Tim Brown: What The HOF Voters Need To Know

The overwhelming case for Tim Brown as he makes a run at the Pro Football Hall of Fame for the sixth consecutive year…

Brown still holds the record for consecutive seasons (10) with at least 75 receptions. Sounds like an easy record to break in this new era of the NFL, right? Maybe not. Most of the likely candidates aren’t even close. Brandon Marshall is the best bet – he has seven consecutive seasons with 75+ receptions. He’ll be 30 in March.
One of the reasons the aforementioned record will be difficult to beat? Durability. After his second NFL season was wiped out by a knee injury, Brown was active for 207 of his next 208 games with the Raiders.
Brown holds the wide receiver record (176) for consecutive starts. Counting playoff starts, that number climbs to 185.
Brown holds nearly every Raiders franchise receiving record including touchdowns (104 leads all Raiders RB’s and WR’s), games (204) and seasons (16) played, receptions (1,070), receiving yards (14,734), all-purpose yards (19,434), and yards from scrimmage (14,924).
Brown ranks fifth in career receptions with 1,094.
Brown posted nine season with 1,000+ receiving yards. That’s more than both Marvin Harrison (8), who’s a finalist this year and Andre Reed (4), who beat him out last year.
In 1988, Brown set the NFL rookie record for all-purpose yards, with 2,317.
Brown ranks sixth in career receiving yards with 14,934.
How many Hall of Fame receivers caught touchdowns from 11 different quarterbacks?
Brown was selected to nine Pro Bowls. Again, better than Harrison (8) and Reed (7).
Jerry Rice is the only wide receiver to be selected to more Pro Bowls (13) than Brown (9).
He’s tied for most consecutive seasons with at least 5 touchdowns scored (11). Others are Marvin Harrison, Don Hutson, Cris Carter, Terrell Owens, & Jerry Rice.
Brown didn’t have the luxury of a solid quarterback for most of his career. Rich Gannon was responsible for only 32.5% of Brown’s career receiving yards.
The other Raiders quarterbacks to throw to Brown? Here’s the list: Jay Shroeder, Steve Beuerlein, Jeff Hostetler, Jeff George, Donald Hollas, Rick Mirer, Billy Joe Hobert, Todd Marinovich, Vince Evans, Wade Wilson, and Marques Tuiasosopo.
Brown tallied 80+ receptions in three of his four full seasons with Gannon, but also achieved 80+ receptions in the six seasons prior to Gannon.
Brown’s HOF competition the past two years (Reed and Harrison) both accumulated stats with Hall of Fame quarterbacks (Manning and Kelly). Kelly is already in. Manning, of course, will be. Each spent 11 seasons with their respective HOF quarterbacks.
95% of Brown’s career receiving yards came after major knee surgery. Not a death sentence today, but three decades ago?
Brown is a member of the 90’s NFL All-Decade Team. How does a player named to the 90’s All-Decade Team not get into the Hall of Fame?
Three other receivers made the 90’s All-Decade team – all three are in the Hall of Fame (Rice, Irvin, Carter).
It’s high praise to be a member of the All-Decade team, but consider this – many of Brown’s best seasons didn’t come in the 90’s.
Brown’s 368 receptions outside the 90’s are 32 more than WR Lynn Swann had in his career. Swann was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001.
The only HOF eligible player in history that can boast as many Pro Bowls as Tim Brown and has not yet been inducted – former Chiefs OL Will Shields.
Here are 9 wide receivers currently in the HOF, and how their career statistics compare to Tim Brown. Yes, these guys played before Brown, but how much better does he have to be?
Is Brown being punished because his career overlapped two different eras? It shouldn’t. Especially when all his contemporaries are already in the Hall of Fame.
While character isn’t part of the criteria considered, the NFL’s Code of Conduct policy proves how much the league values it’s image on and off the field – or at least says it does. Few have represented the Raiders and NFL “shield” with more class than Tim Brown.
All of Brown’s huge numbers came well before the NFL’s aerial revolution.
Remember when safeties were allowed to dismember receivers running across the middle? Yeah, well that was Brown’s era and that’s where he made his living. How did he manage to be active for 207 of 208 games?
Because of Michael Irvin, Jerry Rice and Cris Carter, it’s been said that Brown was never the best WR of his era. Rice is the greatest ever to play, but was Irvin really better than Brown? During Irvin’s prime (1990-1999), and with the help of a HOF quarterback, his stats were hardly superior to Brown’s. In that 10-year span, Irvin recorded 692 receptions for 10,872 yards, and 58 touchdowns. In the same seasons, Brown caught 726 passes for 10,211 yards, and 70 touchdowns.
