I'm not saying Mathis was not good, just not great. '98 was a good year. Run heavy with a good verticle pass attack in which both he and Tony Martin broke over 1,00 Yards. 99 Was not a run heavy year at all (373 Carries to 509 pass attempts), but MAthis was far and away the most productive guy. He was a good player, but its not as if we let Jerry rice in his prime walk. This was a guy that had a Few good seasons, in mostly pass oriented offenses. '97 and '98 were the only close to balenced years, while the rest of the 94-99 years pass attempts out paces rushes by a great deal.
If I'm not mistaken '99 was the year Jamal Anderson injured his knee and was out for the season. Obviously the falcons passed more that season. Mathis will make no one forget about Jerry Rice.
Haha, Terance Mathis. It's how I became close friends with my rabid Jets fan friend, Vinnie. "Guy goes to Atlanta, he's bound for stardom." :lol:
We did get Don Maynard as a reject and he turned out pretty good. Wasnt Unitas a free agent? And how many teams passed on Marino and Joe Montana before they were drafted? How do you think Atlanta feels about dealing Farve? Or Indy feels about dealing Elway? Or maybe how does San Diego feel about dealing Eli? Every team screws the pooch from time to time. Maybe we will be laughing at Cleveland for dealing us Sanchez?????
My point exactly...thanks. I think it's kinda interesting/ironic or whatever that Chansi spent this off-season working extensively with Mathis to try and help him develop into a #2 wideout and not be limited/typecast as strictly a slot guy.
Neither one of you addressed the point that the stats quoted were comparing a #3 guy in Stuckey with a #4 receiver who was playing behind much better receivers than Stuckey has been. OF COURSE Mathis did not see more of the ball than he did. And he went to Atlanta and caught 111 balls in the next season. As I said, I don't see Stuckey doing that no matter where he plays.
The other thing to think about regarding Mathis is how changing one thing in the past can alter all kinds of history. For example, if we had Mathis as a productive #1 WR during the mid-90s, we'd still have been a bad team, maybe Chrebet never gets a chance to make the roster and maybe we don't draft Keyshawn with the #1 overall pick. In hindsight, the way things worked out was probably best, although again there were certainly a few years there where we saw him succeeding for Atlanta while we sucked and could have used him.
The Jets did not try to match the offer from the Steelers because our new DC loved Sam Cowart (who was comimg off a horrible knee injury).
