The revolution was televised. In high definition, it turned out.
As televisions got flatter, so did the difficulty curve for wide receivers squaring up against coverage downfield. A mid-2000s rule change limited the contact opposing cornerbacks could make beyond the line of scrimmage, turning the passing game into a battle of finesse. And with a rising tide of high volume quarterbacks on the rise, a dynamic passing game became vital to most teams Super Bowl hopes.
That’s helped make wide receiver one of the top three highest-paid positions in the league while running backs, on average, make less than any other non-special teamer on the field. A great veteran wide receiver won’t earn as much as a quarterback, but he’ll eat up a sizable chunk of salary cap space in return for his services.
Despite this rising tide of wideout play, several teams have to turn back several pages of their history books to find the best receivers to ever suit up. In some cases that’s because the legends of their past were all-time greats. In others it’s because even today they run a run-heavy offense. And a few other sad programs just stink at drafting or retaining talent.
So who are the best-evers for all 32 NFL teams? This list weighs overall performance, longevity, team success and five-year peaks to figure out who was the top wide receiver in franchise history. In some cases, there was no doubt. In others it was a valid debate with multiple correct answers.
Let’s talk about it.
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Arizona Cardinals: Larry Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald is the no-doubt answer to this question and arguably the greatest player at any position in Arizona history. The Pittsburgh star more than lived up to his status as a top-three draft pick, averaging more than 90 catches per season between 2005 and 2017. Fitz is a certain Hall of Famer for his work on the field — second all-time in both receptions and receiving yards — and magnanimous off it. He was named 2016’s Walter Payton Man of the Year for his charity work.
Atlanta Falcons: Julio Jones
Jones looked and played as though he were assembled in a football labratory. He was too big (6-foot-3) and athletic for safeties to trump over the top and too fast (4.34-second 40 time) for cornerbacks to keep up with. Factor in strong hands and incredible balance and you’ve got a player who averaged better than 1,600 yards per 17 games as a Falcon. He and Matt Ryan teamed up to provide some of the most prosperous years in Atlanta’s turbulent history.
His incredible Super Bowl 52 sideline reception should have led to a cathartic world title for the Falcons. Alas.
Baltimore Ravens: Derrick Mason
The Ravens have only been around for roughly three decades and have generally played throwback, run-heavy football in those years. That means there aren’t many stellar candidates when it comes to an all-time great at wideout — only one WR has more than 3,600 career receiving yards in purple and gold. That’s Mason, who was impressively productive after signing with the team for his age 31 season in 2005. He had four 1,000-yard campaigns in six seasons with Baltimore.
Buffalo Bills: Andre Reed
Reed began his career on a 2-14 team, then helped Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas engineer an offense that would win four straight AFC titles. His route-running, separation skills and run-after-catch ability made him a weapon throughout his career, making him a big play threat throughout his 15-year Bills tenure. He’s a Hall of Famer who still ranks in the top 20 when it comes to the NFL’s all-time receiving volume stats.
Carolina Panthers: Steve Smith
Smith was a player powered by spite, a man with a motor mouth who played with the urgency of someone knowing they’d have to back up all the trash they’d talked. And he did.
The 5-foot-9 receiver made an impact early on special teams before developing into a secondary-shredding workhorse who averaged more than 1,000 yards per season from 2003 to 2013. He battled back from injury and multiple situations where he seemed saddled by age-related decline just to start roasting cornerbacks again; his 14,731 receiving yards are eighth-most in NFL history.
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Chicago Bears: Harlon Hill
Hill ranks behind Johnny Morris on the franchise’s all-time receptions and receiving yards lists, and though Morris also has an NFL title under his belt his beginning as a running back gives Hill — the namesake for the Division II player of the year award — the edge. Few players could match his explosiveness through his peak, where he averaged 23-plus yards per catch in three of his first four seasons as a pro. In a field lacking heavyweights (only one wideout this millennium has more than 4,000 receiving yards as a Bear), Hill wins a tight race.
Cincinnati Bengals: Chad Ochocinco
A.J. Green has a valid case here; he and Ochocinco have similar stats (Ochocinco: 5.0 catches per game as a Bengal for 71.4 yards. Green: 5.1 for 74.3) and each faltered as the Bengals stumbled to playoff losses under Marvin Lewis’s leadership. But Ochocinco’s five-year peak climbed higher than Green’s, and his antics on the field helped draw attention to an emerging team looking to step from the shadow of a hopeless stretch of football. He wasn’t for everyone, but his receiving talent was undeniable.
