Will Torrey Smith become one of the greatest deep threats in San Francisco 49ers history? While obviously that remains to be seen, the 49ers do not have a great history of deep threats for him to be competing against. His career 16.9 yards per reception would be the second-highest in 49ers history among receivers with at least 100 receptions:
| 49ers Career Leaders in Yards per Reception (min: 100 receptions) | |||||||||
| 1 | Gene Washington | 1969 | 1977 | 124 | 371 | 6,664 | 17.96 | 59 | 53.7 |
| -- | Torrey Smith | 2011 | 2014 | 64 | 213 | 3,591 | 16.86 | 30 | 56.1 |
| 2 | R.C. Owens | 1957 | 1961 | 62 | 176 | 2,926 | 16.63 | 20 | 47.2 |
| 3 | John Taylor | 1987 | 1995 | 121 | 347 | 5,598 | 16.13 | 43 | 46.3 |
| 4 | Dave Parks | 1964 | 1967 | 50 | 208 | 3,334 | 16.03 | 27 | 66.7 |
| 5 | Freddie Solomon | 1978 | 1985 | 114 | 310 | 4,873 | 15.72 | 43 | 42.7 |
| 6 | Ted Kwalick | 1969 | 1974 | 83 | 164 | 2,555 | 15.58 | 23 | 30.8 |
| 7 | Brandon Lloyd | 2003 | 2014 | 59 | 119 | 1,804 | 15.16 | 14 | 30.6 |
| 8 | Jerry Rice | 1985 | 2000 | 238 | 1,281 | 19,247 | 15.02 | 176 | 80.9 |
| 9 | Billy Wilson | 1951 | 1960 | 100 | 407 | 5,902 | 14.5 | 49 | 59 |
| 10 | John David Crow | 1965 | 1968 | 56 | 120 | 1,738 | 14.48 | 18 | 31 |
| Pro Football Reference | |||||||||
That’s even more impressive than it first looks, because yards per completion have consistently gone down since the 49ers started playing football in 1946. Last year, the average YPC was just 11.5, as opposed to the mid-14s, as it was in the 1950s:
Over the course of Torrey Smith’s career, the NFL has averaged just 11.7 yards per completion. That means Smith’s 16.9 yards per reception is 1.44 times the league average, which would put him far and away as the most productive deep-threat receiver in 49ers history.
That’s why 49ers fans should be excited to see what he can do; they are getting one of the top five modern-day deep-ball threats, representing the sort of weapon the 49ers have never enjoyed in their history.
The lack of a true deep-threat receiver is partly by choice. Bill Walsh’s revolutionary West Coast offense is one of the major factors that has pushed yards per reception down since the 1980s. The idea that short, controlled passes could be an effective part of an offense didn’t start with Walsh, but it was his teams in the 1980s that really showed the NFL how effective they could be. That limits the potential production of a deep-threat receiver, as the primary offense ran through the possession receivers.
It isn’t just the Walsh era that saw the 49ers go relatively small, however. The 49ers have only been above league average in yards per reception eight times in their 69-year history: 1961, 1991-93, 1998, 2003, 2010 and 2013, with two seasons ago representing the peak of the team’s relative long-ball tendencies.
So, if Torrey Smith sparks a deep-passing revolution and a burst of explosion plays, as quarterbacks coach Steve Logan suggested, it would be a real paradigm shift in the way San Francisco has approached the passing game. It wouldn’t take much; simply going over 12.2 yards per completion would likely have them set the new team record for YPC over league average.
So, with a history lacking in true deep-ball threats, who are the 49ers yards-per-reception leaders when you adjust for era? The table from the beginning of the column has names like R.C. Owens, Billy Wilson and John David Crow rounding out the top 10, but they played in the 1950s and '60s when the long ball was the majority of the passing game. Owens’ 15.95 career yards per reception in a 49er uniform would place him firmly as a top-20 receiver over the past 20 years, but it puts him in 78th place among receivers from the ‘50s and ‘60s.
So, to create a more accurate ranking, here are the top 10 receivers in 49ers history in terms of yards per reception as compared to the league average. It’s a very simple calculation—it’s just their yards per reception in a 49ers uniform divided by the league average over those seasons.
10. Anquan Boldin
2013-Present
13.34 yards per reception
1.15 times league average
You know it’s a low-level competition when the aging Boldin represents one of the top 10 deep-receiving threats in franchise history. Boldin was 59th in terms of yards per reception last year, according to Pro Football Focus, and only was targeted 12 times on passes more than 20 yards downfield.
Boldin’s high ranking basically is a factor of his consistent and reliable production, combined with the increasing prevalence of screen passes and dumpoffs in the NFL. His yards per reception are the same as Dwight Clark’s, and Clark didn’t come close to sniffing the final list.
9. Dave Parks
16.03 yards per reception
1.16 times league average
To play in the 1960s and still make this list means you have to average 2.5 more yards per catch than a modern-day receiver, so Parks’ high ranking on the list remains impressive. In his rookie season, Parks set the record for longest and second-longest receptions in franchise history at 83 and 80 yards, marks which stood until Freddie Solomon broke them in 1980.
He still holds the longest, second-longest and third-longest receptions by a rookie in 49ers history. Parks led the NFL in receptions, yards and touchdowns in just his second season in the league. Had he managed to keep that pace up, he’d be in the argument for best receiver in franchise history. However, contract disputes led him to leave the team after 1967, and he never had the same success elsewhere.
