Why You Shouldn't Count Avery Out Quite Yet

Recently I was on stltoday.com posting on the topic of Donnie Avery and people were comparing his stats the past two years to those of other good receivers of the past so I did some research and here is what I found (Terrell Owens, Reggie Wayne, Hines Ward, Steve Smith, Cris Carter, Tim Brown).

'96 was Owens' first season and he put up 520 yds. and 4 TDs with Jerry Rice putting up huge #s, then in the '97 season Rice missed the whole season due to injury and Owens broke out with 936 yds. and 8 TDs.Steve Young was the QB so they had a good QB. This shows that Owens didn't just benefit from being a #2 guy at the same time he could have broken out because there was only one other solid receiver in J.J. Stokes who put up 733 yds. and 4 TDs so without Rice they had to go to Owens which explains the rise in stats.

Wayne had Harrison who put up huge #s and had Peyton Manning throwing to him. Wayne put up 345 yds. and 0 TDs in '01 and had 716 yds. and 4 TDs in '02.This shows that he broke out in year 2.

Ward's rookie year in '98 he had 246 yds. and 0 TDs and put up 638 yds. and 7 TDs the next year which shows him as a solid #2 guy.In '98 the Steelers had a lot of #2 and #3 guys like us with nobody really being a star.Charles Johnson had 815 yds. and 7 TDs while Courtney Hawkins had 751 yds. and 1 TD.They had a poor QB in Kordell Stewart at the time as he was putting up pretty bad #s.

Smith's rookie year in '01 he only had 154 yds. and 0 TDs but this is because he only started 1 game.They also had Mushin Muhammad who put up 585 yds. and 1 TD and Donald Hayes who had 597 yds. and 2 TDs.Smith broke out in '02 with 872 yds. and 3 TDs while Muhammad put up 823 yds. and 3 TDs.They had a pretty poor QB in Chris Weinke.

Carter only put up 84 yds. and 2 TDs in his rookie year('87)but he only played in 9 games and had 0 starts.The Eagles had Kenny Jackson put up 471 yds. and 3 TDs and Mike Quick put up 790 yds. and 11 TDs.In the '88 season Carter broke out with 761 yds. and 6 TDs while Quick had 508 yds. and 4 TDs.They had a solid QB in Randall Cunningham.Although Quick was sort of a #1 in '87 he was only a #2 type in '88.

Tim Brown had a good rookie year in '88 with 725 yds. and 5 TDs(he played in 16 games and had 9 starts).He was injured in '89 and missed the season pretty much.Then between '90 and '91 he was used mostly as a returner probably due to the injury as he had 0 starts and 1 in '91.In '90 he had 265 yds. and 3 TDs, this all makes it seem as though the injury really slowed him down as he never hit 1000 yds. until '93.The Raiders had poor QB play.

The conclusion of all of this shows these similarities.

1. Most of these guys had bad or ok rookie years and took off in year 2 or at least became a solid contributor-similar to Avery who isn't a stellar #2 yet but has been solid much like these receivers.

2. The WRs with good QBs broke out fairly quick while the ones with poor to solid QBs had a tougher time-similar to Avery.

3. Having a #1 guy already before a WR gets to a team can do 2 things: either he benefits from having less pressure on hime both by his team and opponents or he can be hindered by not getting the ball much because a QB already has a go to guy.

Players take time to adjust and Avery has been dealt a tough hand in his first two seasons with coaching and scheme changes, injuries, and little to work with and much like these other receivers I think the possibility of Avery becoming a great receiver is still there.