Catch The Rising Stars

Michael Irvin had the video control in his hand, so he could stop the game tape whenever he wanted to. He didn't want to. Not now, not this tape, not this game. Up there on the big screen in a meeting room at the Dallas Cowboys' practice facility, the Cowboys were beating the Washington Redskins, and Irvin was beating Darrell Green, the Skins' five-time Pro Bowl cornerback. Nine catches, 130 yards. That's a beating. It happened at RFK Stadium last November, when Dallas upended Washington 24-21 to hand the Redskins their first loss in 12 games and Irvin surpassed the 1,000-yard mark in receptions with four games left in the regular season.

On the screen, Irvin ran a deep curl, Troy Aikman threw the ball, Green recovered, Irvin boxed him out, Irvin caught the pass, Green leveled him—plus 17 yards. Irvin ran a slant, Green stayed all over him, Irvin made the catch—good for 13. "Look at how great Darrell plays this," said Irvin. "He plays it perfect. I've got to box him out to catch this ball. He's the best."

But on it went: a pop over the middle for nine, a curl for 11, two catches that went for 20 and 44 yards were called back on penalties at the line of scrimmage, and, then, at the start of the fourth quarter, the clincher, a deep slant, with the ball thrown behind Irvin at the Washington four. He reached back, snagged it and spun around Green, who was left grasping at air. Touchdown. Game, Dallas. "I am certainly humbled," Green said when it was over.

Lots of cornerbacks, marvelous and marginal, are humbled weekly in today's NFL. "This is the golden age of wide receivers in pro football," says former San Diego Charger quarterback Dan Fouts, who is now a CBS analyst.

The wide receivers are so talented and so plentiful. The rules are so favorable to them. The defenses are so keyed to stopping the run. So many multisport athletes who play wideout are choosing football for their careers. And the colleges are so factorylike in churning out wide-receiver prospects, while all-purpose tight ends have become nearly obsolete. The result is that wide receivers are thriving in the NFL as never before in the league's 73-year history.

In 1981 wideouts accounted for 42.2% of all completions; by '91 the figure had shot up to 58.1%. In 1986 nine of the top 20 pass catchers in the NFL were either running backs or tight ends; in '91 zero backs and one tight end, Marv Cook of the New England Patriots, cracked the top 20. Sixteen wide receivers caught at least 70 passes last year; before then, no more than 12 had grabbed that many in any one season. The Skins' second-leading receiver, wideout Gary Clark, and the Houston Oilers' third-leading pass catcher, wideout Ernest Givins, both caught 70 passes; so did each of the Miami Dolphins' bookend wideouts, Mark Duper and Mark Clayton. When Clark was the third-leading receiver on his team in 1989, he had 79 catches.

In 1971 Kansas City Chief wideout Elmo Wright ranked 35th in the league with 26 receptions. In 1991 the 35th-ranked receiver, ageless James Lofton of the Buffalo Bills, finished with 57 catches. The advent of the run-and-shoot and similar high-octane passing attacks favored by the Oilers, Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons, among others, is inflating the receiving figures to some degree. But even the teams that traditionally—and successfully—have scattered the ball among all their pass catchers are concentrating more on their wideouts. Three years ago, for instance, 44.8% of the San Francisco 49ers' completed passes went to their wide receivers and 41.3% went to their backs. Last year 53% of Niner completions were to wideouts, while 31% were to backs. San Francisco fullback Tom Rathman had 73 catches in 1989, but only 34 in '91. Quite simply, there is a new way of playing offensive football.

And there are new players to play it. Rob Moore of the New York Jets (70 receptions last year) is 23 years old. Atlanta's Andre Rison (81) is 25. Irvin (an NFC-high 93) and the Minnesota Vikings' Cris Carter (72) are 26. Haywood Jeffires of the Oilers hauled in 100 passes to lead the league last year. He's 27.

Only three of today's most accomplished receivers—Lofton, 36; Drew Hill, 35, who caught 90 passes last season for the Oilers and now is with the Falcons; and Washington's Art Monk, 34, whose 71 receptions in '91 left him only 18 shy of the league's record of 819 career catches—are nearing the end of their careers. However, both Atlanta and Washington have terrific young players preparing to take over starring roles. Michael Haynes of the Falcons, who played trumpet in high school instead of football, is only 26, but he led the NFL last season in yards per catch (22.4). And the Redskins traded up to the No. 4 pick in this year's draft to get Michigan's Desmond Howard, whose acrobatic receptions won him the Heisman Trophy last fall.

We haven't even mentioned San Francisco's Jerry Rice yet, which gives you some idea of the depth at the position nowadays. Rice, 29, who probably would be voted into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot even if he never played another down, is likely to break the alltime record for touchdown grabs—he needs eight to exceed Steve Largent's mark of 100—by November, no matter if Joe Montana, Steve Young, Steve Bono or Sonny Bono is his quarterback.