8. Josh Morgan
13.47 yards per reception
1.16 times league average
Morgan wasn’t much of a receiver overall, though the low overall quality of the 49ers in Morgan’s tenure likely had something to do with his low production. Again, Morgan’s relatively high placement is due to the increasing number of passes to running backs, as well as short screens—something the Dave Parks of the world never really had to deal with.
Morgan had two seasons with 15.9 yards per reception or more in San Francisco, which isn’t bad—but he was more of a blocker and runner with the ball, rather than your traditional deep threat.
7. Ted Kwalick
15.58 yards per reception
1.20 times league average
Kwalick’s our only non-receiver on the list—he was a tight end, and a good one, too, making the Pro Bowl every year from 1971 through 1973. These were his only three years as a starter in the NFL, though he hung around both before and after with the 49ers and Raiders.
Before Vernon Davis came around, Kwalick held the team record for touchdowns by a tight end in a single season with 12. Both John Brodie and Steve Spurrier found Kwalick to be one of their favorite targets. While he never averaged even four receptions a game, he made every reception count deep. Add in his blocking, and you have an underrated tight end in 49ers history.
6. Jerry Rice
15.02 yards per reception
1.24 times league average
Hey, a list of 49ers receivers that doesn’t have Jerry Rice at the top. That’s almost incredible, considering how many records he holds. It’s also incredible he managed such a high yards-per-reception total over 1,281 receptions; no one else on the list has even 600. It’s one thing to be remarkable over a three-year span; to be an all-time great over 16 seasons is unthinkable. Rice was pretty good, you guys.
5. Freddie Solomon
15.71 yards per reception
1.24 times league average
Finishing just ahead of Rice on percentage points, Solomon was the deep threat to Dwight Clark’s underneath game for the first two 49ers Super Bowls. Solomon’s the one who broke Dave Parks’ record for longest reception in team history. His 21.4 yards per reception in 1983 still stands as the team record; one that might never be broken considering the direction the passing game is going in the modern era.
Solomon sometimes gets forgotten when talking about the great players the 49ers had in the '80s—when you’re competing for receiver recognition with Clark, Rice, John Taylor and Brent Jones, that will happen—but he was a huge part of the initial success in the '80s.
14.48 yards per reception
1.24 times league average
Owens, Solomon and Rice are all essentially tied, significantly behind the top three deep threats in San Francisco history, with Owens just barely coming out on top. One of the more controversial receivers in San Francisco history, there’s no doubting Owens’ talent. While he never had one dramatic season in terms of yards per reception, Owens finished with 14.9 YPR or more in five of his eight years.
He was used more as a deep threat when Rice was still around to handle the underneath stuff; his average yards-per-reception number dropped when he took over the No. 1 slot after Rice’s departure. He didn’t have the same top-end speed of some of his contemporaries, but his strength with the ball in his hands was unmatched, allowing him to put up monster yards-after-catch numbers.
3. Brandon Lloyd
2003-05, 2014
15.16 yards per reception
1.31 times league average
During his time in San Francisco, it seemed like Lloyd could only make catches if they required him to leap 30 feet in the air, do a back-flip or reach over with one hand. Lloyd’s highlight reel is amazing; it was the simple, consistent catches he struggled with. Since 2001, the 49ers have had just two pass plays of 80 yards or longer—and both have gone to Lloyd. He had greater success off the 49ers in Denver and New England, but he’s the only 49er in recent memory to come close to being able to break the top off of a defense.
2. John Taylor
16.13 yards per reception
1.33 times league average
Like Terrell Owens after him, Taylor benefitted from Rice catching everything over the middle and getting second-tier coverage. On most teams, Taylor would have been the No. 1 receiver; a dynamic threat who was deadly as a punt returner and explosive with the ball in his hands. He was the first player to have multiple 90-plus-yard touchdown receptions in a single game, which he did in 1989.
Like most of the other great 49ers receivers, however, Taylor did most of his damage on yards after the catch. He finishes ahead of Rice because he was usually the slightly deeper option of the two, but both benefited from Joe Montana and Steve Young hitting them in stride, allowing them to demolish opposing defenses with the ball in their hands, rather than simply trying to go over the top on people.
17.96 yards per reception
1.39 times league average
Gene Washington led the NFL in yards per reception in 1974 with 21.2. He remains the only 49er to ever lead the league in that category. He broke the 20-yard-per-catch barrier twice more and finished above 19 yards per catch another pair of times.
His team-leading 17.96 yards per reception isn’t simply a reflection of the era he played in; if you converted his career numbers to 2014’s passing environment, he would have finished eighth in the league with 16.02 yards per reception. If you just converted his 1974 season, his 19.66 yards per reception would have finished second to only DeSean Jackson. His numbers hold up, even when considering the deeper-passing era.
Washington is really the only comparable player to Torrey Smith in 49ers franchise history. A high school track star, Washington ran the 100-yard dash in 9.5 seconds—that was the standard at the time, before they went to 40 yards as the unit of measurement.
Washington might well be the fastest receiver in 49ers history, and he certainly is the fastest one to couple his speed with great hands. An offensive game-breaker who had to regularly fight through double- and triple-coverage on poor San Francisco teams, Washington is the one true deep threat the 49ers have ever had.
Could Smith displace Washington from the top of this list? It’s possible. Couple Colin Kaepernick’s arm with Torrey Smith’s deep speed, and you have a potential dynamite combination. One way or another, Smith seems poised to become one of the best deep threats in franchise history.Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the San Francisco 49ers. Follow him @BryKno on twitter.
