Adam Steele is back to provide a recap for his Wisdom of Crowds project, and we thank him for it.
After two weeks of polling, we received 20 legal ballots and lots of great discussion. Thank you to everyone who participated! Let’s get straight to the results:
In this table you’ll see total points for each WR, average points per ballot, and the specific points distribution by each voter. I only ranked players who were listed on more than one ballot. Now you can compare your votes to others’ side by side!
To the surprise of absolutely no one, Jerry Rice is the runway winner for Greatest Wide Receiver of All-Time. He’s probably the only player in NFL history at any position that has no holes in his resume. Rice had a dominant peak, absurd longevity, holds every postseason record, and gave 100% effort at all times. He may very well be the greatest football player ever, period.
Going into this, I wasn’t sure how voters would handle Don Huston, Randy Moss, and Terrell Owens. The former dominated his era like no other and revolutionized the WR position, but older players tend to do worse in WOC exercises for a number of reasons. The latter two also dominated their era but were famous for poor effort and being cancerous to their locker room. In the end, Hutson edged out Moss for 2nd place while Owens only came in 5th behind Lance Alworth. I’m quite surprised that Alworth beat out Owens, but it shows that FP readers are not slaves to consensus opinion.
The most polarizing WR was Antonio Brown, another player known for his antics as much as his play. Brown’s talent and production are undeniable, but he’s also a selfish lunatic who undermines the culture of every team he plays for (or doesn’t play for in the Raiders’ case). As a result, his votes were all over the place. Some ballots had Brown near the top, some in the middle, some at the bottom, and a few left him off entirely.
Modern freak athlete receivers Calvin Johnson and Julio Jones also proved to be quite polarizing. In Johnson’s case, much of the uncertainty likely stems from his early retirement. But some fans undoubtedly knock Megatron for padding his stats in a pass happy offense while playing nine games a year indoors. Jones suffers from the same detractors, though his Falcons had more team success than Johnson’s Lions which may legitimize his stats in the eyes of some.
As has been the case with every WOC, older players had their votes scattered all over the map. Crazy Legs Hirsch was rated highly by some while left off half of the ballots entirely. Was Hirsch a one season wonder? Was he beating up on inferior competition? Pete Pihos and Fred Biletnikoff also saw a variety of scores, likely because voters struggle to put such players in proper context or don’t know their names at all.
What stands out to you in these results? Do you think FP’s collective opinion got it right? Please share your thoughts in the comments!