25 best Offensive Rookie of the Year winners ranked by playing career

25 best Offensive Rookie of the Year winners ranked by playing career: 24. Carl Pickens – Cincinnati Bengals

Carl Pickens is going to be a controversial pick, but he definitely deserves to be on this list. If you aren’t familiar with the career of Pickens, hold on, it’ll be a bumpy ride.

Pickens might have the worst rookie season to win the Offensive Rookie of the Year award of all time, but that’s not what this list is tracking. 1992 was a dreadful year for offensive rookies. He only had 326 yards on 26 receptions and one touchdown. It was bad. Like, very bad. They probably should have given the award to an offensive lineman just to say they did it.

Anyway, Pickens got a lot better. And fast. He had his first 1,000-yard season in 1994, and he then had 1,000 yards in three straight seasons and four of his next five. He led the league with 17 touchdowns in 1995, and he was a two-time Pro Bowl selection. He eventually had the Bengals franchise record with 63 touchdowns.

Remember, he did this with a lot of different quarterbacks. Jeff Blake in 1995 and 1996 was the only one who survived a season. In other years, he would start with Boomer Esiason, but had to endure games with David Klinger. He did the best with the situation he was given, but he might fall off the list pretty quickly once some of the young studs start to have longer careers.