[Sports] A Laveranues Coles Gathers No Moss

At the beginning of the free agency last year (2005) the Jets traded Santana Moss to the Washington Redskins for Laveranues Coles. It was a straight swap; the first one in ages. At the time pundits and commentators (and bloggers) were undecided as to who the better player was and which team made the better decision.

At the end of the regular season everyman and his dog was saying what a big mistake the Jets had made trading away Santana as he ended up going to the play-offs and had 1,483 yards (the second highest).

Gregg Easterbrook, NFL.com’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback, started a “Laveranues Coles watch” to gauge what the two players did (it was originally a “Mike Nugent watch” but this was stopped after the player he was compared to, Doug Brien, was released by the Bears). This week TMQ posted his final in the LCW series:

Laveranues Coles Watch (Final): Coles demanded to be traded from Washington because, inexcusably, the Redskins offense was not designed solely for the purpose of getting Coles stats. In his new home at Jersey/B, Coles finished the season with 845 yards receiving and five touchdowns. His replacement at Washington, Santana Moss, finished with 1,595 yards receiving and 10 touchdowns.

But let’s assume that the Jets couldn’t see into the future (if they could they would’ve protected their QBs a bit more). Below are Santana Moss’ career stats:

RECEIVING
Year	Team	G	GS	No	Yards	Avg	Lg	TD	20+	40+	FD
2001	New York Jets	5	0	2	40	20.0	33	0	1	0	2
2002	New York Jets	15	3	30	433	14.4	47	4	8	1	20
2003	New York Jets	16	12	74	1105	14.9	65	10	17	5	49
2004	New York Jets	15	14	45	838	18.6	69	5	13	6	35
2005	Washington Redskins	16	16	84	1483	17.7	78	9	24	10	60
TOTAL		67	45	235	3899	16.6	78	28	63	22	166

And here are Laveranues Coles’ career stats:

RECEIVING
Year	Team	G	GS	No	Yards	Avg	Lg	TD	20+	40+	FD
2000	New York Jets	13	3	22	370	16.8	63	1	6	1	16
2001	New York Jets	16	16	59	868	14.7	40	7	14	1	42
2002	New York Jets	16	16	89	1264	14.2	43	5	19	2	67
2003	Washington Redskins	16	16	82	1204	14.7	64	6	21	3	54
2004	Washington Redskins	16	16	90	950	10.6	45	1	10	1	52
2005	New York Jets	16	16	73	845	11.6	43	5	6	1	52
TOTAL		93	83	415	5501	13.3	64	25	76	9	283

Santana’s average yearly statistics without the 2005 stats are (rounded to nearest whole number):

38 catches for 604 yards (17 yards per catch) and 5 touchdowns

Laveranues’ average yearly statistics without the 2005 stats are (rounded to nearest whole number):

68 catchers for 931 yards (14 yards per catch) and 4 touchdowns

And if we have a close look Coles’ 2005 stats are very similar to Moss’ 2004 stats. And Coles was playing with a third string QB!