Old but Slow wrote:I don't have TV, so I did not see the show, but I wish that I could have. I hope that they showed enough of his ability to see how often he was wide open. The best corners of the time raved about him, and there were often times when he was open by ten yards or more, without great speed or size. Plainly, a purely gifted route runner and receiver.
I am seeing elements of him in Tyler Lockett, who is faster, but has some of the ability to confound the DB with his moves.
Largent wasn't fast, but he was fast when it counted. He did not lose as much speed going into and coming out of his breaks as other much faster receivers. And he knew when the DB was most vulnerable, when the time was just right for him to make his cut. That's one of the reasons why there were so many times that he seemed so wide open, like no one was covering him.
Another thing that never got mentioned in the episode was that DB's could never get into his head. I can't remember the name of the Raider's CB that loved to trash talk, but I saw an interview with him when he said there was one game that after trash talking on every single play, calling him every name he could think of, he couldn't tell the entire game whether or not Largent was hearing him, until late in the game, just after Largent got up from being tackled after a 40 yard reception and Largent was laughing at him.
He only spiked the ball following a TD once that I can remember, and I'll bet that I've seen every one of his 100 TD's. When asked about his not spiking after TD's, he said he wanted to act like he'd been there before. The only player I've seen do that in recent times has been Russell Wilson.