How soon we forget: Randy Moss was the best deep threat in NFL history

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Look, there’s no question that Tyreek Hill of the Chiefs is a great deep receiver. Last season, he caught 13 passes of 20 or more air yards for 475 yards, 36.5 yards per reception, and eight touchdowns. This is a guy who can nuke your defense at any moment, and his connection with Patrick Mahomes has been quite impressive over the years. The Super Bowl champion Buccaneers found this out in their 27-24 Week 12 loss to the Chiefs, when they kept putting cornerback Carlton Davis on an island with Hill, and poor Davis got demolished on the day for 12 catches on 15 targets for 236 yards, just 50 yards after the catch, and three touchdowns. This wasn’t Davis’ fault — you don’t put an above-average cornerback one-on-one with Tyreek Hill unless the idea is to get torched over and over.

So, one might assume that Tyreek Hill is the most dangerous deep threat in the game today. One would most likely be correct. However, to place Hill first overall in a historical frame, as Pro Football Focus recently posited, is problematic, at best.

No offense to the good folks at PFF, whose data tools and overall analysis are quite useful, but there are sirens all over the place with this one. The reason? One Randy Gene Moss, whose Hall of Fame credentials were undisputed, and Moss made Canton in 2018. From 1998 through 2012, Moss caught 982 passes for 15.292 yards, and 156 touchdowns. He led the league in touchdown receptions five times from 1998 through 2009, and while we don’t have specific deep-ball numbers yet for greats from the earlier eras like Don Maynard and Cliff Branch, we do have air yards numbers for Moss going back to 2006, per the aforementioned Pro Football Focus.

And when you look at 2007 alone (Moss’ first season with the Patriots, in which he caught 105 passes for 1,587 yards and 24 touchdowns, including the postseason), the deep receiving numbers are just preposterous. In that season, from Week 1 through Super Bowl XLII, Moss caught 15 passes of 20 or more air yards on 48 targets for 630 yards, 42 yards per reception, and 10 touchdowns. If that isn’t the greatest deep-ball season by any receiver in pro football history, I don’t know what is.

I mean… who else in the history of the game could have a nearly 10-minute highlight reel of nothing but his touchdown receptions of 40 or more yards? When it comes to deep-ball potential in pro football history, there’s Randy Moss, and there’s everybody else.

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