by Chase Stuart
on April 8, 2013
Bones stretches for a touchdown.
Only three players in NFL history have been responsible for half of their team’s receiving touchdowns over a six-year period:
Don Hutson,
Jerry Rice, and
Hugh Taylor. You probably don’t know much about Taylor, the Washington Redskins star receiver who played from 1947 to 1954. In his first game in the NFL, he caught
8 passes for 212 yards and 3 touchdowns, giving him the record for receiving yards in a player’s first game that stood
until 2003. In his
last game, he caught five passes for 106 yards and three touchdowns. In between those games, he was a star receiver on one of the
worst teams in the NFL. Despite the short career, Taylor came in at #63 on my
list of the best receivers of all time. His most impressive season came in 1952, when he was responsible for
45% of the Redskins’ receiving yards and produced the
52nd-best season ever by a wide receiver.
At 6’4, Taylor was one of the tallest receivers of his era, but at only 194 pounds, he was also very deserving of his nickname: Bones. Taylor made up for his skinny physique with a long stride that enabled him to get behind defenders. I spoke with T.J. Troup, an NFL historian who has coached wide receivers at the college and high school levels, for his thoughts on Taylor. Troup owns a significant amount of NFL film from the late ’40s and ’50s, making him the perfect source for this subject. He described Taylor to me as one of the best home-run threats of his day, with a playing style similar to other long-striders like Harlon Hill, Don Maynard, and Lance Alworth. The numbers certainly back that up.
The table below shows all receivers who were responsible for at least 39% of a team’s receiving touchdowns over a six-year period. Note that several receivers would show up multiple times on this list, so for players like Hutson, I’ve limited them to their single best six-year stretch. Taylor’s stretch from ’49 to ’54 ranks second on the list:
[continue reading…]
Tagged as:
Forgotten Stars,
Hugh Taylor,
Redskins
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by Chase Stuart
on December 3, 2012
Lions wide receiver present.
On Sunday,
Calvin Johnson became just the second player in NFL history to gain at least 125 receiving yards in five consecutive games. He’s also the second Lion to hit those marks.
As you’ve probably figured it out by the title, the only player with 125+ receiving yards in five straight games prior to Johnson was Patrick Lewis Studstill Jr., who had an 11-year career with the Lions, Rams, and Patriots. Studstill was a first-team All-Pro wide receiver in 1966, when he led the NFL in receiving yards. Beginning in week 5 of that season, Studstill topped 115 receiving yards in six straight weeks. Those were six highest single-game yardage totals of his career.
Studstill was a receiver and punter at the University of Houston in the late ’50s, but his senior season was a disaster. Head coach Hal Lahar was your typical coach of the era when it came to rules, and Studstill violated a major one — by getting married. Lahar benched Studstill for his entire senior year, and as a result, Studstill went undrafted. One of the Cougars assistant coaches, Red Conkright, was a former NFL player who would later become the last head coach of the Oakland Raiders before Al Davis. Conkright vouched for Studstill, who received a tryout in Detroit. Because of his versatility and speed, he was able to make the Lions roster in 1961.
Studstill didn’t see the field much during his rookie season, but did manage a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown against the Bears. An injury to Terry Barr in 1962 opened the door for Studstill to begin making a contribution on offense. In the last 9 games of the season, Sutdstill caught 31 passes for 446 yards, second on the team in both categories to Pro Bowler Gail Cogdill.
[continue reading…]
Tagged as:
Calvin Johnson,
Forgotten Stars,
Lions,
Pat Studstill,
Red Conkright
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