Most Efficient Deep-Threat WR Ever...Don Beebe.

Woody

Woody

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I was looking up Don Beebe's stats for the heck of it and noticed that he had an incredible amount of "home-run, flip the field" TDs (What I would consider 60+yard TD receptions) considering how few catches he had. I decided to look up a few "deep threat" WRs to compare him to:

Don Beebe: 8 TD receptions over 60 yds. 219 Career receptions. 3.65% of his receptions go for a 60+yd TD.

Randy Moss "Greatest Deep Threat All Time:" 16 TD receptions over 60 yds. 954 career receptions. 1.67% of catches his go for a 60+yd TD.

Desean Jackson "Best Deep Threat in the Game Today:" 7 TD catches over 60 yds. 230 career receptions. 3.04%

James Lofton (known as a great deep threat, played with Beebe for the Bills):11 60+ yd TDs, 764 career catches 1.43%

The only WR who I could find who compared with Beebe was...
Lance Alworth: 19 60+yd TDs, 542 career catches, 3.5%

You can say that with more involvement in the passing game Beebe's ratio would have dropped, but I don't know...Alworth was heavily featured (albeit in a different era) and his ratio is about the same. Desean Jackson is heavily featured and his ratio is in the neighborhood of Beebe's. If Beebe had been allowed to start I believe we would consider him to be the greatest deep threat of all time. That's just my opinion (backed up with stats). Beebe was incredibly fast, there is no reason to believe he was lucky to get those TDs. He had all the tools to be an incredible home-run threat.

I would be interested to see if there are any WRs who caught a substantial amount of balls who have a better ratio. I only looked up a few WRs who I know where known for their home-run TDs.

Thanks for reading, I was bored and had 45 mins.
 
Don Wassall

Don Wassall

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Another nice post, Woody. It's crazy that Beebe was never "allowed" to be a starter. He played in the late '80s to mid-'90s, which was the nadir for White receivers in the Caste System era that began some 30 years ago.

I remembered a game in which Beebe had 4 receiving touchdowns against the Steelers, and checked Pro Football Reference to make sure my memory was accurate. And it was -- Sept. 8, 1991, Buffalo beat Pittsburgh 52-34. But 1991 was the only season Beebe had more than 4 TDs, and he ended up with just 6 that year. He was greatly underutilized, and Steve Tasker was almost as good but was relegated to special teams almost his entire career.

The Bills should have started Beebe on the outside along with Lofton (who they had at the end of his career), with Tasker in the slot. After Lofton retired it should have been Beebe and Tasker outside with the slower Andre Reed as the possession receiver. But that was unthinkable of course, even for the Bills who were the Whitest team in the NFL during their run of four straight AFC championships.
 
S

sport historian

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JReb1 said:
Don Maynard was an incredible deep threat for the Jets and they didn't pass a lot during his playing days. Don averaged almost 19 yards a reception for his career and he had 633 receptions and 88 TD's.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/MaynDo00.htm
Click to expand...

What do you mean by "they didn't pass a lot?" Did you ever see the Jets play between 1965-69 when they had Namath throwing to Maynard and George Sauer?
 
Leonardfan

Leonardfan

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sport historian said:
What do you mean by "they didn't pass a lot?" Did you ever see the Jets play between 1965-69 when they had Namath throwing to Maynard and George Sauer?
Click to expand...

Beebe was an awesome player. Although this specifies his role as a WSTD I still remember that play in the super bowl when that moron Leon Lett was showboating into the end zone and Beebe came out of nowhere displaying his word class speed and making a clown of that turd lett.
 
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