I’m not saying it’s nothing. It’s a big numerical advantage, and it does represent real value over Irvin in that it tells us that Carter was a significantly more dangerous red zone weapon. Really, it does matter, which I emphasize here because I’m going to spend the rest of this post picking it apart and explaining why I think it’s not enough to make Carter the better player.
– Largely the difference in the TD numbers is a function of scheme and opportunity. First of all Carter played in 75 more games than Irvin (that is, 47% more games), so right off the bat we know that twice the TDs doesn’t mean he was twice the red zone threat, since a huge part of the difference is explained right there. Perhaps more importantly, even in Dallas there were only so many red zone opportunities to go around, and if you’re the Cowboys you didn’t *need *to throw slants and fades to your WRs when you got into the red zone, because you had Emmitt Freaking Smith running behind a group of Pro Bowlers. So Carter is a bigger red zone threat, yes, and that is important, but the difference is nothing like the 2:1 of the raw numbers.
– Furthermore, even to the extent that the TD numbers are the result of real differences between the two, it’s not like each additional score on Carter’s ledger means “Cris Carter created 7 points more than Michael Irvin here.” So many of those TDs are red zone scores, where the offense is pretty likely to score whether or not they choose to throw the ball to Carter, or even if they do throw the ball to Carter and he happens to drop his TD pass instead of catching it.
– Carter had 17 fumbles to Irvin’s 7; not a big deal overall, but worth mentioning.
– From a Hall of Fame voting perspective, it’s not irrelevant that Irvin was a critical piece of three championship teams while Carter never played in a Super Bowl.
– Similarly, we probably want to assign extra weight to playoff performance in general. Irvin was excellent in the postseason: 16 games, 87 catches for 1,315 yards and 8 TDs. Carter’s numbers were fine, but still a lot more ordinary: 14 games, 63 for 870 and 8 TDs (prorated to 16 games this would be 72/994/9).
– Peak matters. Being an “accumulator” gets a bad rap sometimes – hey, the guy was durable and helped a lot of different teams, that’s great! – but it’s nonetheless true that 10,000 yards gained over 7 seasons are more valuable than 10,000 yards gained over 10, in addition to the fact that peak value is subjectively more important to us when assessing greatness for things like Hall-worthiness.
– Irvin’s peak is just flat-out better. His Top 10 receiving yards seasons go: 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 4th, 8th, 8th. Carter’s: 7th, 7th, 7th, 8th, 10th. During the meat of Irvin’s prime, 1991-95, when Carter was in his 5th-9th pro seasons, Irvin was better every single year. Even if you queue up each receiver’s Top 5 seasons overall and compare them side-by-side, line-by-line, Irvin wins each battle. If you were to throw every season from both of them into one big hopper and pick out the five best, Irvin would probably have the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th best seasons.
– If you look at advanced stats the numbers skew even more towards Irvin. Going by pfr’s “Approximate Value” stat, Irvin has the best 4 seasons between them (and they’re tied for 5th/6th best season). It’s a particularly huge gap if you look at DVOA/DYAR. So far they only have DVOA numbers going back to 1992 (which cuts off Irvin’s huge '91), but in the numbers they do have Irvin has simply a gigantic advantage. In terms of DYAR, which is a measure of total accumulated value beyond what a replacement-level (waiver-wire type) player would provide, Carter has 1,972 in eleven seasons, while Irvin has 2,537 in *eight *seasons.
In DVOA, the rate stat on which DYAR is based, Irvin, from '92-'95, ranked 1st, 1st, 2nd, and 1st in the NFL, which represents a spectacular level of sustained dominance (and, again, no numbers are available for his huge 1991 season). Carter, OTOH, never ranked especially well according to DVOA. His best ranks were: 7th, 13th, 21st, 22nd, and then a bunch of seasons in the low-40s to low-50s.
Now, I don’t hold that DVOA/DYAR is infallible, or the last word of the debate, or anything of the sort. However, it is a stat that weeds out a lot of noise and biases in the data, and it is a helpful stat in this particular case because of exactly what it measures. The thing is this: DVOA likes possession receivers just fine. At a fundamental level it’s built around measuring progress made towards first downs, so teams and players do a good job of keeping the chains moving and stringing together conversions tend to get upvoted in these numbers more than others. Cris Carter was a possession receiver. If, despite having all those TD catches (which provide plenty of value in this system), his DVOA numbers were pretty ordinary (and sometimes downright mediocre) for almost his whole career, that suggests that Cris Carter was great at getting across the goal line, but not much better than average at getting across the first down line. That’s a pretty big problem for a possession receiver with an elite rep.
All of which is not to say that I think Carter doesn’t belong in the Hall. I think he does. But I think it’s fair to make him get in line behind a goo number of other players.
He’ll get there eventually.