[OC] Justin Jefferson and CeeDee Lamb are 1st and 4th all time in rec yards through four seasons. Here is how their pace compares to the top ten all time over a career.

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The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/JPAnalyst on 2024-06-22 14:27:12+00:00.

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Through four seasons, Justin Jefferson and CeeDee Lamb are on a historical pace in terms of receiving yards. Jefferson has the most receiving yards in NFL history through four seasons with 5,899 (while missing seven games last year). Lamb has the 4th most through four seasons with 5,145 yards. This chart shows the year-by-year trajectory for the top ten in career receiving yards all time, and includes Jefferson, Lamb, as well as two other young stars A.St.Brown and J.Chase.

So Jefferson and Lamb should easily be top five when all is said and done, right? Not so fast. The chart below shows the career trajectory of the players with the 10 best totals in seasons 1-4. Of the six who have retired, three of them ended up in the top four (Rice, Fitzgerald, Moss), the other three ended 14th, 17th, and 48th.

Still active, but Michael Thomas is a warning of the unpredictability of these paces. He started out as one of the best in history, but after a number of injuries, that white line started going sideways…and it might not grow much more. After 8 seasons, A.J. Green stopped climbing at a top-ten pace and ended up 48th all time. Mike Evans, who has no idea what it’s like to be in the NFL and have only triple-digit receiving yards is consistently creeping his way up the charts. It will be interesting to see if Jefferson and Lamb go the way of Moss and Fitzgerald, or if they start to go sideways like Green and Thomas.

I posted this separately a couple days ago, but adding it back to this post. This shows the cumulative receiving yards leaders through each season number.

Obligatory caveats

• 17-game seasons since 2021, 16-game seasons since 1978, 14-game seasons before that.
• We are in a more passing-friendly era in today’s game. I said it here, so we don’t have to say it on every other comment in the thread.
• This might be more meaningful to see it through x number of games instead of x number of years.