Isaac Bruce believes he and Torry Holt were the best wide receiver duo in NFL history, not Randy Moss and Cris Carter.
In the weeks leading up to his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction, former St. Louis Rams star wide receiver Isaac Bruce pokes the bear by saying he and Rams teammate Torry Holt were the best wide receiver duo in NFL history over Randy Moss and Cris Carter of Minnesota Vikings fame.
“It may seem like a whole lot of arrogance to other people, but numbers don’t lie,” said Bruce in a virtual interview with CBS Sports’ Bryan DeArdo on Tuesday. “Everything we put on the football field, the film, it is what it is. You can always go back and turn it on.”
Holt’s rookie season out of North Carolina State aligned with the Rams’ Super Bowl run in 1999. “The Greatest Show on Turf” is widely considered one of the most prolific offenses in football history. The 1998 Vikings that Moss and Carter played on went 15-1 during the regular season and are seen as the best team to never play in a Super Bowl. That is where Bruce’s conviction lies.
“We won a Super Bowl,” said Bruce.
Is Bruce out of bounds to say he and Holt were the best duo in NFL history over Moss and Carter or is the hall-of-fame wide receiver onto something?
Isaac Bruce says he and Torry Holt were better than Randy Moss and Cris Carter
The really cool part in this argument is these four star players all shined during the same era. Bruce and Carter had been in the league for years, while Holt and Moss were rookies in the late 1990s. Though Carter and Moss are widely seen as top-10 wide receivers all time individually, keep in mind that they only played together for four years with the Vikings from 1998 to 2001.
Both NFC juggernauts had MVP-level quarterbacks during those historic seasons. Randall Cunningham won NFL Comeback Player of the Year in 1998, while Kurt Warner won his first of two NFL MVPs in 1999. Both teams had outstanding offensive lines. While Marshall Faulk was easily the superior running back, Robert Smith was a darn good one in the midst of his prime.
From a pure stats and accolades standpoint, obviously, Carter and Moss are more celebrated than Bruce or Holt. Moss got inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot and Carter having to wait was highly publicized. Bruce too had to wait and Holt still is waiting. The latter will get in eventually, as he has been a finalist before. So which of these two receiver duos was better?
Given their entire body of work throughout their illustrious careers, it would have to be the Vikings duo. Moss is a Mount Rushmore wide receiver, while Carter was blessed with some of the best hands the NFL world has ever seen. However, Bruce and Holt played together for nine seasons in St. Louis, reaching two Super Bowls and winning one together in 1999 with Warner at the helm.
Legacy favors the Vikings’ duo, but we have criminally underrated the Rams tandem historically.