It seems there are a few misconceptions about Jimmy Smith's career.
1. That he played a long time and while his career stats are impressive, they are the result of being pretty good for a long time but never great.
Jimmy only really played 10 seasons worth of games. He missed 4 games with the drug suspension in 2003 and started 4 games at the end of the 1995 season. He did miss 2 starts and 1 game in 2000. So his career was basically 1996-2005. He had 862 catches for 12,287 yards. So he averages out to around 85 catches and 1,200 yard per season. In that time frame he had 9 seasons over 1,000 yards and in the drug suspension year he had over 800 yards in 12 games.
People keep comparing him to Art Monk. In a less pass happy era, Monk only had 5 seasons over 1,000 yards, only 3 seasons with 80 or more catches(Jimmy had 6) and played 15 seasons. With those 5 extra years Monk ended his career less than 100 more catches and less than 500 more yards. Jimmy had 1,000 yards last season, he did not extend his career to milk stats.
Jimmy did not have a long career. He is 37 now, but injury and being cut by the Cowboys resulted in a delayed start to his career. His career stats are almost all from a 10 years stretch and 10 years is not a long time for a WR to play.
2. That he caught a lot of balls but was never a bigtime TD threat.
Here are some numbers: 19, 18, 20, 14 20, 19, 17, 14, 15, 15. That's the number of TDs thrown by Brunell and Leftwich in the years they played with Jimmy. Some of the years there were some TDs thrown by other QBs, but not enough to change my point. In Jimmy Smith's career there were two seasons were a QB had 20 TDs, and all the rest were under 20. He was never in an offense that would allow him to have bigtime TD numbers. He was not a great goalline threat as a WR but produced a good amount of TDs when you factor in the systems he played in. He had 178 catches over 20 yards, 39 over 40 yards and averaged 14.3 per catch. It's not like was a short yardage, ball control only WR.
3. That his numbers look good compared to old time WRs, but they aren't that great compared to other WRs in the more pass happy recent NFL.
Only Marvin Harrison has more catches and more yards than Jimmy from 1996 to the present. And that's with Manning in the colts offense. What could Jimmy have done with the colts, vikings, san fran/philly over the last 10 years? We'll never know. But his numbers are outstanding and he played in a non-aggressive system his whole career. In fact the passing numbers for the Jags do compare to the numbers of teams in the pre-pass-happy NFL era, so perhaps comparing Jimmy's numbers to older WRs isn't that much of a stretch. In reference to Monk, Theismann has some seasons in the early 80's that were much better than any season one of Jimmy's QBs ever had.
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A lot of people will say that Jimmy should not be in the Hof just because of his stats, that his skills weren't HoF level. I see it the other way. I don't think Jimmy is a Hof'r because his stats aren't good enough, namely his TDs. Jimmy's skill as a WR was certianly HoF level. But his stats just aren't that eye catching. I can blame it on the Jags system, but in the end he did not put up the numbers you expext from a HoF WR in the modern era. But that does not change that fact that for 10 years he was exceptional. He was not a pretty good WR that just padded is stats with a long career.
I regret that many of you obviously missed seeing Jimmy play enough to truly understand how good he was. He was a joy to watch, battled every play, and was as good as anyone in the game for those 10 years.
Took the words right out of my mouth...
