At the time he retired he was the best. Considering he played under Coach Chuck 'Ground' Knox and caught passes from Jim Zorn and Dave Kreig I think he had to be the greatest to set the records he did.
Apache, from the mid 70's until Jerry Rice appeared, Largent was the best of that time in terms of receptions and being a 'great one'. He finished as a top 10 receiver, but today he is #29. Consider Andre Johnson. He had to endure David Carr and Matt Schaub, and still he is #10 all time receptions- now that is greatness!
But my statement was a tad bias. I grew up in the 70s-80s in Oregon and Washington and Largent was my favorite player without a doubt. In the WA football state championship I got to sit at Steve's locker in the Kingdom and play on that field. Funny I thought our team was so good and I moved to Texas and don't think we would have been .500 here.
Largent and Andre are probably the 2 greatest WR's that had the most mediocre QB's throwing to them.
as great as Jerry Rice was, he has to get a slight downgrade due to playing with 2 Hall of Famers. It makes a difference in catches, yards, and TD production
Just rambling in my head but does anyone else ever catch commentators comparing skill players to other skill players of the same skin color. For instance, I remember Edelman being talked up by someone and they compared his route running to Welker or largent. Why can't he be compared to a black athlete?