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Spotlight - WR Jerry Rice, Oakland Raiders

Jason Wood's Thoughts

Someone explain to me how the greatest receiver in NFL history can be so blatantly disrespected? It's one thing to assert that, at 41 years old, Rice is no longer among the league's best receivers. It's another thing entirely to suggest that he's no longer worthy of any fantasy consideration. Yet, according to Antsports, Jerry Rice is the 62nd WR off the board in early mock drafts. Are you all kidding me? Honestly, to say there are 61 better fantasy options is beyond me, whether Rice is 21 or 51; it makes no sense.

What's particularly perplexing is that Jerry Porter is being taken in the top 25, yet Rice is an afterthought. Sure, Jerry Porter is younger and a much better deep threat at this stage in their respective careers. And yes, Porter will be a full time starter for the first time now that Norv Turner is in charge and Tim "Mr. Raider" Brown has been released, however, have people forgotten that Jerry Rice has been the better in good times and bad?

Good Times: 2002 - The Raiders were among the league's most prolific offenses with Rich Gannon throwing for 4,689 yards and 26 touchdowns.

  • Rice - 92 receptions for 1,211 yards (13.1 YPC) and 7 touchdowns (WR11)

  • Porter - 51 receptions for 688 yards (13.4 YPC) and 9 touchdowns (WR28)

Bad Times: 2003 - Rich Gannon gets hurt, the team loses confidence in HC Bill Callahan, and the passing offense falls to 28th (2,988 yards).

  • Rice - 63 receptions for 869 yards (13.8 YPC) and 2 touchdowns (WR37)

  • Porter - 28 receptions for 361 yards (12.9 YPC) and 1 touchdown (WR89)

So again, I'll ask…if Jerry Rice was better than Jerry Porter at 39 years old in an explosive offense, and he was the better receiver (by far) last year at 40 years old in a terrible offense, what exactly is going to cause Rice's production to plummet while Porter's is going to skyrocket?

To be clear, I'm not against rostering Jerry Porter as I think that getting a starting role will provide him with more consistent opportunity this year. However, if one's willing to bet on Porter being a viable WR2; you also have to be assuming that the Raiders passing offense returns to respectability. And if that's the case, why shouldn't Rice be in line to at least match if not improve upon his 2003 numbers? Remember, it's not as though Rice fell off last year statistically. His YPC improved year-over year (while Porter's fell) and he continues to catch almost everything thrown his way.

Positives

  • The greatest receiver to every play the game


  • The absence of Tim Brown and a much improved QB situation (Gannon and Collins) implies improved offensive production for all involved


  • At 41 years old, Rice remains among the best conditioned athletes in the game; and he was a force in the league at 39 and 40, so why is 41 different?


Negatives

  • Jerry Porter will get every opportunity to be the team's go-to receiver under new HC Norv Turner


  • In shape or not, at 41 years old one has to think any injury will take much longer to recover from


  • This could be the last season we have the honor of watching him play


Final Thoughts

Even if you think the Raiders offense will remain among the league's worst this year, it's difficult to understand how Jerry Rice projects as the 60th best fantasy receiver. In a year where the team ranked 28th in passing yards, Rice managed a top 40 finish. More importantly, in the past two seasons, Jerry Rice has outperformed Jerry Porter in both good times and bad, yet Porter is on everyone's short list for "breakout sleeper" this year while Rice has become 'persona non grata'. I honestly believe that barring injury, Rice will finish among the top 30-40 receivers AT WORST and yet; you can roster him late in your drafts. That is the definition of value and as a result, I believe he'll find his way onto many of my rosters this year. Draft accordingly.


Chase Stuart's Thoughts

Jerry Rice is the greatest WR that's ever played, and one of the best athletes in the history of professional sports. However, I'm not going to go on and on about how the first thirty-eight years of his life, Rice dominated the NFL like few we've ever seen. I want to mention recent history. The last three years, at ages 39, 40 and 41, Jerry Rice has caught more yards than:

  • Eric Moulds

  • Darrell Jackson

  • Chad Johnson

  • Chris Chambers

  • Isaac Bruce

Jerry Rice has had perhaps the best career of any player in the history of the NFL. However, he's not willing to retire just yet. He ranked tenth and eleventh among receivers in 2001 and 2002, when the Raiders were at their best. Predictably, Rice fell off when the Oakland offense self-destructed. Not so predictably, was that Jerry Rice actually produced a larger percentage of their offense in 2003. During their Super Bowl season two years ago, Jerry Rice led the team and caught 25.8% of his team's passing yards. Last year, he upped that ratio to 29.1%.

