CSC All-Time Saints Team Nominations: Tight End

. . . changed the way the tight end position was played. I vote him.

His best years to date weren’t as a Saint, but Ironhead Heyward’s best years were as a Falcon and we put him on the team. I guess it goes back to the question of whether we are looking at a player’s entire career, or their career as a Saint. I’d probably still vote for Childs, but if we are looking at an entire career, Shockey’s 4 pro-bowls and 5,200 receiving yards should put him in the discussion.

I don’t know about revolutionizing the game, but Henry Childs is, without a doubt, the best TE that’s ever played for the Saints, based on his on-the-field accomplishments as a Saint. He led the team in receiving yards twice (the only TE to ever do so) and made the Pro Bowl once. His receptions/game, yards/game, TDs/game, yards/reception, and TDs/all exceed Brenner’s, whose only strong suit by comparison was his longetivity.

That being said, Hoby Brenner definitely deserves to be on the ballot. Other Saints TEs that I feel are at least worthy of inclusion:

Dave Parks – a three time Pro Bowler with the 49ers, albeit as a WR. He played TE for the Saints for five years and was one of Archie Manning’s primary targets early on.

Wesley Walls – Arguably the best TE in team history, in terms of an NFL career. Played in New Orleans for two years at the tail end of the Mora era, before going on to make five Pro Bowl appearances with the Panthers.

John Tice – Played ten seasons for the Black & Gold, all of which coincided with Brenner’s tenure. Modest numbers on the whole, but if you’re impressed with years of service, both he and Larry Hardy played second fiddle longer than most other starting Saints TEs combined.

Cameron Cleeland – Put up one of the best rookie seasons in team history, before succumbing to a myriad of nagging injuries. Caught the winning TD pass in OT to nip the Colts and move the Saints to 3-0 on the 1998 season.

Boo Williams – Fan favorite and a frequent target of Aaron Brooks throughout the Haslett regime.

Jeremy Shockey – Right up there with Walls, as far as overall careers go. He’s put up solid numbers the last couple of seasons and plays with about as much passion as any player I’ve ever seen. Two clutch TD catches in the playoffs. I’m a bit reluctant to nominate him, based on the shortsightness of some voters when it comes to recent/current players, but his exclusion would be a bit hard to justify, considering the collective merits of the rest of this fairly lackluster field of candidates.

…was dominant in Tecmo Superbowl, I vote him.

Hoby Brenner and it’s not close. I didn’t remember Childs that well and was honestly surprised to see his stats. Hmmm…

why? Because we haven’t put enough pressure on this kid yet!

here’s what Childs’s career statistics would look like extrapolated over Brenner’s career, based on …

Brenner: 267 rec, 3869 yds, 14.4 avg, 21 TDs.

number of games played:
Childs: 416 rec, 6485 yds, 15.6 avg, 54 TDs.

number of games started:
Childs: 550 rec, 8579 yds, 15.6 avg, 72 TDs.

number of receptions:
Childs: 267 rec, 4158 yds, 15.6 avg, 35 TDs.

Now, you could prorate the statistics of any flash in the pan player and they’d look great by comparison, but in this particular case, you’re only talking about a difference of 60 receptions. By Brenner standards, that’s roughly TWO season’s worth of production, despite sticking around SEVEN seasons longer than Childs.

But throwing all objective analysis out the window, and ignoring the influence of most recent memory, I sure enjoyed Mark Campbell and all his big guy clomp clomp doofiness. Here’s my Campbell injury retrospective.

Brain says Childs, heart says Hoby.

But I agree that Wesley Walls should get mentioned as well. He really didn’t play long with us, but I remember him being outstanding in that short while he was here

cant complain about hoby brenner. i remember him taking a pay cut to help the team sign some other guys later in his career.

dave, you finally gave in to the peer pressure?

If you look at the quarterback stats when Childs was with the Saints, and Hoby was with the Saints, Childs had Archie throwing to him, and Archie was several points more accurate than the group that Hoby had throwing the ball to him (I think Bobby Hebert was over 60% in a season once in Hoby’s tenure). Since a lot of the time the TE is catching stuff in traffic, I am going to have to give Hoby the vote for good stats with less talented passers here.

Without statistics on blocking (or a better memory), we’re grading tight ends as if they were wide receivers; maybe some of the resident historians can fill in those blanks a little, I’m at a loss. Working with the stats to be found here and at pro-football-reference.com Childs has the better seasonal stats, Brenner has longevity (as pointed out by CP). Longevity could be extrapolated for Childs of course; but on the other side of the coin, might Brenner have been the clear winner If he had QB consistency over his career? Let’s not discount longevity on its own merit either, thats a big point. Lastly, any vacillation is removed by giving a nod to Brenner because he was a Saint over the entirety of his NFL career.

“Let’s not discount longevity on its own merit either, thats a big point.”

Only if you put weight on it. Retaining a lesser player for an extended period of time can be as much a poor decision, as parting ways with a better player prematurely. You’re not going to convince me that Russell Erxleben was a better Saint punter than Mitch Berger or Mark Royals, simply because he managed to stick around a little longer. I’d actually take either one of those guys over Tom Blanchard and he stuck around WAY longer. Don’t get me wrong, I can see tenure coming into play when it’s relatively tooth and nail, as far as talent (within their respective eras) goes, but even that has it’s limits … for example, Derland Moore over Sedrick Ellis seems like a slam dunk to me… Dave Waymer over Mike McKenzie? … iffy. I’ll probably wind up going with Waymer, but he DID get burned an awful lot over those many years. He also wasn’t anywhere near the player MM was in run support.

in the trenches. Brenner was a team player and blocking was his greatest contribution.
Never heard any bad press, a positive 13 season again 13season player. Got my diehard Saints fan vote.

HA! Had to give a shout-out to my old high school teammate. But, my vote is for Hoby, more from the heart than anything as he was one of the first players I actually became a fan of. Didn’t get to see much of Childs’ play as I’m a little younger than our resident historian, CP.

But, would love to see our voting in about 10 years on the greatest Saints players ever. I really hope to see Jimmy Graham overtake everyone.

Thanks, Dave, for always keeping me in mind.

Shockey. Just ‘cause he’s crazy enough to be, well . . ., Shockey!

were two of the slowest tight ends I ever watched play. Both were well respected for their blocking skills, and would catch an occasional pass. The tight ends were well utilized by the Saints during that period, either by design or by poor QB play. Having said that, Hoby got it done, and he’s got my vote.

weren’t well utilized….

I even previewed the post and still missed it. sigh…

But I gotta addmy vote for Hoby. I always liked the big doofus. At least, he looked like one when he ran! Plus he has the longevity thing with the team. Both of them are certainly worthy of consideration.