As for Carter? He never finished higher than seventh in receiving yards in any season of his career – Brown did it four times. In fact, Brown finished in the top five each of those four years.
Just for fun, here’s the list quarterbacks responsible for 83.3% of Carter’s career: Daunte Culpepper (the good one), Randall Cunningham, Warren Moon, Rich Gannon (the not-so-good one), and Brad Johnson.
Brown was effective even at the end of his career. At 35 years-old, he recorded 91 receptions for 1,165 yards and 9 touchdowns. A year later, he had 81 catches for 930 yards. For reference, Marques Colston is a pretty good receiver in decline, right? At 30, he put up 75 for 943 (with Drew Brees at quarterback).
Brown is oldest player with 12+ receptions in a single game – (36 years, 97 days): 10/27/02 vs. K.C., 13 receptions, 144 receiving yards.
He’s the oldest player (35 years, 140 days) in NFL history with a special teams touchdown.
Brown led the Raiders in touchdowns in nine of his 16 years with the team, including six years consecutively.
In 2002, Brown passed Gene Upshaw to become the Raiders’ all-time leader in games played with 224. He finished his career with 255. Only Jerry Rice played more games (303) at wide receiver.
Brown has a 3.5 golf handicap. That means very little to HOF voters – unless they like golf. Maybe. No? Okay. Nevermind.
This is Brown’s sixth consecutive year being named a Hall of Fame finalist.
Brown holds the Raiders record for receptions (9) in a playoff game – vs. Tennessee, Jan. 19, 2003. He was 36 years-old at the time.
The Raiders number 2 option (total receptions) until they brought in Jerry Rice? Here’s the list from 1991-2000: Ethan Horton (’91,’92,’93), Harvey Williams (’94,’95), Daryl Hobbs (’96), Rickey Dudley (’97), James Jett(’98), Jon Ritchie (’99), Andre Rison (’00).
With 3,320 punt return yards, Brown ranks fifth all-time. The closest active players to that mark are Jacoby Jones (2,673) and Wes Welker (2,561).
Speaking of Welker, lets compare Brown and Welker in the prime of their careers. Since being traded to New England in his third year, Welker’s next 7 years (with Brady and Manning) consisted of 745 receptions, 8,237 yards, and 47 touchdowns. Brown’s stats in his prime were very similar. From 1993 to 1999, he caught 623 passes for 8,699 yards, and 55 touchdowns. Welker caught 78 more passes in his run, but his quarterbacks threw 520 more passes in those 7 years – the equivalent to another full season. Add 520 passes to Brown’s stats and Welker’s numbers are barely comparable. And for what it’s worth, only one of those seasons considered to be in Brown’s prime was with Rich Gannon.
Brown is on the (very) short list of playmakers to be voted to Pro Bowls 13 years apart.
Brown ranks 7th (tied with Steve Largent) in career touchdown receptions with 100. At the time of his retirement, only Jerry Rice and Cris Carter had more.
Brown holds the record for most consecutive games with 2+ receptions (147 games, 1993–2002).
So how lethal was Brown after his prime? In his last 4 years (age 34+) with the Raiders, he averaged 75 receptions, 948 yards, and 6 touchdowns.
For his career, Marques Colston (still a pretty good receiver, right?) has averaged 74 receptions, 1,026 yards, and 7.5 touchdowns – or barely Tim Brown with the Raiders after the age of 34.
Though more of a possession receiver, Brown led the AFC in receiving yards four times (1993, 1994, 1995, 1997).
With so much success late in his career, it’s not as if Brown got off to a slow start – he made the Pro Bowl as a rookie in 1988.
With three career punts returned for a touchdown, Brown is tied with two of this era’s elite return men (Darren Sproles and Josh Cribbs).
In his only season (1988) returning kickoffs, Brown led the league in kick return average (26.8) and kick return yards (1,098).
Little known fact about Brown is that it took several years for him to fully recover from his catastrophic knee injury in 1989. He started only two games at wide receiver from 1989 to 1991, and didn’t reach the 444 receiving yards he tallied in his rookie season in any of the next 3 years. What would his career numbers look like with 3 more healthy seasons?
From 1993 to 2003, Tim Brown averaged 7.3 dropped passes per season – the exact same number as Jerry Rice.
While Hall of Fame wide receiver Cris Carter dominated the 80’s in drop percentage, Brown caught the same percentage of his targets (60%) as Carter from 1993-2002.
