Uppercut takes a statistical look at top Chargers receivers throughout franchise history.
As I did recently with pass-rushers, I’m going to take us through the Chargers’ leaders in receiving yards (sans RBs) and attempt to make adjustments for the passing environments of their respective times, hopefully learning some new names along the way. The method of adjustment I’m most fond of is one known as "True Receiving Yards" (TRY), developed over at Football Perspective. (Most recent version/results here & here).
I’ll let you read up on the exact number crunching yourselves, and just say that this gives value to TDs & receptions (where receptions are a historically available proxy for 1st downs), adjusts for said team's passing frequency relative to the league each year & for the league-year relative to the average across the entire time period in question, and also pro-rates to a 16 game schedule (note: totals are not as if the receiver played all 16 games, just as if there were 16 possible.