There will come a time, everyone agrees, when Jerry Rice is bronzed. And once it happens, he will remain that way for Hall of Fame eternity.
Until then, Rice feels conflicted by his love for life as a football player – the only life he has known – and a loving public that wants to hurry up and turn him into a statue.
Repetition has allowed Rice to smile at the angst he created. As he prepares to play his final NFL season with another new team while approaching his 43rd birthday, he has noticed how all those catches, yards and touchdowns can get twisted and crumpled and reshaped into a question that hurts.
Why?
Anymore, that’s all his three Super Bowl title rings and recognition as the greatest receiver to ever play seem to get him. Why would the great Jerry Rice play one more season with the Broncos when he already has done it all, done it more than once, yet no longer does it like he once did?
“That’s the most-asked question I have gotten,” Rice said this week. “‘Hey, why are you doing this? You’re going to mess up your legacy.’ But I never played the game for my legacy. That was something put on me. I play the game for the love of it.”
Instead of the end, Broncos fans are about to see for the first time that Rice belongs to them. For the preseason game Saturday night at Invesco Field at Mile High against the San Francisco 49ers – the team most attached to his legacy – Rice will line up as the Broncos’ third receiver, a flattering position after he received a well-timed promotion from No. 4 this week.
“I’ll be all juiced up for this one, but you can’t get too juiced,” Rice said. “I’m not looking at it as, ‘It’s the 49ers, I can’t wait to play them, I can’t wait to pay them back, I can’t wait to show them.’ My main focus is on the Broncos and whatever I have to do to help the team.”
Playing the numbers
Outwardly, Rice doesn’t wince when asked why, perhaps because he understands people are well-intentioned. After the way his season played out in 2004, essentially getting dumped first by the Oakland Raiders, then the Seattle Seahawks, some believed retirement would be best.
And during an incredible 11-year run with San Francisco from 1986-96, Rice was not just the best, but the best of all time. He averaged 91 catches a season for 1,405 yards and 14 touchdowns during that span. And that doesn’t include NFC championship games or memorable Super Bowl performances.
“People just don’t understand how great he was during that time,” said Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, who was the 49ers’ and Rice’s offensive coordinator from 1992-94.
It was a period of individual dominance that transcended the NFL and moved Rice alongside Wayne Gretzky in hockey, a young Wilt Chamberlain in the NBA and an aging Barry Bonds in baseball as the beacons of sports greatness.
Sports fans are mesmerized by greatness, which is why Tiger Woods is so adored, and why the public struggles to surrender visions of Rice in his prime. Despite these emotional bonds, Rice has moved on, even if it’s at the pace of a No. 3 receiver.
“I was surprised,” Bill Walsh, the legendary former 49ers coach, said when asked about his initial reaction to Rice signing a one-year contract to play for the Broncos. “Although, if he was going to play for anybody, I knew it would be for Mike. I think Mike is the only coach Jerry would have played for, so in that way I’m not surprised.”
It may be fair to wonder why Rice is not yet fully satisfied with his NFL career. But what burns Shanahan is the notion the NFL game has passed Rice by. When the Raiders let him go to Seattle – and the Seahawks let the league’s all-time best receiver stand on the sideline while putting their Super Bowl aspirations in the hands of Bobby Engram – whispers that Rice was finished became audible.
“People talk, but if they went back and looked, he had five games where he had more than 50 plays last year,” Shanahan said. “He averaged over four catches a game at 16 yards per catch in those five games. There’s not a lot of people who will actually study Jerry Rice. They hear a rumor and they don’t look at film, they don’t study every play he had last year, every catch. They just hear what somebody else says and they go on talk shows.”
He’s still got it
Bothered much of last season by a torn quad muscle, Rice nevertheless caught eight passes for 145 yards in a December game against Dallas. This wasn’t eight receptions, at better than 18 yards a pop, from the game-by-game annals of 1988 or 1994. This was December.
“And he wasn’t even the featured receiver that game,” said Bob Ferguson, the Seattle general manager last season. “I think Jerry is still capable of having one or two games like that a year.
“Jerry’s not done, as long as he accepts his role. A lot of veterans in every sport have managed to hang around and be productive for a long time if they accept a role. Look at Jerome Bettis in our sport. But mentally, Jerry hasn’t given up believing that he can be a starter, I’ll tell you that.”
The way Rice performed in the final week of Denver’s training camp, he shouldn’t. He did look his age early in camp as he was slowed first while gasping for thin air and then by plantar fasciitis in his left heel. But he has performed like the Rice of young since replacing Darius Watts as the No. 3 receiver.
“He’s already helped us a ton even if he left right now,” Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer said. “The impact he’s made on the young guys and raised the level on how to play – if I was a receiver and I ran a wrong route, or I didn’t make a catch if it touched my hands, I’d have a tough time turning around and looking No. 19 in the eye.”
One last hurrah
Had Rice played out his career in San Francisco, perhaps his return for a final season would have raised fewer eyebrows. The 49ers, however, are starting over again with their third head coach in four years and the farewell match never was a serious consideration for either side.
Rice isn’t going to retire a 49er. The Broncos are his last stop.
“Yes, this is it,” he said.
There are no more records he cares to grab, no particular milestone he craves to reach – although three more touchdown receptions for an even 200 would help the Broncos’ red-zone efficiency that ranked 29th in touchdown scoring last year.
“You know what I want?” Rice said. “I want to go to another Super Bowl. Because of the players here, because of Mike Shanahan and the approach these players take to the game, I felt that was my best opportunity.”
He smiled and looked down before finishing his thought.
“This legacy stuff,” Rice said, “people are like: ‘Why is he doing this to himself?’ Well, this is what I choose to do. I don’t think anyone else should make that decision.”
Setting sights
Staff writer Mike Klis looks at five goals the Broncos hope to accomplish Saturday night in their second preseason game, against the San Francisco 49ers:
1. A stronger running game Top running backs Mike Anderson and Tatum Bell gained just 23 yards on 14 carries in the preseason opener against Houston.
2. Better showing from the first-team defense Would have allowed two touchdowns in two series against the Texans if not for a goal-line stand.
3. Ten points from the first-team offense Not an unreasonable expectation for a Jake Plummer-led unit that should play into the second quarter.
4. Continued improvement from QB Bradlee Van Pelt He was 10-for-17 in debut at No. 2 but by his own admission, he could have been at least 14-for-17.
5. Two defensive turnovers Had just 20 in 16 games last year and none last weekend against Houston.
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-820-5440 or mklis@denverpost.com.
