Trivia
Trivia for August 6, 2019
Question
Raiders great Cliff Branch passed away on Saturday. He was perhaps the league’s best deep threat in the ‘70s. In the 1976 season, Branch remarkably averaged 24.2 yards per catch while finishing with 1,111 yards. In this century, only four times has a player gone over 1,000 receiving yards while averaging over 20 yards per catch. What player authored two of those seasons?
Answer
DeSean Jackson (in 2010 and 2014 with Philadelphia and Washington). Mike Wallace (Pittsburgh, 2010) and Ashley Lelie (Denver, 2004) are the others who’ve done this somewhat recently. In the last 30 years (1989-2018), it’s been done by only three other players. Flipper Anderson (Rams) did it in both 1988 and 1989 (In 1989, he averaged 26 yards per catch – even more than Branch). Also Michael Haynes (Atlanta, 1991) and Eric Moulds (Buffalo 1998). Huge averages were more common in the ‘60s (23 times) and ‘70s (11 times). In 1964 Elbert Dubenion of the Bills averaged 27.1 yards while finishing with 1,139 yards – the all-time highest average for a 1,000-yard receiver.