Today’s Giants’ receivers:

Part 1: Where art thou, Giants’ receivers?

Mr. McConkey

As may or may not know, I’ve been a New York Giants fan since I was a kid and could finally understand what my dad was screaming about on Sundays. Right away, I loved the game and I loved the wide receiver position. My dad taught me how to run patterns like the button hook, the post, and the slant. I played wide receiver in high school. As I began to learn more about the game and its history I saw how the position changed over the years. I loved it all: Jerry Rice’s ability to run after a catch and ability to make a play when it was needed most, Sterling Sharpe’s great power and speed for his average-sized frame, Jimmy Orr’s calling and waiving to Earl Morrall for the ball in Super Bowl 3, Andre Read going across the middle and running for-yet-another-touchdown in 1990, and, of course, Lynn Swan’s premiere Super Bowl 13 catch—the greatest play ever viewed in slow motion. And what great names: Jerry Rice, Sterling Sharpe, Jimmy Orr, Lynn Swan, Fred Bilitnikoff, Dwight Clark, Al Toon, Art Monk, Flipper Anderson. This list goes on. Of course, there was my favorite receiver: Phil McConkey, who played for the Giants and made two exception plays in Super Bowl 21—one off a flea flicker and one off a tipped pass in the end zone for a touchdown. I’d never seen a receiver keep the ball after a touchdown before that play. All these receivers had great awareness and were able to create space for themselves on the field. They made plays. They were original.

Four Kings of Pass Catching

However, as much of a fan of McConkey as I am, outside of those two plays in the Super Bowl, he was not Jerry Rice or Jimmy Orr. Really, no Giants receiver had ever been or was to be a receiver of the first order in the near future. My favorite position was a deficit on my favorite team. For instance, in addition to Rice, San Francisco had Dwight Clark, Freddie Solomon, and John Taylor—all big-play makers in Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense. The Seahawks generally had little to celebrate from year to year in their club, but they had Steve Largent. When Largent retired in 1989 he had broken nearly all the basic receiving records in the NFL. And he was a bad ass—leveling Broncos safety Mike Harden in 1989 with a Hines Ward-like blind side tackle in revenge for a nasty hit he received from Harden in the two team’s first meeting that season. In this second meeting, Harden had intercepted the ball and was running it back when out of nowhere in the frame of view, Largent blasts him off his feet, separating the safety from the ball, recovering it and then talking trash to him as soon as the refs blew the play dead. Amazing. 

The Posse: Sanders, Clark, and Monk

Closer to home, the Giants’ division rival Redskins had their “Posse” made up of Art Monk, Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders, who in 1989 all had over 1000 yards receiving, together made 21 touchdowns, and contributed an average of 15 catches a game. That’s production at the wide receiver position. Put it in a frame and mount it on the wall. For comparison, with fewer games played no less, in 1987 Rice had 22 touchdowns alone. What I call anyone who is regularly productive at their position in pro football is a “Killer.” And we can’t forget the original Killer at wide receiver, Don Hutson, who, at the end of 10 seasons with Green Bay, was so far out ahead of all his contemporaries it took Largent a 14 year career 44 years later to break him.

For years after Y.A. Tittle, Frank Gifford, and Alex Webster retired, the Giants mostly had Killers on defense. Sure, maybe teams had to game plan a little for Fran Tarkenton, Joe Morrison, Homer Jones, Rob Tucker, Mark Bavaro and Joe Morris, but it was the defense they truly had to overcome. The Giants’ defense won them championships in 1986 and 1990 and made them competitive throughout that stretch of time. The Giants’ offense authored the Miracle at the Meadowlands. They were smash-mouth, ground and pound, and predictable on offense and aggressive, extremely physical, and smart on defense. During this time, their linebackers were the epitome of the position with Harry Carson, Carl Banks, Gary Reasons, Pepper Johnson, and the great Lawrence Taylor (also known simply as L.T.) as the standard-bearers. 

The real LT

God love ‘em, but McConkey, Lionel Emmanuel, Bobby Johnson, Mark Ingram, Stacy Robinson, and Steven Baker with the passing attack led by oft-injured quarterback Phil Simms scared nobody. The linebackers scared the entire league. Carson wrote prose and poetry about hurting running backs while forcing them to less than 4 yards per rushing attempt from 1981 to 1987, Banks’ nickname was “Killer,” and L.T. ended Joe Theisman’s career on a Monday night in 1985 when he literally broke his leg in half in front of everyone—its awkward bend to the side creating an audience and League-wide cringe. The next season L.T. was so dominant he would be the NFL’s MVP and lead the Giants to their first Super Bowl. As Bill Parcells would say years later, “He changed the way the game was played on offense.” 

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