Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

With AJ Green announcing his retirement, a look back at his career. Over 10,000 yards and 70 TDs, was on a pace after his first seven seasons for the HOF but bigger paydays, complacency, and injuries affected him his last five seasons ... Is he HOF or HOVG worthy?

He made Andy Dalton look good for a while anyway, but team transitions with the Bengals and now Cardinals curbed his hunger to excel

id say HOVG Brian

I thought AJ Green had retired years ago....did not realize he was still in the league. It took a lot of targets for Green to rack up his stats, even in his best years. His Yards-per-target of 8.3 is OK, but not really remarkable. He will probably go down as the 2nd best "AJ last name color" WR in NFL history to AJ Brown. I don't see anything HOF worthy on AJ Green's resume outside of his two big years early in his career. I wouldn't even put him in the HOVG. I was aghast to see that Green kept making pro bowls every year. One year he made the pro bowl with a 66-964-4 TD statline...surprising until you learn that 13 other WRs made the pro bowl that year! At what point do we just erase 'pro bowls' from player career evaluation?

Bryan wrote:I thought AJ Green had retired years ago....did not realize he was still in the league. It took a lot of targets for Green to rack up his stats, even in his best years. His Yards-per-target of 8.3 is OK, but not really remarkable. He will probably go down as the 2nd best "AJ last name color" WR in NFL history to AJ Brown. I don't see anything HOF worthy on AJ Green's resume outside of his two big years early in his career. I wouldn't even put him in the HOVG. I was aghast to see that Green kept making pro bowls every year. One year he made the pro bowl with a 66-964-4 TD statline...surprising until you learn that 13 other WRs made the pro bowl that year! At what point do we just erase 'pro bowls' from player career evaluation?

you make some excellent points on AJ Green which im in full agreement 100%

Bryan wrote:.....At what point do we just erase 'pro bowls' from player career evaluation?

This is an excellent question.
Certainly, I wouldn't consider the "Pro Bowl Games" to be an equivalent to the games/teams pre-1970's...
But at what date do we start to consider the Pro Bowl teams to be barely noteworthy?

What is the history of the significance of the Pro Bowl?
And when did it stop being relevant to historians?

If there was ever a team with talented receivers, it was the Bengals. Isaac Curtis, Chad Johnson and AJ Green had the talent but couldnt sustain their success. Eddie Brown I felt at the time in 1988, would dominate throughout his career but he also succumbed to injuries. Pickens and Scott had talent as well and the team gave up on Charlie Joiner. Even today, Chase is a superstar in only his second year but teammate Higgins isnt far behind. Winning more and less cheapness from ownership in the past might have helped these players more, but transition, injuries and free agency-compensation played a major role in these talents not doing more with their careers ...

Brian wolf wrote:If there was ever a team with talented receivers, it was the Bengals. Isaac Curtis, Chad Johnson and AJ Green had the talent but couldnt sustain their success. Eddie Brown I felt at the time in 1988, would dominate throughout his career but he also succumbed to injuries. Pickens and Scott had talent as well and the team gave up on Charlie Joiner. Even today, Chase is a superstar in only his second year but teammate Higgins isnt far behind. Winning more and less cheapness from ownership in the past might have helped these players more, but transition, injuries and free agency-compensation played a major role in these talents not doing more with their careers ...

Don’t forget Cris Collinsworth.

JuggernautJ wrote:

Bryan wrote:.....At what point do we just erase 'pro bowls' from player career evaluation?

This is an excellent question.
Certainly, I wouldn't consider the "Pro Bowl Games" to be an equivalent to the games/teams pre-1970's...
But at what date do we start to consider the Pro Bowl teams to be barely noteworthy?

What is the history of the significance of the Pro Bowl?
And when did it stop being relevant to historians?

I remember watching this one as a kid and it was good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Pro_Bowl. I'd be surprised if no top player missed the game due to injury, but just eyeballing it, the rosters look good to me. I'd be interested if someone can pinpoint the year where it really started to go downhill. May not have been too long after this one - I vaguely recall talk starting that it was hard to get the QBs to show up later in the '80s.

TanksAndSpartans wrote:
I remember watching this one as a kid and it was good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Pro_Bowl. I'd be surprised if no top player missed the game due to injury, but just eyeballing it, the rosters look good to me. I'd be interested if someone can pinpoint the year where it really started to go downhill. May not have been too long after this one - I vaguely recall talk starting that it was hard to get the QBs to show up later in the '80s.

I want to say in early 1990s

JohnTurney wrote:

TanksAndSpartans wrote:
I remember watching this one as a kid and it was good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Pro_Bowl. I'd be surprised if no top player missed the game due to injury, but just eyeballing it, the rosters look good to me. I'd be interested if someone can pinpoint the year where it really started to go downhill. May not have been too long after this one - I vaguely recall talk starting that it was hard to get the QBs to show up later in the '80s.

I want to say in early 1990s

i believe that was when the nfl qb club started i could be wrong