Thread: BEST ALL TIME BEARS WR's.. Who ya got?

On that point, I agree with you, Benj. We've not had "great" wrs, and traded our last pro bowler for a DE that went gradually downhill with us....

Favorite: Curtis Conway
Best individual season: Marcus Robinson
Best Career with Bears: Willie Gault.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaJeff

Dennis McKinnon deserves Honorable Mention.

I'd agree with you Jeff. Willie Gault was the flash and fire in that mid 80's offense but Dennis McKinnon was a far more reliable and better all around WR than Gault. I put him up there with Neal Anderson as one of the most underappreciated Bears of the 80's.

I'd have to rank Harlon Hill as the best all time WR the Bears ever had and lump him in with Ken Kavanaugh as tops in the pre 60's era. Dick Gordon was very underrated as a Bears wideout. He and Johnny Morris were RB's in college who became top notch WR's in their day although Morris was not the deep threat that Gordon was. Morris was more of a flanker and much like an Earl Bennett, very dependable.

Conway and Graham get the nod for the best pass catching tandem we ever fielded but once again the lack of an adequate QB after Kramer was lost kind of ended their best days. I like Marty Booker and Bobby Engram as great posession type guys who could always be counted on for the tough catches but that's always the story with the Bears. With few exceptions our best WR's have tended to be #2 type posessions guys and not great downfield threats. Those speedsters that we did have like Gordon, Gault and Conway has relatively few top productive years with the Bears before either getting injured (Gordon and Robinson) or moving on to new teams (Gault and Conway). Maybe Johnny Knox can break that mold for us. He's done an incredible job in just two years for a smallish guy and once he learns his routes better and they get him the ball in the right way I think he has the potential to become the #1 type of guy that Hester never could.

Originally Posted by dabears54

Soul , think mckinnon, engram and now bennett all in the same 'class" of under-appreciated WR's,, but think both Engram and looks like bennett will be a step above mckinnon, as said only had 2 season's of even 500 yards and none 710+yards.. engram did much better and already bennett has 561 and 717 yards... so think he will pass by Mckinnon soon also

That may be true in terms of yardage but he's was as effective for a few years as either Engram or Bennett. There's also the fact that both Engram and Bennett were fairly high picks (both 3rd I believe) and McKinnon made the team as a FA and didn't get a chance to shine right away. He was playing behind James Scott and Ricky Watts before that I think. There was also Baschnagel and Margerum (Mac's boy) to contend with. I've just always liked the guy for both his play and his consistency.

I think Earl Bennett will eventually be one of the most effective WR's we've ever had. We finally have a great QB and a pass oriented OC and Cutler has played quite a bit with him and trusts him to be where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be. It wouldn't surprise me at all to seem him become the Bears Hines Ward.

That's why I hate ranking guys based on all time stats especially guys who I haven't even seen play. I know how hard it may be for some of the younger guys to appreciate even the 80's Bears when many of them never saw them play. With me it's the same with WR's like Hill and Kavanaugh. All I know of them is their legends and there are also so many variables to consider. Like how much better would Dick Gordon's stats have been if he hadn't had guys like Nix, Concannon and Douglass throwing to him?

I like to eyeball these guys and think about the impact they had on the Bears teams of their era. To me it's more than just stats and I think that, for instance, Dennis McKinnon was a bigger difference maker for the 80's Bears than Bobby Engram was for the 90's early 00's Bears even though Engram had better stats.

Matter of opinion. Just the difference in the way we look at it.