Cleveland Browns: Dante Lavelli
Poor quarterback play and questionable drafting have left the Browns to mostly opt out of the NFL’s passing attack revolution. No player since the franchise’s 1999 revival has more than 3,900 receiving yards for the team. Lavelli starred for a team that threw the ball only 32 percent of the time but still holds the franchise records for receptions and receiving yards by a non-tight end. He starred alongside fellow Hall of Famer Otto Graham for a team that won three NFL and four AAFC titles, leading the league in receptions (40!) and receiving yards as a rookie and never looking back.
Dallas Cowboys: Michael Irvin
Had Irvin been born a decade later, he could have taken advantage of the NFL’s rule reforms that handcuffed cornerbacks and helped make the passing revolution possible. Instead he settled for merely being one of the 1990s greatest athletes and a dynasty in Dallas.
Between 1991 and 1995 he averaged 90 catches and better than 1,400 receiving yards per season; second only to Jerry Rice and significantly better than third place Cris Carter in that span. His ability to shake coverage and split double teams was a rising tide for some of the best offenses his decade had to offer.
Denver Broncos: Rod Smith
Demaryius Thomas was better at his peak, but Smith was no slouch — and he’s got nearly 200 more catches as a Bronco than his worthy runner-up. While Thomas thrived with Peyton Manning behind center, Smith’s best years statistically came after John Elway retired and ceded the reins to Brian Griese and Gus Frerotte. You can’t go wrong either way, but Smith’s longevity, consistency (eight 1,000-yard seasons as a Bronco), and two Super Bowl rings was enough to earn him the title.
Detroit Lions: Calvin Johnson
That we only got nine seasons of Johnson feels like a crime. “Megatron” was an impossible human being, a 240-pound asteroid with 4.3-second 40 speed and hands dipped in glue like he was preparing for a fight with Jean Claude Van Damme. His 1,964 receiving yards in 2012 remain an NFL record, coming in the middle of a three-year stretch in which he averaged more than 111 yards per game. He called it a career after his age 30 season, leaving behind a Barry Sanders-esque legacy of beautiful performances and a lingering “what if?”
Green Bay Packers: Don Hutson
The Packers have played host to several great wide receivers; Hutson barely qualifies in the team’s top five when it comes to yards or receptions. But he led the league in catches eight times in 11 seasons and caught more touchdowns than anyone else nine times, dragging the forward pass into the future and ensuring the existence of a small market team like Green Bay well into the future.
In 1942, for an offense that ran the ball 56 percent of the time, Hutson had 74 catches, 1,211 yards and 17 touchdowns … in 11 games. To that point, the league had only twice seen a receiver haul in at least 725 yards worth of receiving yards in a season. They both belonged to Don Hutson.
Houston Texans: Andre Johnson
The Texans barely existed when they drafted Johnson with the third overall pick. It was a brilliant decision; he’d go on to an 11-year career in Houston in which he hauled in 1,012 catches for 13,597 yards.
Johnson was a key factor in the franchise’s first playoff teams, but he wasn’t just a pass-catcher. When I caught up with Tedy Bruschi before Super Bowl 56, he told me how Johnson was the wideout he hated seeing most coming downfield thanks to his penchant for walloping linebackers as a blocker and in pick play situations.
Indianapolis Colts: Marvin Harrison
For a decade-plus, defenses knew Peyton Manning-to-Marvin Harrison was coming. They were mostly powerless to stop it. The eight-time All-Pro wasn’t big, but he played with the catch radius and aggression of someone much bigger than his 185 pounds suggested. Reggie Wayne was great in his own right — he’d be the top option for several other franchises on this list — but ultimately can’t compare to his teammate’s consistency and scoring prowess (101 touchdowns … from 1999 to 2006 alone).
Jacksonville Jaguars: Jimmy Smith
Smith was on the roster of two Super Bowl winning Dallas Cowboys teams without making a single catch. Jimmy Johnson cut him. The Eagles did as well before the former second round pick landed in Jacksonville, where he quietly thrived for a decade. The versatile wideout could win inside or out, providing a diverse route tree for Mark Brunell (and later, Byron Leftwich). He showed up in a big way in the playoffs for those Jaguars as well. In his first eight postseason games with the team he had 617 receiving yards and seven touchdowns to briefly make the Jags a perennial contender.
