Not at all, college back then ran elementary level offenses. The old saying was that WRs would break out in their 3rd year. That then became prevalent in fantasy football too as it grew in popularity. “Looking for the 3rd year WR sleeper”. That eventually became 2nd year WR breakouts. In today’s NFL and fantasy everyone is looking for the rookie breakout. This also coincides with college adapting more professional style offenses while at the same time NFL adopted more college concepts.

The problem with being old enough to have experienced his first few years, is that we are also too old to remember things.

WRs were not expected to put 1k+ yard season all the time like they are now.

Come on man…I’m not old.

The whole team stunk through those years.

He’s averaging 18.5 yards per catch, and a TD every 6 times he touches the ball. There was no criticism of him.

I have to be honest. It was different then. There was no fantasy football. There was no constant daily reports and analysis on player performance. We watched professional football on Sunday afternoons and Monday night and that was it. And you usually only could see 3 maybe 4 games a week. 3 were televised in your area between 1 and 4. And then the Monday night game.

Also. And I am being honest so young folks don’t be offended. We weren’t so damn hyper judgmental about players. We gave them time to develop. Rarely did a guy flash immediately even first rounders. No one called for anyone’s heads after one bad game or one bad season. The attention span and patience level of todays average fan is so short it’s ridiculous.

But everyone also knew the Boys were bad at the end of the 80’s. Landry was trying to rebuild. But Jones after he bought the team in 89 had limited patience and wanted to get it turned around fast. Bringing in Johnson who promptly dumped their best asset and fleecing Minne in the process then drafting Aikman and being patient with him turned out to be right.

And just as Diggs made Allen a much better QB. Back then Aikman made Irvin better back then. Same as it ever was.

August 1989 the Dallas Fort Worth Star ran an article about the lack of praise Irvin was getting, noting he was being referred to as having the potential to be a good receiver

https://www.newspapers.com/article/fort-worth-star-telegram/134176138/

the discourse on the NFL was vastly different in that era

Yeah, I remember thinking we were so lucky to draft Brian Blades in the 2nd round who in his first four seasons was more productive than MI. But Irvin turned it around to become a HOF. Go Hawks

Something else to keep in mind, in 1990 there was 10 wide receivers in the whole league that had over 1000 yards. Last year, if I counted right, it was 22 receivers over 1000 yards. Stats are definitely more inflated in the modern game.

Cowboys as a team were really bad at that time.

Keep in mind that back then, sports discussions were at work, school or a bar, and consisted mainly of, “Did you see the [local team] game last night? and “Yeah, cool win, they’re looking pretty good.” And if the performance of another team’s wide receiver relative to their draft status was discussed at an office building a mile away, you would have zero idea that conversation happened and it would exist only in the memories of those involved in that discussion. Almost like it never existed. Weird, huh?

Those Cowboy teams were absolute dogshit.

It wasn’t until they put together than O-line that allowed Emmitt to run and gave Aikman time to pass that they became good.

Man I remember looking for shit to read in the newspaper as a kid in highschool.