There’s a stinger. Gruden had another presser yesterday I think where he inadvertently piled on even more.
Somehow I get the feeling, for no reason in particular, that RG will soon end up in silver-and-black.
Hence the word “almost.”
Herschel Walker and Jon Gruden notwithstanding, the evidence overwhelmingly points to this ALMOST always being a terrible idea and any self-respecting non-inept non-desperate team would do well to avoid such shenanigans.
And BTW, the Cowboys already had Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin and the Bucs were already a fully-formed championship-caliber team built by Tony Dungy (something Gruden has openly admitted).
Irvin and Aikman were good, but not great. The true strength of that Cowboys team was its offensive line and Emmitt.
And the championship-caliber team had failed to win anything resembling a championship in the four previous seasons.
By most every definition of the word, Irvin was great. He’s in the Hall of Fame, he almost had 8 straight seasons of 1000 yards receiving before it was so easy to do, and he’s top 10 of all time in yards per touch. Aikman was very good, but Irvin, as much as I dislike him as a person and despise him as a commentator, was great.
See, I would say that Emmitt was very good, but not great, simply because he had that awesome offensive line doing all the heavy lifting. Irvin didn’t have that benefit.
The Cowboys of the early 90s were a run-first team, though. Aikman never passed for 3500 yards and only threw 20+ TDs once. So Irvin never had to deal with heavy coverage schemes, while Emmitt saw lots of stacked fronts. He also always had solid #2s to keep secondaries honest (not to mention Jay Novacek.)
I’ll flip your argument, and say that Irvin was very good because teams had to really respect the Cowpokes’ running game. Emmitt’s the one who was great.
Name me a Hall of Fame WR who played with Walter Payton. Or Jim Brown. Or LaDanian Tomlinson.
Those guys consistently faced guys stacked to stop the run, and that didn’t make any of the good WR’s on their team, great.
Football is a team game, that’s why I enjoy it so much. So it’s absolutely true that it’s difficult to separate individual performances from team success. And the running game helps the passing game, and vice versa. But I find the claim that somehow a strong running game makes a WR (a 5 time Pro Bowl WR, who is in the top 10 all time of yards per touch) go from good to great. I don’t think Steve Largent was the product of Curt Warner. I don’t think Jerry Rice was the product of Roger Craig or Ricky Waters. And you’ll have a hard time convincing me Michael Irvin was.
Irvin was an idiot. A boob. A bad speaker. A self-promoting tool. But, at football, he was great.
As usual, total yardage stats are useless.
If a 1990s QB is throwing only 21 times a game (and Aikman had a lot of those games), it’s less likely to indicate the team doesn’t want to pass, and more likely to indicate that they were up by two scores at halftime. Just picking one year at random: in 1994, Aikman had only 23 attempts per game in wins, but 32 in losses. If the team as a whole lost more, Aikman and Irvin would have bigger numbers.
Agree with Hamlet: Irvin was the best of the triplets. (Getting away with constant OPI helps. Fucker used to mug CBs.)
Wouldn’t the fact that Irvin succeeded despite not having that many passes or yards thrown to work in his favor? Wouldn’t leading the league in receiving despite being on a run first team be more impressive rather than less? I’m not sure that follows.
Alvin Harper? Kevin Williams? They’re “solid” enough to make a good WR great? I don’t think so. If anything, Harper owes his big free agent signing money to Irvin, because after he left Dallas, he couldn’t even beat out the TE for receiving yards and didn’t start an NFL game just 2 years after leaving Dallas.
I agree that Irvin’s better than the receivers on those teams. Not sure if Vincent Jackson played with LT, but it’d be a coin flip for me between him and Irvin.
Really? You believe that VJax is as good as Michael Irvin? Vincent Jackson who been in the top 10 in yards receiving twice in his 10 year career compares with Irvin who did it 6 times? VJax who would need two years of 150 catches and 2000 yards receiving each to reach what Irvin did in the comparable amount of games? V Jax, who is playing in the pass happy NFL is comparable to Irvin? V. Jax, who has a career AV (a pro football reference stat) of 68, good for 604th place since 1950 is as good as Michael Irvin, who is 106th?
I think we’ll just have to disagree.
I don’t think the 90’s dallas offense would be much worse. Don’t think LT’s chargers would be much better. As you pontificated, it’s a team sport. Irvin has a weak TD total - when Dallas needed to score, they had better options.
Irvin was in the top 10 of TD totals for 5 years. VJax? Twice.
Irvin - 11.54 receptions per TD. VJax - 8.61. Consequently, Jackson has a shot of catching the HOFer next year; he’s only 11 behind.
VJax has 2 td’s in 11 games so far this year. At that rate, it should only take him over 60 more games to catch Irvin. Which shouldn’t be hard, because, as I pointed out earlier, he only needs two straight 150 catch, 2000 yard seasons to catch Irvin’s output in roughly the same amount of games.
Aikman > tampa bay’s qbs, maybe? No more LT-quality RB? Irvin’s rate and career total are weak.
What? A WR on a run first team and a great offensive line doesn’t have stellar TD numbers? Shocking, I say.
Personally, I don’t think having one particular stat (career td’s) lagging behind others negates an otherwise great career. We’ll have to disagree on that too.
Since the “our whole draft and 2 picks next year” is a deal that any franchise would take, why would you use that as evidence that the team that took the deal was mismanaged?
Yes, it happened to be Washington, and yes, they were mismanaged, but some other team would’ve loved to have snatched up that deal, and it would’ve been a sign of competent rather than incompetent management.
Incidentally, the Browns couldn’t take that ridiculous Ricky Williams deal because one of the rules the NFL put on the Browns to deliberately cripple the expansion team was that they were locked into that #1 pick.
I’m under the impression the goal of an offense is to score points. Irvin gets my gold star for best ever getting his team into the red zone. Hope that’ll satisfy you.