Rhodes Closed wrote: ↑Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:00 pm
https://twitter.com/nickolsonnfl/status ... 10177?s=21
With 311 receiving yards on the year, K.J. Osborn is now officially the #Vikings' most productive WR3 over the last five years.
It's been six games.
Boy howdy, how amazing would it be if this kid gets 1000 receiving yards? He's currently on pace for 881 yards on the season.
Justin Jefferson has 542 yards, and Adam Thielen has 393 yards; that's on pace for 1,535 and 1,113 yards, respectively.
1,535 - Jefferson (proj.)
1,113 - Thielen (proj.)
and 881 - Osborn (proj.)
To put that into perspective:
The height of the Carter/Moss/Reed era, 1999, was: 1,241 yards, 1,413 yards, and 643 yards respectively.
Yeah, it might not be a very bold statement to say that Jefferson, Thielen, and Osborn may be as good as Moss, Carter, and Reed. Let's debate it fellas.
The biggest problem with comparing those two groups of receivers is one group was perfectly complementary and thus very explosive, while the other group is much more similar in terms of skill set and generally less exposive. Of course, some of that has to do with the coaching and overall offensive philosophy, so its not apples-apples, but I see the 1998 group as having one of the best possession receivers of all time in Cris Carter, one of the best overall and deep threat receivers of all time in Randy Moss, and one of the best mid-range, find gaps in coverage receivers of his era in Jake Reed. Combined, the three of them were nearly unstoppable, and you couple those varied skill sets with the equally explosive running game the Vikings of that era had with Robert Smith capable of cracking off a TD on any given carry, and defenses could at best hope to slow them down most games.
This year's skill position trio has a little more of a similar set of skills than a complementary set. Each of them does kind of the same thing well. None are particularly scary or effective deep threats. All of them are good route runners and good at finding gaps in coverage. None of them are particularly great possession receivers, but all are capable of making some tough catches. If I had to compare them to the trio of Moss-Carter-Reed, I'd say all are closest to Reed in terms of base skills, but all have better than Reed skills. Put another way, none are as exceptional as Moss or Carter, but all are probably better than Reed was in his prime.
Of course, this team also has the running threat of Dalvin Cook, and when Cook is healthy he's every bit as dangerous as Smith ever was. He's just not as reliable a starter as Smith was IIRC.
Other factors for comparison are the QB and OL, both of which were pretty dang good during that 1998 season. That OL especially was super effective, and Cunningham was launching the ball all over the place with reckless abandon. This year's OL seems to have potential to continue to get better, and while Cousins is capable of launching the ball all over, he's never going to do it with reckless abandon.
One thing I will say about this year's offensive team, however, is I don't think they've played near their best football yet. When you look at the skill position players this team has, and you look at the draft capital invested in the OL, this team should be a top 5 offense easy. Whether they can actually get to that level I don't know, but the talent should be there to do it.
But that 1998 offense set records that stood for years, and even today is among the best of all time. Even if the 2021 offense starts to play to what I think its potential is, I don't think they're going to be the best offense in the league this year, much less in the all-time offense conversation. They're capable of being good, even very good, but I don't see them being great. I hope they make me eat those words.
