Who was the most dominant rookie (offense or defense) of All-Time?
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Eric Dickerson, 1808 yards, 18 TD, led the league in yards from scrimmage. Absolutely dominant.
Dickerson has a prolific season to be sure, but can you really top Randy Moss for the Vikings in 1998? 69 catches for 1,313 yards and 17 TDs? You can’t ask much more from a wide receiver. Oh and his Vikings went 15-1 that year. Dickerson’s Rams were 9-7. He may be an idiot off the field, but he is brilliant on it.
I have to say that I debated in my head about whether to say Moss or Dickerson. I chose to go with Dickerson because Moss didn’t even lead his team in receptions his rookie year, Cris Carter did.
For Dickerson, he had a standout offensive line in front of him, to be sure but the 83 Rams didn’t have any passing game to speak of. Vince Ferragamo was their QB who had more picks than TDs and their leading receiver was the illustrious Mike Barber with a whopping 55 catches. Dickerson was the second leading receiver with 51 catches. I’d say that that was a pretty one dimensional team. ALL RUN. and to have the kind of numbers that he did I think puts him a step above Randy Moss’ performance.
It is hard to argue against Dickerson when it comes to numbers…what he accomplished (1808, 18TD) would be great for any running back. Lets throw in the mix Lawrence Taylor and Ben Roethlisberger. LT (who is ESPN.Com’s choice for best rookie all time), came in 1981 and the Giants went from 4-12 to 9-7. Big Ben, whose numbers are not incredible, was almost undefeated as a rookie. Perhaps impact on a team should be part of the mix….
I would have to dimiss Big Ben… I wasn’t impressed with his game last year… He won… but looking at this year and Kyle Orton… winning doesn’t mean everything. LT was definitely dominant and he totally changed the game. that’s for sure.
I do understand that the run-heavy Steelers call into question whether or not Ben is truly an excellent quarterback…winning isn’t everything, which comes to light with Kyle Orton. I think he is perhaps the worst winning quarterback of all time. Huh, good question…what quarterbacks have been winners (team record wise) but were just plain bad quarterbacks?
Dickerson seems the choice here. Earl Campbell sure was awesome RB as a rookie, and had huge impact on Oilers and the game. As for receiver, I think John Jefferson of San Diego tops Moss’ rookie year. had like 46 catches for over 1000 yards in 1978 in an era which the pass catching numbers were less and yards per catch were more. Jefferson looked a lot like Lynn Swann on some of the catches he had. He would have made many ESPN highlights.
In my opinion Randy Moss had the most dominant rookie season in NFL history. He caught only 69 balls the whole season, caught 17 td’s + 1313 yards for a 19.0 per catch average, and what most people don’t know about his rookie year was Moss had 14 catches of over 40 yards or better which is the all-time single season record, PLUS only Jerry Rice, Sterling Sharpe, Cris Carter, Mark Clayton, and Carl Pickens have ever even caught 17 td’s in one season. and each one of those great players had more than 69 catches on the year. I mean dickerson is a great player and all, but he touched the ball over 450 times in 1983. it just goes to show that Moss had the better rookie year.