The golden age of the wide receiver trio is here. Last season, NFL teams used three or more wide receivers on 63% of plays. The typical three-wide set, also known as 11 personnel, was the most popular personnel grouping for all 32 teams.
That third wide receiver position is a starting job in the modern NFL, and teams have responded by building dynamic trios for their offense. The Bills have Stefon Diggs, Emmanuel Sanders and Cole Beasley. Cincinnati has Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd. Dallas has CeeDee Lamb, Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup.
And there are two teams where all three of the top receivers currently rank in the top 30 of Football Outsiders' DYAR (Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement) statistics. Arizona has Christian Kirk (third), DeAndre Hopkins (fourth) and A.J. Green (27th), while the Buccaneers have Chris Godwin (10th), Mike Evans (11th) and Antonio Brown (18th).
This led us to question which wide receiver trio is the greatest of all time? There are a couple of ways to answer that question. We could look at which team had the most career catches or yards for their top three receivers, but that would give us teams with older veteran players. Instead, to look at which teams got the most value out of their top three receivers in a given season, I used DYAR and looked at the top three receivers for every team since 1983.
I ranked teams using the harmonic mean of their top three receivers' DYAR totals. Using harmonic mean instead of normal arithmetic mean gives us a list of teams where all three receivers had excellent seasons.
Otherwise, taking the mean of the top three receivers could give us teams such as the 2006 Indianapolis Colts, where Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne had awesome seasons but the third receiver was Aaron Moorehead. Using DYAR allows us to normalize for each individual season to correct for the fact that receivers have more yards now than they did in the 1980s and 1990s.
Here are 12 teams with the best wide receiver trios of all time:
12. 1990 Houston Oilers
This was the first season of the Run and Shoot offense in Houston where Warren Moon did an extraordinary job of spreading the ball evenly among his receivers. The Run and Shoot used 10 personnel (four wideouts, one running back) when most teams were still using only two wide receivers for most plays.
The Oilers don't come out as the best wide receiver trio ever, but no team has ever matched the 1990 Houston Oilers as a quartet. Fourth receiver Curtis Duncan also had 66 catches for 785 yards and finished eighth in DYAR.
11. 2007 New England Patriots
The Patriots completely rebuilt their wide receiver group on the way to a perfect regular season. Randy Moss set an NFL record with 23 receiving touchdowns and his 568 DYAR that season represents the second-highest total of all time. (Former Cowboy Michael Irvin holds the record for his 1995 season).
Wes Welker had the highest catch rate of any wide receiver (min. 50 targets) since John Taylor caught 80% of his targets for the 1989 49ers. Donte Stallworth, a former first-round pick of the New Orleans Saints, served as the third receiver in his only season with New England.
10. 2015 Seattle Seahawks
High catch rates were the secret to this trio's success. They are one of only two trios since 1983 where all three receivers caught at least 70% of intended passes. The other was the 2016 Vikings with Stefon Diggs, Adam Thielen and Cordarrelle Patterson, but Patterson only averaged 8.7 yards per reception.
Doug Baldwin was second in the league in DYAR behind Antonio Brown, but didn't make the Pro Bowl. Tyler Lockett did make both the Pro Bowl and All-Pro list, but as a return man.
9. 2001 St. Louis Rams
Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt finished second and fifth among qualifying receivers in yards per reception in 2001 -- combining that with very acceptable catch rates considering how often they were working deep.
Ricky Proehl was the underneath slot receiver but ran deeper routes than we're used to from that position now. The Greatest Show on Turf used four wide receivers pretty heavily, but Az Hakim had somewhat of an off season with just 9.6 yards per reception.
8. 2021 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
To get these numbers, we prorated the Buccaneers receivers to 16 games each to match past player seasons. For Brown, we prorated him as if he will come back next week -- the Bucs on Thursday denied a report that he had obtained fake COVID-19 vaccination card -- so that's 12 games instead of 16. If we prorated Brown's 2021 numbers to a full 16 games, the Buccaneers would rank second on this list instead of eighth. But then we would need to prorate everybody to a 16-game season and other historical teams would leap ahead of the Bucs.
What's remarkable about the Buccaneers is the equality between their three receivers. Based on DVOA, which measures value per play while DYAR measures total value, all three Buccaneers receivers rank in the top 20 for this season's wideouts.
7. 2012 Green Bay Packers
Randall Cobb really exploded in his second season in the league, catching everything that came his way. James Jones earned a starting role after five seasons in Green Bay and led the NFL in touchdown receptions.
This group would have been even more dangerous if Jordy Nelson had been healthy enough to play more than 12 games. This is another group that looks even more impressive as a foursome, since Greg Jennings was originally in the starting lineup but lost eight games to injury.