Kansas City Chiefs: Tyreek Hill
The top two pass catchers in the Chiefs’ storied history are tight ends. That created space for Hill, despite only six seasons in Kansas City, to slide into the top spot. Not a year went by without a Pro Bowl invitation for the speedy wideout, and while Patrick Mahomes certainly had something to do with that, his thriving with Tua Tagovailoa (and backups) in 2022 for the Miami Dolphins proved he’s worthy to be called great.
Las Vegas Raiders: Fred Biletnikoff
This is a tough call. Do you opt for the longevity and consistency of Tim Brown? The explosiveness and top line speed of Cliff Branch? Or the do-it-all reliability of Biletnikoff?
Ultimately, even though he has fewer NFL titles than Branch and a weaker stat sheet than Brown, Biletnikoff earned the nod. He was a heavy hitter in an era where passing was an inefficient gamble and a stud when it mattered most — see his 10 playoff touchdowns or Super Bowl XI MVP award. Branch and Brown were great Hall of Famers in their own right. Biletnikoff was so good the award for college football’s top wide receiver is named after him.
Los Angeles Chargers: Lance Alworth
Alworth had fewer receptions than LaDainian Tomlinson as a Charger but nearly 2.5 times the number of receiving yards than his fellow legend because he was a pallet of poorly maintained fireworks primed to explode at any minute. If he were born a decade later and played in Don Coryell’s offense he might have retired as the league’s all time receiving yardage leader.
Instead, he settled for second place (but was only the second player in league history to break the 10,000 yard barrier). By 1968, there had only been 27 1,200 receiving yard seasons in NFL history; Alworth was responsible for five of them. He was a seven-time All-Pro and finished in the top five in AP AFC player of the year voting six times.
Los Angeles Rams: Torry Holt
Henry Ellard burned brightly, but not for long. Isaac Bruce was a sigil for the team’s receiving corps for 14 years. Holt combined the best of both worlds, emerging as a game-breaking talent who averaged better than 1,260 receiving yards per season in a decade in Saint Louis — and nearly 1,450 per season in his five-year peak. While he benefitted from a pass-heavy offense, he also had his best year with Marc Bulger at quarterback, proving he was more than just a product of the Greatest Show on Turf.
Miami Dolphins: Mark Clayton
The other Mark — Duper, who changed his middle name to “Super” and the world shrugged and said “sure, makes sense” — is a viable option here. But Clayton proved he could be a firecracker for Dan Marino to throw at disheveled defenses or a reliable intermediate option, working with Duper to create a “no right answer” situation when it came time to determine double coverage. The five-time Pro Bowler led the league in receiving touchdowns twice and had 17 games where he found the end zone multiple times.
Minnesota Vikings: Randy Moss
This is an impossible question to answer; whether you prefer Moss or Carter will likely come down to how you view the former’s exit from the team. But while Carter is the name atop the team’s all-time stats leaderboard, he couldn’t match Moss’s dominance at his peak.
The dynamic deep threat had a million ways to get open and speed beyond anything his stretchy 6-foot-4 frame suggested. Like his veteran teammate he led the league in touchdown catches three times while averaging 1,400 yards and 13 touchdowns per season in his first six years as a pro. He’s even got his own signature move — going over the top of a cornerback to snatch an underthrown ball away from him in extreme big brother fashion.
New England Patriots: Julian Edelman
Edelman wasn’t prolific, but he rose to the occasion in big moments. He averaged just under 50 receiving yards per game in the regular season over a 12 year career and 76 per game in the playoffs, making him the rare non-Tom Brady MVP in the team’s Super Bowl wins (see also: Deion Branch). He was indispensible to a trio of world champion teams and his catch late in Super Bowl 51 helped make the greatest comeback of all time possible.
New Orleans Saints: Marques Colston
In 2006, New Orleans drafted a seventh round wideout from Hofstra who many scouts projected would be an NFL tight end. Instead he became Drew Brees’ top target in the most prosperous stretch of Saints football. He was good enough in training camp to make Donte Stallworth expendable, then announced his arrival with more than 1,000 receiving yards in 14 games as a rookie.