Brown finished in the top 10 in receiving touchdowns eight times (1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998 & 2001). Only one of those seasons was with Gannon.
Only 16 players in history (at any position) have scored more touchdowns (105) than Brown.
Brown ranks 19th in career yards from scrimmage with 15,124 – a stat that is largely dominated by running backs. Only 5 receivers rank in the top 20 in career yards from scrimmage.
During his run of Pro Bowls (9), Brown was left out of the ’98, ’00, ’02 Pro Bowls. He averaged 79 receptions, 1,023 yards, and 7 touchdowns in those three seasons – very close to Pro Bowl numbers.
In different seasons, Brown led the league in receptions (’97), punt return yards (’94), and kick return yards (’88).
The Raiders are one of the legendary franchises in all of sports. If he’s “Mr. Raider” to the organization, doesn’t he deserve to be “Mr. Hall of Fame” to the rest of the league?
There’s the notion that Brown’s stats are only good because of the length of his career. While that’s a ridiculous argument (the greatest ability is availability, right?), consider this – Brown started only 11 games at wide receiver in his first four seasons, and started only 4 games in his final season (with Tampa Bay). That means he started only 15 games in those five seasons. So yes, his 12-year run in the middle was among the best ever.
Brown made almost every catch of his HOF-worthy career with no gloves – just taped fingers.
Some believe Marvin Harrison’s career has a leg up on Brown’s because of playoff success. As it turns out, they’ve been to the same number of AFC Championships and they’re both 1-2 in those games.
What HOF voters should really be looking at are Brown’s rankings when he retired. When he retired in ’04, he was one of only four receivers with 100 TD receptions, ranked second in career receiving yards, and third in career receptions.
When he retired, only four players in NFL history had more combined net yards (19,682) than Brown.
Brown was named All-AFC first team six times – that’s two more times than Andre Reed (4), and the same number as Cris Carter (All-NFC).
What other player gets ignored in statistical categories as relevant as receptions, receiving yards, and touchdowns?
If it hasn’t been assumed to this point, Brown spent the better part of his career facing double coverage. Did any of counterparts (other than Rice) get more attention from defenses than Brown? The aforementioned, Carter, who was voted in ahead of Brown last year, had eight 1,000 yard seasons. In all but one of those seasons, another Vikings wide receiver recorded 1,000+ yards. Oh, and in five of those eight seasons, the second Minnesota wide receiver had more yards than Carter.
From ’92-’00, the only receiver on the Raiders to surpass 650 yards was James Jett.
So Brown probably saw a few double teams in his career, don’t you think? The late Junior Seau, who was close with Brown, once told Tim, “Brown, when you line up in the slot, we’ve got four people looking at you. And depending on which way you release, they’re gonna keep looking at you.”
Brown led the Raiders in receiving yards (and receptions) in 10 consecutive seasons. Harrison accomplished this six consecutive seasons with the Colts, and Reed did it seven consecutive seasons with the Bills.
Brown’s career punt return average (10.2) is among the best ever, and is especially impressive considering how long he maintained his return skills. Still behind Devin Hester, Brown compares favorably to many of league’s great punt returners. To name a few: Deion Sanders (10.4), Dante Hall (10.5), Tamarick Vanover (10.2), Jacoby Jones (10.2), DeSean Jackson (9.9), Rod Woodson (9.1), Darren Sproles (8.2), and Reggie Bush (7.9).
Team records (not previously mentioned) held by Brown: Most seasons active player (16), consecutive games with a touchdown (6), receptions in a season (104), receptions in a game (14), receiving yards in a season (1,408), career 100-yard receiving games (43), most 100-yard receiving games in a season (7).
Brown owns the fourth longest streak (179) of consecutive games with a reception.
Once upon a time, Adam Schefter who covered the Broncos in the 90’s (and as a result, covered Tim Brown) called Brown an “almost-certain” first-ballot Hall of Famer. How does “almost-certain” turn into “maybe not at all”?
At some point “Touchdown Timmy” deserves something to come easy. His mother didn’t allow him to play football in high school, so he had to sneak onto the team while she though he was in band. His high school record was 4-25-1, and his record at Notre Dame was 25-21 (0-2 in bowl games). He made the playoffs six times with the Raiders, but never hoisted the Lombardi Trophy – something Brown says is his biggest disappointment as a professional football player. He played his entire career in the shadow of Jerry Rice and was barely acknowledged by Al Davis at the time of his retirement. In fact, Brown prepared and funded his retirement announcement just down the road from the team complex – an event Davis chose not to attend.