He "led" all receivers with two touchdowns, as Oakland finished with just nine on the season. Obviously, they'll throw a few more in 2004. With Rich Gannon and Kerry Collins, Oakland should once again throw for close to 3,500 yards. Rice and Jerry Porter are the starting WRs, and Oakland has a bunch of not so capable RBs. The loss of Charlie Garner and the decline of Tim Brown might lead to Rice catching close to thirty percent of the Raiders passing yards this year.

He may be old, but Rice performed fairly well considering his situation in 2003. The Raiders used five QBs, and none of them were any good. Rice still caught 869 yards. In the best of situations, he caught 1,211 yards in 2002. I'm expecting 2004 to be somewhere in the middle of that, with just a tick down as Rice turns 42.

Positives

  • There isn't a ton of competition for catches, and Jerry Porter has yet to prove he can be the main threat on the offense


  • With Collins now in Oakland, Rice should have a good quarterback throwing him the ball every week


  • Rice has averaged 1,073 yards the past three seasons-and he's being drafted very late in most drafts


Negatives

  • Upside? There isn't much. Rice isn't going to get 1,200 yards or 10 TDs


  • Downside? Rice, potentially, could fall off this year due to age. It's not terribly likely, but eventually everyone stops being productive


  • The Raiders offense is something of a mystery-it's possible that it won't perform much better than it did a year ago


Final Thoughts

Rice is far from an exciting fantasy player, and he doesn't really qualify as a sleeper. When you draft him, you're just expecting that he can give you close to sixty-yards per game. If the Raiders offense can improve a bit, he should get you a handful of touchdowns as well. The reason Rice is a good fantasy pick this year is that no one's drafting him. He's generally not drafted among the top fifty receivers. Now sure, some of this is due to his low upside-many owners would rather go for the high upside than take the dependable Rice. However, Rice should make a good WR3 for any team. If you avoid taking your third WR for awhile, you could do a lot worse than starting Jerry Rice every week.


Quotations from the Message Board Thread

To view the entire Player Spotlight thread (there's a ton of fantastic commentary in there), click here.

KKrew:
"Jerry Rice IS the greatest Wide Receiver in NFL History. Jerry Rice MAY be the greatest Player in NFL history. He's that good. Unfortunately, there is no Fountain of Youth. Rice is 41. He's played 286 games and amassed an amazing 22,466 receiving yards! But, he's closer to AARP than many of his coaches …."

BigRed:
"Rice posted respectable numbers for #2 WR last year, despite the team's total implosion. I'm not exactly aiming for him on my team, but you could do a lot worse for a #3 WR and if you ignore the position long enough, maybe a #2. He can still crack 1000 and a handful of scores, not that I'd count on it."

Silver & Black:
"2004 = a return to form to football's greatest WR."

fo shizzle:
"Jerry Rice represents OUTSTANDING value in this year's draft. In 18 full years (not counting the injury in '97), Rice has posted fewer than 800 yards exactly zero times. 2 years ago he went for 92-1211-7. Last year his team was abysmal and he still caught 63 balls for 869. Those of you who keep waiting for the sun to set on Mr. Rice keep this in mind. His ypc for the last 3 years is 13.8, 13.2, 13.7.

The supporting cast cannot be as bad as it was last year. He has a nice schedule in 04. There are very few reasons to expect his numbers to be worse than last year. Oh wait I forgot some spare named Doug Gabriel is going to take his spot. Please. I give him a similar ypc, and a moderate increase in both catches and TDs."


Jerry Rice Projections

Source
Rec
Yards
TDs
FntPts
Jason Wood
67
905
5
121
Chase Stuart
70
940
5
124
Message Board Consensus
74
936
6
130
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