Cincinnati Bengals: Best wide receivers in team history, Interesting Extras

Before we look at the best wide receivers in Cincinnati Bengals history, we start with a look at some of the other notable and interesting players at the position throughout team history.

The Cincinnati Bengals come into 2018 with one of the league’s top wideouts, and many interesting talents throughout the position on the depth chart. But since we’re at the slow part of the season, it is a good time to ponder just where some of this talent may rank in the hierarchy of the position across this franchise’s 50+ years in existence.

We’ve already ranked the top five quarterbacks and running backs for the Bengals. Now we move on to the pass-catchers.

But before we get into the best of the best, let’s start with the leftovers of note.

The Interesting Extras

This will include not only some really good players who just miss out on the main list, but also players who may have been one-hit wonders, awful to a noteworthy degree, or even just memorable for a funny name or goofy play when recounting Cincinnati’s past.

Chip Myers

One of Cincinnati’s first true wide receivers in franchise history. Due to playing at a time when the passing game was decades away from becoming the primary focus for just about any team to build an offense around, his stats won’t wow you. His best season fell short of 60 receptions and 800 receiving yards (57 receptions, 792 yards) in a season where he made the freaking Pro Bowl (1972). Still, he did enough to today be among the top ten in receiving yardage for wide receivers in team history, and stands as just one of ten players in team history to surpass 3,000 career receiving yards (3,079).

Craig Yeast

Hilarious name, but that’s about it. Yeast played just two seasons with the Bengals, picking up nearly all of his career 321 receiving yards in the 2000 season. He actually made a better impact as a returner, where he had two punt return touchdowns.

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Chris Henry

Less funny, more sad. Henry was the poster child for Cincinnati’s propensity for bringing in players with off-field problems. He had plenty of talent, but his issues away from the gridiron never allowed him to take a meaningful step to bringing his potential to fruition. Speeding, pot possession, driving without a valid license, gun charges, drunk driving, assault…you name it, he did it, and among other things it forced him into multiple suspensions.

Add in the injuries which seemed to strike every time he did begin to make positive strides, as well as his eventual accidental death due to injuries sustained after falling out the back of a moving vehicle, and it cements him as the most star-crossed player in franchise history.

Peter Warrick

Since the turn of the century, the No. 1 receiver spot has possibly been the most stable position on Cincinnati’s roster. That No. 2 spot has often been steady, but unspectacular. Warrick was supposed to be that top guy after getting drafted #4 overall in 2000, or at least be the No. 2 when Chad Johnson eventually emerged not long after, but it was never to be.

He couldn’t eclipse 700 yards in any of his first three seasons, and while he did put in an impressive 2003 campaign (79 catches, 819 yards, seven touchdowns), his success was a flash in the pan. An early injury the next year would essentially end his Bengals career, with an in-house replacement stepping in to do what he never consistently could.

T.J. Houshmandzadeh

Houshmandzadeh was that in-house replacement. He showed signs of being a quality option in his first couple seasons, and once Warrick was out of commission in 2004, he started to shine. From 2004-2008, Houshmandzadeh picked up 900+ receiving yards every year (including two 1,000+ yard seasons), combining with Johnson to form one of the NFL’s top receiving duos for half a decade.

He was a reception machine at his peak, corralling 70+ catches in those five seasons, with 90+ each in 2006-2008. His 2007 was exceptional, and is perhaps the best single-season campaign for a wide receiver in team history: 112 receptions (career-best, franchise-best, and the league-leading tally for that year), 1,143 yards (career-best, 14th-highest in team history), 12 touchdown receptions (career-best, tied for third-most in a single season in team history). Had he been with the team a little longer, he’d easily be on the main list.

Jerome Simpson

Simpson is a perfect example of why athletic talent is not the end-all, be-all for a successful player. Simpson made some spectacular highlight-reel plays throughout his career, but he was never able to find any sort of consistency with the Bengals (or any team, for that matter). Even in his best season with the team, he caught less than half of the passes thrown his way, and he only brought in 7 touchdowns in four seasons with the team. Physical traits can be game changers, but alone all they make is a player guaranteed to frustrate everybody involved.

Terrell Owens

2010 was a tough time for Cincinnati. A tough playoff loss in the 2009 playoffs saw the Bengals go 4-12, surely playing a huge role in Carson Palmer soon after demanding a trade and retiring until it cam to fruition. That season saw the Bengals take a gambit on their offense being built around two of the biggest personalities at wide receiver in league history, and it did little to help the team find success. Statistically though, Owens had a solid year to finish off a Hall of Fame career: 72 catches, 983 receiving yards, and nine touchdowns.

Marvin Jones/Mohamed Sanu

These two are a link back to Cincinnati’s most recent playoff runs — and a reminder of what happens when teams decide to get too cheap with their players. Both were huge components in Cincinnati fielding possibly the most talented team in the league in 2015, and had it not been for Andy Dalton’s thumb injury and/or some terrible luck against the Steelers that year they would have been a good bet to make a deep playoff run.

Each would end up getting large offers on the open market that offseason — and it wouldn’t have been responsible to keep both because of that — but to not really entertain keeping either was damaging. Not having Jones’ deep threat potential or Sanu’s versatility has left Cincinnati searching for that very same thing with a litany of unproven options, and their inability to find players with that ability has held back the offense while their former receivers thrive elsewhere.

Darnay Scott

Though never exactly great, Scott was about as consistently good a receiving option as you’ll come across. In his eight seasons with Cincinnati, he was just three yards away from accumulating at least 800 receiving yards every year for the Bengals. His touchdown totals were consistent as well: 5 TD catches each year from 1994-1997, then 7 TD catches in both 1998 and 1999. There wasn’t much good for Cincinnati in the 1990s, but Scott was a lone bright spot in the despair of the Bungles-era Bengals.

Isaac Curtis

The toughest out from the main list. Purely by the gross totals, Curtis is easily among the top five receivers in team history. He is one of only three receivers with 7,000+ receiving yards in team history (7,101), one of only four with 50+ touchdown receptions (53), and one of only six with 400+ catches (416). Why wouldn’t he make it to the main list, then?

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Simply put, he had the luxury of accumulating those stats over a much longer period of time than his counterparts competing for the top spots. Curtis had the pleasure of playing 12 seasons with Cincinnati; in them, he was able to methodically pick up his stats. Meanwhile, most of the main list players only lasted between 7-8 seasons with the team, and all of them were much more efficient in accumulating their stats. Curtis did make four straight Pro Bowls, but it can’t be ignored that he never eclipsed 50 catches or 1,000 yards in a season, only once went over 900 receiving yards, and averaged less than 600 receiving yards per season.

He was a quality option in his day, but his longevity in a time long before free agency is more than anything what gives him an edge in the numbers on the franchise leaderboards. Give any of those others who came after him that sort of time with the team, and they likely surpass him with ease no matter the era they played in.

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