So for 5 seasons, Grbac (9), Kemp (6), Bono (6), Moroski (2) and Cavanugh (1) starting 24 games for the 49ers. In exactly a year and a half's worth of games, Rice caught 134 passes for 2,177 yards and 23 TDs, and ran for one score as well. That's an average season of 89 catches, 1451 receiving yards and 16 touchdowns, or roughly the career best season for nearly every WR who has ever played the game. And, of course, only 25% of those games came during what we would typically call a wide receiver's prime. Eighteen of those 24 games that he played without Montana or Young came during Rice's first or second season, or when he was 33- or 34-years old. In '95 and '96, playing at an age when most receivers start slowing down, catching passes from Elvis Grbac, and playing with Derek Loville and Terry Kirby at RB, Rice put up numbers that could arguably pass for the best season of Cris Carter's or Steve Largent's career.
And then there are the Jeff Garcia and the Rich Gannon years.
Rice's two worst seasons in San Francisco (ignoring 1997, when he missed most of the season with a torn ACL) were the two seasons when Garcia was the 49ers primary QB. In 1999, he had 830 receiving yards and 5 scores, and the next season he had 805 yards and seven touchdowns. Far from great numbers, but he had a good excuse: Rice was 37 and 38 years old. Only two players in NFL history, Rice and Charlie Joiner, have caught even 600 yards worth of passes at age 37 or older. Only a handful of receivers in NFL history have caught any passes at age 37 or older. It's easy to be blinded by the standard Rice set for himself, but apart from one Charlie Joiner season, those two disappointing seasons were the best in NFL history for a man of his age. And then he moved to Oakland and blew those seasons away.
Of all the unbreakable records set by Rice, what he did in Oakland may be the most impressive. At age 40, he caught 92 passes for over 1200 yards. No other player in NFL history has gained a single yard receiving while in his 40s.
