I wonder what Montana's stats would have been if not for Jerry Rice and all the yards after catch he compiled.
Well, pretty good is the reasonable answer, given he won as many Super Bowls without Jerry as he did with him. Joe had 2 years of 90 or better rating with Rice and 3 of those without him. He had his best year just as Jerry was coming into his prime, which you'd expect given how great a wr Jerry was, but Montana's reputation and winning ways preceded the youngster, whose production was never the same after Joe left. But I'll come back to this in a moment.
Joe had an 11.25 yards per catch before Rice, including his anemic rookie year in that (with a weak 7.4).
With Jerry it was 12.33 per catch. About a yard difference. Less if you don't factor Joe's first year learning the system.
All Montana had to do was to compete a five yard pass to Rice and then Rice would stretch the completion to make it a fifty yard gain.
So then I looked at Joe's best year with Rice, 1989, 112 rating and an amazing 9+ yards per completion.
Montana threw for 3,521 yds and 26 tds.
Steve Young threw for 1,001 yards that year and 8 tds.
Steve Bono threw for 62 yards and 1 td.
So, combined, the qbs fro SF threw for 4,584 yards.
Jerry accounted for 1,483 of those yards. Leaving over 3,000 yards for Taylor, Craig, and others.
Meaning Rice was actually around 32% of the passing offense. Montana was largely throwing to others more often, which makes sense. He threw to the best man open, or threw him open. Jerry was that more often than any other receiver, but you are wrong about Joe's habits.
He developed them throwing Super Bowl winning drives and pulling teams together eight years before Jerry ever found the field.
Now Rice did generate a disproportionate number of tds, 17 out of the 36 total thrown by all quarterbacks, or just a little under half.
After all, no one even mentioned the stat called "Yards After Completion" until Rice came along.
Jerry was incredible and his time with Montana was productive, even though most of his prime was with Young.
He averaged 17.9 yards per reception with Joe in their relatively brief time together.
Without Joe, his average (in years where he eclipsed 1,000 yards) was 14.03 per catch.
Or, if you look at Joe's average yards per catch and Jerry's average per catch, you realize Joe had nearly four times the better impact on Jerry than the other way around.
Joe gained about a yard better per pass with Jerry on board. Jerry's average was 3.6 yards better with Joe throwing to him than anyone else.
His highest average after Joe only 15.3 per catch.
With Joe his best year was 20.4 per catch.
In other words, Joe's passing has a great deal to do with Rice's reputation. While he remained potent with Young and beyond, he was never as impressive as he was in those early five full time starting years with Joe, despite his physical prime coming as Joe left and the reigns were taken over by future Super Bowl winning and Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young.
It was easy for Montana's team mates to have confidence in Montana BECAUSE they knew that he would be throwing little dinky passes to Rice which Rice would break for a touchdown.
No. That's just bias and slight showing a want of knowledge, supra. They knew Joe was a winner, that he kept cool under pressure and that he won his hardware with almost completely different compliments. Jerry didn't make Montana's rep, but Joe helped make Jerry's.
