The continuation of our countdown of the best Cincinnati Bengals wide receivers in franchise history moves closer to its conclusion as we look at No. 2.
In mere days (finally), the Cincinnati Bengals will be fully into training camp and moving one step closer to the start of the 2018 season. This year, the Bengals hope to take a tremendous step forward from a largely disastrous 2017 campaign.
As we wait for that time though, our exercise has been looking at some of the greatest players in the history of the franchise. That began with quarterbacks, then the running backs. Since then, we’ve started a countdown of the greatest wide receivers for the Bengals.
Today we will look at the No. 2 wide receiver in franchise history.
2. A.J. Green
Before Green joined the Bengals, Cincinnati could easily have fallen into 1990s-esque depths of despair after the way 2010 ended for them. The team went 4-12, second four-win season in three years. Their franchise quarterback was fed up with ownership constantly being too cheap to make a genuine effort towards building a top-end roster around him, demanding a trade and retiring until it happened.
The team’s star receiver — the only player higher on this list than Green — was allowed to leave after a decade setting records and being the de-facto for the franchise. Big changes needed to happen quickly, or this franchise could easily relive their Bungles heyday yet again.
Lucky for Cincinnati, from the moment he was drafted Green has been nothing short of a great receiver. He’s been an elite number one option for Andy Dalton and the Bengals in every one of his seven seasons, making the Pro Bowl every year of his career to date. 6-4 height, excellent ball skills, explosive deep speed; he’s got all the pieces you would build a receiver with from scratch, and consistently reaches his potential as a dynamic top option as much as any elite receivers in the NFL.
His play has given him an enormous cache of stats to to dispel any argument against his placement in the league’s wide receiver hierarchy. Only once in seven years has Green failed to reach 1,000 yards in a season; that came in 2016, where he played in just 10 games and collected 964 yards — a rate which would’ve given him a career-high 1,542 yards had he been available for all 16 contests. He’s never had less than 100 targets or 65 catches, and grabbed at least 75 on four separate occasions. Three times, he’s come away with 10+ touchdowns.
His Pro Football Focus grades have always been excellent as well. He was 0.5 away from rating as above-average every single season by their metrics (80+ on a 0-100 scale) and three times he was High Quality (85+) — each of which is a noteworthy accomplishment for anyone in PFF’s grading system. This speaks not only of his high-level peaks in production, but also points to just how consistently he is able to get to those.
That combination of high-end play and excellent consistency is what has really elevated him to a level above the guys before him. Green has already managed more 100+ yard receiving efforts that Carl Pickens (31 to 30) — in 18 less games no less — but Green’s impact goes even further beyond. Green has grabbed double-digit catches in a game 10 times. He has surpassed 150+ yards in a single game 10 times as well, and even broken through the 200 yard barrier twice. On a season-long basis, he has five of the top 20, three of the top 10, and the third overall marks for receiving yards in a single-season in franchise history.
Next: NFL Training Camp: One rookie who must impress from each team
In the end, placing Green at No. 2 was a highly difficult decision. Give Green a few more years, and it may well still be a tough determination, but with Green favored that time. I can’t say that Green having three less seasons to his credit isn’t the true culprit to why he’s not leading this list; give him time, and he probably will. For now though, there’s at least no way he can be any lower than No. 2.