How the heck did Don Hutson catch that many TDs?

[Chuck80]

16 hours ago, Shanedorf said:

excellent post above, thx for writing it
One asterisk for your asterisk. All of the other NFL WR's had the same advantages as Hutson during that time frame -  so while it wouldn't be a fair comparison to post-integration TD records, it is fair vs his contemporaries.
Bolstering that claim is the fact that his record stood for decades, from 1942 until 1984.
So even 38 years post- integration, he was still The King.

He's was extremely influencial and he'll always be in my top 3 best wide receivers of all time list (1. Jerry Rice, 2. Marvin Harrison 3. Don Hudson)

 

Extremely underrated for all he did for the position

Edited May 13, 2020 by Chuck80

[AlexGreen#20]

I haven't done a ton of research on this, but my understanding is:

1. He was like 6'1 190. Not huge by today's standards, but a big guy when you look at the population at the time.

2. Dude was fast as hell at the time. He came in 4th at the SEC conference championship meet in the 100 yard and 220 sprints. Still racially segregated at the time, but compared to who he was playing against, dude had wheels. I'm not going to say he was Julio Jones at the time, but dude was a ridiculous athlete for the 1930s and 40s.

3. He ran a more complex route tree than everybody else and actually was regularly using different release leverages, head fakes, changing speeds on the stems of his routes. He was 25 years ahead of the rest of the league on his technique.

4. I'm not going to say that he was allowed to do his own thing in regards to choosing his routes, but he was doing a ton more than just running vertically which most guys were doing at the time. He actually ran horizontal routes which was basically unique.  

5. He spent most of his time playing what we today would consider the TE position. Attached to the tackle. When defenses aren't playing much zone coverage, and you have an elite guy playing inside and able to use the whole field, you kill defenses. Even today teams don't play much man coverage against teams with an elite slot receiver. Providing help over the top was hard as hell in a league so run heavy. 

6. Lack of integration and the talent drain from WW2 really helped his ceiling and his longevity. His body was beat to hell the back half of his career (hence the constant retirements), but he was able to keep going because there wasn't as much talent around. 

7. The difference in the talent level on teams back in the day was ridiculous. He got a ton of production off of the genuine trash teams they played and didn't quite kill the decent squad to the same extent. 

On the plus side:

8. Apparently the dude was the best kicker in the league for most of his career. He was basically automatic on XPs, which at the time wasn't a sure thing.

9. He was a damn good safety. He gets most of his accolades for being a receiver, but he may have been a HOF caliber guy as a safety. He led the league in INTs in 1940, and was second in 42 and 3rd in 43. 

10. He's got two MVPs. That's ridiculous for a WR. 

[Jotun_Fan]

57 minutes ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

I haven't done a ton of research on this, but my understanding is:

1. He was like 6'1 190. Not huge by today's standards, but a big guy when you look at the population at the time.

2. Dude was fast as hell at the time. He came in 4th at the SEC conference championship meet in the 100 yard and 220 sprints. Still racially segregated at the time, but compared to who he was playing against, dude had wheels. I'm not going to say he was Julio Jones at the time, but dude was a ridiculous athlete for the 1930s and 40s.

3. He ran a more complex route tree than everybody else and actually was regularly using different release leverages, head fakes, changing speeds on the stems of his routes. He was 25 years ahead of the rest of the league on his technique.

4. I'm not going to say that he was allowed to do his own thing in regards to choosing his routes, but he was doing a ton more than just running vertically which most guys were doing at the time. He actually ran horizontal routes which was basically unique.  

5. He spent most of his time playing what we today would consider the TE position. Attached to the tackle. When defenses aren't playing much zone coverage, and you have an elite guy playing inside and able to use the whole field, you kill defenses. Even today teams don't play much man coverage against teams with an elite slot receiver. Providing help over the top was hard as hell in a league so run heavy. 

6. Lack of integration and the talent drain from WW2 really helped his ceiling and his longevity. His body was beat to hell the back half of his career (hence the constant retirements), but he was able to keep going because there wasn't as much talent around. 

7. The difference in the talent level on teams back in the day was ridiculous. He got a ton of production off of the genuine trash teams they played and didn't quite kill the decent squad to the same extent. 

On the plus side:

8. Apparently the dude was the best kicker in the league for most of his career. He was basically automatic on XPs, which at the time wasn't a sure thing.

9. He was a damn good safety. He gets most of his accolades for being a receiver, but he may have been a HOF caliber guy as a safety. He led the league in INTs in 1940, and was second in 42 and 3rd in 43. 

10. He's got two MVPs. That's ridiculous for a WR. 

Truthfully I don't know a  whole lot about his career.  If he was the first to run modern type routes then the numbers he put up makes sense.  The game was so much different back then.  From reading about Mel Hein (C,LB) he was supposedly considered one of the few people who could cover Hutson...as a linebacker.  Hein was also, as far as I can tell, the first NFL MVP.  I think most of Hein's consideration as MVP was as a center too, which again goes to show how much different the game was then.

[onejayhawk]

Now that it's mentioned, the lack of specialization would have been a factor. He played in an era where all the DB also played on offense. It would have made a big impact in the second half of games. 

J

[FinSting]

His receptions and TD's are insane for that period, but looking back at the whole box score is also stunning.

Example would be: 50-yd TD pass from A QB Guy to Hutson, followed by Hutson with PAT kick. Wait, he kicks too?

1940 NFL interception leader: Don Hutson tied for the lead. Wait, he plays DB too?

One Man Army. 

[Jakuvious]

Some of it is just the athletic disparity. Some of it was he and the Packers were just a few years ahead of everyone else on the whole passing game thing. Some of it is just how different the game was. It's worth noting that one man passing attacks weren't that uncommon back then. Like, by and large, the 1942 Packers passing game was, throw to Hutson. You didn't have route combinations, you didn't have all 5 guys who could run routes running routes. Your play may have just been, go route to Hutson. Jim Benton had a 3 year stretch in a similar vein where he was like 60% of his team's passing yards. Same with Mal Kutner. Throw 150 passes and 60 of them are to one guy, that kind of thing. No one was able to do that as long or consistently as Hutson though. But like, modern day, doesn't matter how good a WR is, schemes are just too diverse and complex to give one guy that kind of target share, so it's just not any kind of comparable. Now, the reality is still there that Hutson was just better at it than anyone else at the time. But the structure of team offense's were just so different, and that's part of what makes it so weird to look back on that.

It is fun to look back at season and statistical results back then. Like, the guy with the most passing attempts in 1942 has a passer rating of 25.5. The leading passer for the 1942 Lions had a QB rating of 3. No typo there. They averaged more yards per rush than their QB's pass rating. The 1940 Eagle with the most rushing attempts had -180 yards. All fun and interesting. Also just impossible to compare to anything post like 1960.

[Todd Pence]

He was to football in 1935-45 what Babe Ruth was to baseball in the 1920's.

[kwolf68]

On 5/16/2020 at 12:20 PM, Todd Pence said:

He was to football in 1935-45 what Babe Ruth was to baseball in the 1920's.

 

Yep. Only problem is the NFL just wasn't that popular at the time. But Hutson was a total rock star, he and Sammy Baugh were born 40 years too early. Baugh would have shattered every record known to man.