Colston was a consistent and efficient downfield threat throughout his decade in the league and was even better in the playoffs. He had at least 60 receiving yards in seven of his 10 postseason games — including seven catches for 83 yards in the franchise’s only Super Bowl win to date. He remains the team leader in all major receiving stats by a comfortable margin.
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New York Giants: Amani Toomer
Giants’ wide receivers don’t stick around for a long time; three of the team’s top five receiving leaders are running backs and the fourth is Odell Beckham Jr., who only played 59 games with the team. Toomer is the exception, a 12-year veteran who stuck around long enough to help Eli Manning topple the then-undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl XLII — where he led New York with six catches on six targets and 84 yards.
His 668 career receptions are nearly double the next closest wideout in team history. That’s Beckham, who certainly burned bright (he’s the best single-season wideout in team history) but not long enough to supplant Toomer.
New York Jets: Don Maynard
The Hall of Famer was an integral part of Joe Namath’s offenses in New York, a defense-gashing flanker who averaged nearly 19 yards per catch in 13 seasons with the club. His two touchdown receptions, including the game winner, in the 1968 AFC title game set up New York’s epic upset of the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. He cracked the 1,200-yard receiving yard barrier in four different seasons despite playing in a run-heavy era and was the league’s all-time yardage king (11,834) when he retired in 1973.
Philadelphia Eagles: Harold Carmichael
Carmichael was consistent on the field and a positive force off it — he was the recipient of 1980’s Walter Payton Man of the Year award. The 6-foot-8 mismatch machine broke through with a league-leading 1973 campaign, languished under some unfortunate quarterback play in the years that followed, then regained his Pro Bowl form in the late 1970s and early 1980s to cement his all-time bonafides. After a long wait, he was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 2020.
Pittsburgh Steelers: Hines Ward
Maybe this is too harsh on Lynn Swann, an All-Pro and Super Bowl hero in his own right. But Ward wasn’t just a receiver for the Steelers, he was the blue collar culture Pittsburgh embodied wrapped up in a single athlete.
The 1,000-yard seasons were nice — there were six of them — but Ward’s eagerness to take on whatever role the team asked of him and ability to absolutely clear out cornerbacks (and sometimes linebackers) as a blocker made him vital to the team’s success in the 2000s. And like Swann, he stepped up in the postseason as well; his catches per game, yards per game and yards per target were all significantly higher in the playoffs than they were over the course of his regular seasons.
San Francisco 49ers: Jerry Rice
The greatest receiver in NFL history. No one else is within 5,000 yards of him or 100 catches. Sorry, Terrell Owens.
Seattle Seahawks: Steve Largent
For the first 12 years of the franchise’s existence, there was only one man who led the team in receiving yards each year: Largent. His presence helped bring the expansion franchise up to speed and gave Seattle a local hero capable of roasting cornerbacks with tight routes and great hands. The fourth-round pick had 40 100-plus yard games in his career (and 10 more with at least 90 yards) and retired in 1989 as the league’s all-time leader in catches and receiving yards.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Mike Evans
Tampa has a grim history when it comes to drafting wideouts — or it did until 2014, when the Bucs selected Evans in the first round. Since then he’s emerged as a steady engine driving the offense forward with the size to be a possession receiver in the middle of the field and speed to torch cornerbacks on deep routes. 2023 will make his 10th year in the league; he’s never finished a season with fewer than 1,000 receiving yards.
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Tennessee Titans: Charley Hennigan
There isn’t a surefire standout in the bunch for the Titans/Oilers — Derrick Mason is, impressively, a legit candidate to be two different franchises’ top wideouts and probably would be if we removed the Houston years from the equation. Hennigan starred in the AFL and helped lead Houston to a pair of titles thanks to some prolific production at wideout. His 1,746 receiving yards in 1961 set a league record that wouldn’t be topped for 34 years, and his 101 catches in 1964 stood alone atop the statistical leaders for two decades.
Washington Commanders: Art Monk
Monk, coincidentally, was the one to break the aforementioned Hennigan’s single season receptions record in 1984. He was an important piece on three different Super Bowl winning teams (though he missed the 1982 playoffs) and had five 1,000-yard seasons despite being buttressed by a pair of stars in their own right in Ricky Sanders and Gary Clark. Monk put in 14 seasons with Washington, and while his peak was relatively modest compared to some of the other names on this list, his impact was not.
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