people think Calvin Johnson has already put up a Hall of Fame-worthy career and he has only posted five seasons of 1,090-plus yards in eight years in the league. Rice had 11 1,000-yard seasons in his first 12 campaigns. He eclipsed 1,200 yards in all but one of those years, the strike-shortened 1987 season. (You know, when he scored 22 touchdowns in 12 games.) And then he went on to play another decade. Give me a break.

Nobody in the first 95 seasons of the NFL is even close to Rice in this category. And no one will touch him in the next 95. He is the Babe Ruth of the sport, plain and simple.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap30...ge-mark-heads-top-five-records-in-nfl-history

 

[Bob the Citronaut]

No. As good as he may have been he's still just a WR. Where would his numbers have been playing with the Jay Cutlers/Matt Cassels of the world.

 

[goodknightfl]

Is this another racist question??
Babe is white rice
Jerry is Brown rice.

 

[Happy Hands]

Babe Ruth isn't the best baseball player ever. He was amazing for his time. His legend is his smoking, drinking and fornicating. If he played today his ceiling would probably be Prince Fielder. I don't see him hitting Kershaw, Sale, Scherzer, etc. like he did guys one hundred years ago.

 

[SublimeKnight]

Give this guy a Jerry Rice candy bar and let him be the judge

 

[UCFKnightfan08]

Babe Ruth isn't the best baseball player ever. He was amazing for his time. His legend is his smoking, drinking and fornicating. If he played today his ceiling would probably be Prince Fielder. I don't see him hitting Kershaw, Sale, Scherzer, etc. like he did guys one hundred years ago.

Babe Ruth in today's game couldn't hit Justin Wilson (random Yankees relief pitcher, first "non-name" guy to pop into my head).

The thing is Babe Ruth was hitting more home runs than every TEAM in the league. The equivalent would be Jerry Rice catching 60 TDs in a year or something like that.

Babe Ruth is the best player ever, when compared to the players he competed against. I think pretty much every player for today's game would dominate in the Babes time.

 

[ChrisKnight06]

Barry Bonds shits on Babe Ruth.

 

[Bob the Citronaut]

Sosa, ARod and McGuire too.

 

[goodknightfl]

Barry Bonds shits on Babe Ruth.

Steroids have odd side effects.

 

[UCFKnight85]

I guess he's the NFL's Babe Ruth but he doesn't even begin to approach what Babe Ruth himself was.

The guy hit over 700 homeruns in the dead ball era, before assholes were juicing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He hit 60 homeruns in the 1929 season, something today's players can't even do now that the hard juice that Sosa took is being tested for.

He won 7 World Series titles (7!!!). 12x AL HR champion. He set something like 7 baseball records, 3 of which are still standing today.

He had a career batting average of .342.

Not to mention the guy had a 94-46 record as a pitcher with an incredible 2.28 career average ERA. This would be like Jerry Rice also playing cornerback and ending up with Deion Sanders type numbers on that side of the ball too.

He was so revered by the US public that Japanese soldiers would yell "To hell with Babe Ruth" at US soldiers.

And of course, he played a prominent role in the greatest movie ever made, The Sandlot.