Of all the records Jerry Rice owns, the one he will set Sunday is the most startling. He will celebrate his 40th birthday while playing wide receiver for the Oakland Raiders. All of sport should celebrate with him.
Rice has virtually every significant pass-receiving record. But all those records once were owned by other receivers during other eras. A 40-year-old man running pass patterns in the NFL is new territory.
Charlie Joiner of the San Diego Chargers did it until he was 39, and maybe somebody older than that played receiver during World War II, when Green Bay’s Don Hutson dominated. Hutson retired at 32, and nobody since the 1970 merger has played that position at Rice’s age.
George Blanda kicked for the Raiders until he was 48, but his running was limited mostly to trotting onto the field when nobody threatened to tackle him. As a quarterback, he threw only seven passes in his last three seasons.
Rice is not only 40 and playing receiver, he’s 12th in the AFC in catches and his 75-yard gain Sept. 29 is the longest among AFC leaders.
Joiner played 18 seasons. This is Rice’s 18th season. Joiner caught 750 passes, a little more than half of Rice’s current 1,388 and counting.
All records are made to be broken, although who will live long enough to check on Rice’s?
The Bears’ Marty Booker caught 100 passes last year, a Bears record. If Booker catches 100 passes a year for the next 12 seasons–that’s until 2013 when he is 37 and the new Soldier Field will be old–he still will be 22 catches behind where Rice is today.
Buffalo’s Eric Moulds is the first player in NFL history to catch at least eight passes in his team’s first five games of a season. He is on pace for a one-season record of 131 catches.
If Moulds catches 131 passes a year for the next eight years, he will pass where Rice is today. Moulds also will be 37.
Rice has gone above the 100-yard mark in receiving 68 times. The Bears’ record is 19 by Harlon Hill, who played from 1954-61. He retired a long time ago, the year before Rice was born.
Marty Booker has five 100-yard receiving games, two this season. If he has 100-yard games every week until a quarter of the way through the 2006 season, he can tie Rice. It can be done, you know. In 1995, Rice gained 1,848 yards, an average of 115 yards a game.
Rice’s 20,726 yards receiving is 7,234 yards ahead of teammate Tim Brown, who happens to be No. 2 among active receivers. If Brown maintains his 14-year average, he will get to Rice’s number during the 2010 season, when Brown is 44.
Rice has 187 touchdown catches (197 overall). In the 15 seasons from 1987 through 2001, Bears passers Jim McMahon, Mike Tomczak, Jim Harbaugh, Steve Walsh, Erik Kramer, Dave Krieg, Shane Matthews and Jim Miller threw a total of 186 touchdowns.
Rice has 13 seasons of 1,000 yards or more. In all Bears history, there have been eight 1,000-yard receiving seasons–by seven different receivers.
Rice holds the record for most touchdown catches in a season–22. You say today’s seasons are longer? He set it in 12 games during the 1987 strike-shortened season.
Rice has caught at least one pass in 246 consecutive games–every game he ever has played. Booker has a 34-game streak going.
Rice broke Walter Payton’s record of 21,264 yards from scrimmage (rushing and receiving) last week. He has one more mark to get: all-purpose yards (including kick returns). Payton’s mark stands at 21,803 yards; Rice has 21,364.
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“I didn’t realize his 40th birthday is Sunday,” Oakland quarterback Rich Gannon said. “That’s unbelievable to play at the level he’s playing at.”
Gannon doesn’t notice the age because he doesn’t notice any dropoff. Rice is no longer the main man the way he was in San Francisco. He is benefiting from the presence of Brown and Jerry Porter.
What Gannon and teammates do notice–and always have noticed–is that nobody works harder than Jerry Rice. You would think after all these years and records, he would take a day off, but then if you would think that, you would miss the point.
“The thing that always amazed me is here’s a guy who’s the very best . . . and he’d always come out 30 minutes before games,” Gannon said. “He still does and he’d come out in training camp 30 minutes before the younger players. He’d be out there 15 or 20 minutes later than all the guys. I never understood that.
“If I were a younger player I would just have to ask the first day or two if it’s OK if I just come out and stand there and just watch. Here’s a guy who pretty much set the standard of how you play the position. Why wouldn’t you want to be out there just trying to absorb all the information out of the guy you possibly could? That’s something I never understood.”