In my brother's blog, he wrote a recent post about the relative performance of Marvin Harrison and Terrell Owens, two superstar wide receivers in the NFL. This is my arena, my wheelhouse, so i decided to look deeper into the numbers.
The crux of his argument was that the two WRs have played for different types of offenses. But are those differences more than nominal? He claimed that Owens' teams threw more to their RBs and TEs, a claim easily checked, but only by dorks like me. In their 10+ seasons, here's what i found:
Marvin's teams averaged only 2% more passing attempts, generating 5% more pass completions and 7% more passing yards. And it was true that the RBs/TEs were less involved on Harrison's teams, but only to the tune of 5% less. If that was close to the margin of difference between the two players' statistics, I'd say The Calvinator has a point. Instead, Harrison has logged a whopping 27% more receptions than TO, and 16% more receiving yards.
So, not even counting the possibility that Marvin's team threw to their WRs more because of Marvin, and certainly not even counting the turmoil that seems to follow TO, this is a no-brainer. Marvin has had the better career.
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