6. 1984 Miami Dolphins
The Marks Brothers, plus one more. Given that the 1984 Dolphins rewrote all the offensive record books at the time, it's no surprise to see them on this list. Notice how much longer Mark Clayton and Mark Duper's average catches went compared to the top receiving trios of recent seasons.
And remember, our DYAR stats are normalized for each season, so Clayton and Duper's numbers look even more impressive in 1984 compared to how they would look in the much higher offensive environment of today.
Clayton's 18 touchdowns are still tied for the third-best season of all time. Veteran Nat Moore may be the least known of these three receivers, at least to non-Dolphins fans, but he was a longtime Dolphins veteran who played for the team from 1974 to 1986, and was voted as NFL's Man of the Year in 1984 for his service in the community.
5. 2013 Denver Broncos
Two of Peyton Manning's Denver seasons make our list, as he had an outstanding trio of receivers in both 2012 and 2013.
In this second season, Manning replaced his longtime slot receiver Brandon Stokley with Tom Brady's longtime sideman Welker. Welker's raw numbers look more impressive than Stokley's the season before, but he doesn't do as well in advanced metrics because of a lower catch rate and less yards per reception.
As for two outside receivers, Demaryius Thomas led all receivers in DYAR in 2013 and Eric Decker was fourth. Thomas' numbers in 2012 and 2013 look identical at first glance but 2013 was the better season because Thomas had more first downs and touchdowns.
4. 2008 Arizona Cardinals
The 2008 Cardinals are one of four teams where three different wide receivers reached 1,000 yards. (Two of the others are 1989 Washington and 1995 Atlanta, and you'll find the fourth at No. 1 on this list.)
This is early-career Larry Fitzgerald, when he was an all-around combination of deep threat and possession receiver. Fitzgerald made first-team All-Pro and led the NFL in receiving touchdowns in 2008. Anquan Boldin was also chosen for the Pro Bowl. Third receiver Steve Breaston had been a fifth-round pick the year before but blossomed in his second season, going from 92 yards as a rookie to over 1,000 yards as a sophomore.
3. 2012 Denver Broncos
At two spots higher, here are the 2012 Broncos ahead of the 2013 edition. Thomas had virtually identical numbers in the two seasons, although he had fewer first downs and touchdowns in 2012. Thomas' lower DYAR numbers are countered by the fact that Stokley was more efficient than Welker was a season later.
Decker has similar DYAR in both seasons, with more yardage in 2013, but more touchdowns and a higher catch rate in 2012. A harder schedule also moves the 2012 Broncos ahead of the 2013 team.
2. 2015 Arizona Cardinals
By 2015, Fitzgerald had become much more of a possession receiver who worked significantly from the slot. But his performance, while shaped very differently than his performance in 2008, was still very valuable. Meanwhile, John Brown and Michael Floyd ran most of the deeper routes. Brown really blossomed in his second season after the Cardinals took him in the third round of the 2014 draft -- this was probably his best NFL season.
1. 2004 Indianapolis Colts
Easily the best wide receiver trio of all time. This list is ordered by harmonic mean of DYAR between the three receivers; the gap between the 2004 Colts and the 2015 Cardinals at No. 2 is equal to the gap between No. 2 and the 2007 Patriots at No. 10.
Wayne had the best DYAR total of his career, leading the league for the 2004 season. Although Harrison tied a career high in touchdowns, he had enjoyed more receiving yards and a higher DYAR in each of the five previous seasons. Meanwhile, while we think of Stokley as a prototypical small slot receiver working near the line of scrimmage, he was three inches taller than Welker and averaged 15.9 yards per reception. He was running downfield routes out of the slot, not just short slants and crosses.
Honorable Mentions
A few classic trios who didn't make our top dozen, with their best seasons as a trio:
1989 Washington: Gary Clark, Ricky Sanders, and Art Monk
1998 San Francisco 49ers: Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens and J.J. Stokes
1999 Minnesota Vikings: Randy Moss, Cris Carter and Jake Reed
2009 Pittsburgh Steelers: Santonio Holmes, Hines Ward and Mike Wallace
2018 Los Angeles Rams: Robert Woods, Brandin Cooks and Cooper Kupp
Old School
Football Outsiders' play-by-play breakdowns go back to the 1983 season. What was the best wide receiver trio before that? We measured using the harmonic mean of receiving yards rather than DYAR.
The 1979 Bills were the leader with the trio of Frank Lewis, Jerry Butler, and Lou Piccone. Lewis was a former Super Bowl champion with the Steelers who was later traded to Buffalo for nothing. (The other player in the trade failed his physical but the Bills didn't return Lewis to the Steelers.) Butler was a rookie fifth overall pick out of Clemson. Piccone was a speedster out of NAIA West Liberty State.