Gil Brandt puts two Vikings in the top ten of his all-time greatest receivers list

After hitting a bit of a rough patch with Minnesota Vikings fans over his list of the greatest defensive tackles in NFL history, Gil Brandt of NFL.com tries to make things right with his list of the greatest wide receivers.

Granted, there are only two receivers with connections to the Vikings on Brandt’s list, but neither of them are surprising, and they’re both in the top ten.

The first one that we find is Cris Carter, who Brandt has at #10 on his list. After getting off to a rough start to his NFL career, the Vikings made their famous $100 waiver claim to bring Carter to Minnesota, and his career ascended to heights that not many probably thought were possible. When he retired from the NFL in 2002, he was second to Jerry Rice in pretty much every significant receiving category. The fact that he had to wait six years to be enshrined in Canton is unforgivable and borderline ridiculous, but he did finally get there.

A guy that certainly didn’t have to wait was Randy Moss, who will go into the Hall in just a few weeks, having been voted in the first time he was eligible. Brandt has Moss all the way up at #3 on his list, behind only Jerry Rice and Don Hutson. I’m not going to get into a huge fight with anyone that would put Moss behind those two guys. Rice compiled the kind of numbers that no other receiver is likely going to touch, and Hutson revolutionized the receiver position in the early years of the National Football League. Sure, I would have liked to see Moss at #1 or #2, but I’m not going to gripe too much about him being at #3.

In non-Vikings portions of the list, Brandt has former Detroit Lions’ wide receiver Calvin Johnson down at #18 on his list, which just seems a bit low to me. He was as ridiculously physically dominant as any receiver in recent memory, and the fact that Detroit didn’t really have a lot of success during his time there probably hurts him a bit. Still, I thought he would have been higher.

So, after yesterday’s defensive tackle disaster, what does everyone think about the wide receiver rankings?