Since there isn’t much to do in the offseason, it’s always interesting to take a look at career statistics for active players and try to see how the NFL icons of today stack up against each other from a career standpoint. Houston Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson isn’t exactly happy with the team due to the rocky situation at quarterback, as the Texans only drafted likely project Tom Savage this year. I highly doubt a trade happens, and there’s no doubt that Johnson is a huge franchise icon for the Texans. The Carolina Panthers cut ties with expensive franchise icon Steve Smith, but the Texans aren’t about to trade their best player in franchise history for mere pennies on the dollar.
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Just how good is Johnson on a career scale when compared to other active players? I decided to use Pro-Football Reference’s “Play Index” to take a look at which active receivers have the most career games with at least 100 receiving yards, and it was Johnson who led the pack with 51 games. No other wide receiver has 50 such games, and only Smitty is within five (46) of Johnson.
Here’s the top ten:
1. Andre Johnson 51
2. Steve Smith 46
3. Reggie Wayne 45
4. Larry Fitzgerald 40
5. Calvin Johnson 40
6. Anquan Boldin 39
7. Roddy White 38
8. Brandon Marshall 32
9. Tony Gonzalez 31
10. Wes Welker 31
While Andre Johnson has the most games with at least 100 receiving yards, Calvin Johnson stands out the most on this list of ten due to the number of 100+ receiving-yard games he’ll accrue throughout this career. He, Marshall, and Welker have the least amount of years (played since 2007) of the pass-catchers on this list, but Johnson has the fewest games played of all of them with 106 under his belt (he also has the lowest winning percentage at 35%, so hopefully he can enjoy a playoff entrance this year). Already tied with Fitzgerald, this stat is yet another example of just how dominant Megatron is, and he and Michael Irvin are the only two players in NFL history with 11 games with at least 100 receiving yards in a single season.
The Houston Texans have one of the best wide receiver duos in the NFL in Johnson and DeAndre Hopkins, and it’s a shame that they most likely won’t have an adequate quarterback next year. Not only does it give Johnson less of an opportunity to build to his Hall of Fame resume, but Hopkins won’t have the numbers to show just how talented he is. It’s worth noting that Hopkins had just 91 targets last year compared to a whopping 181 for Johnson, who was honestly overtargeted by subpar quarterbacks looking to force him the ball when under duress.