For me it has always been Mike Ditka, Mackey, Winslow, Sr. As the years have gone on however, I now feel Bavaro was the best ALL AROUND TE I have ever seen, albeit his career was shortened with a bad knee.
Gronk is close, but Bavaro was like having another OT on the los
Pretty much this. How integral was what MB could do to make the Giants successful. All around was Bavaro’s blocking’s as significant as Gonk’s receiving. At this point choosing one over the other at their peak in want was asked.
Gonzalez and Winslow are both great and are HOF players but healthy and at the peak im pretty torn between Gronk and Bavaro. Two guys you’d be happy to have in a huge game. But talk about. Yin and Yang personality wise Lol.
on Reggie White, Belichick also had some quotes om Bavaro vs LT and Banks in practice.
Was this posted? Maybe.
But this was when Belichick was asked to compare Bavaro and Gronk during Gronk's rookie season.
Quote:
...."I don't mean that in any way to slight any of our players. He set the bar up there pretty high. He could block, he could catch, he could run, and run after the catch. He was a great competitor. Mark was there every single week," Belichick said. "That's a guy you could count on. We lined up every year at training camp and he could block Carl Banks and Lawrence Taylor. Not too many guys blocked them. You talk about competitive battles -- if you like football, that's about as good as you could find right there."...
For me it's Bavaro, no one asked about longevity or the HOF, but best two-way TE is Bavaro.
Gronk is next, he was like Bavaro but bigger, so to be that athletic, strong, and have Gronk's size - creating offensive mis-matches just made him the perfect weapon for this era.
There's one long interview with Bavaro, years after he retired, wherein Mark tells a funny/ironic story about prescience. He said ND played at times in the Meadowlands stadium, and once Bavaro coming out on the field got to see a cluster of Giants OLBs practicing together - Banks, Headen, Taylor, maybe Hunt...
And his thought was: "who the heck would want to block those guys in practice every day!" Comparing this group of guys 6'3"-6'5" and 240# plus to the 6' 215# guys playing OLB in college programs at that time.
What an irony that the Giants drafted him, and those practice sessions and Bavaro's drive to excel (or at least not to embarrass himself) vs. whomever he lined up against made him the player he became.
Gronk was just so good as a receiver that he would Â
OP said all around, which I take to mean blocking and pass catching. And there’s been some discussion here about longevity and availability where Gronk clearly falls short of many others, most of whom could catch passes. So, not sure about all the love for Gronk.
"I'll put him there with Bavaro in terms of the guys I've coached," Belichick said of Gronkowski. "I mean, it'd be hard for me to put anybody past Bavaro just because of the number of times he blocked Reggie White with no help. We ran those 38-Boss and all that and they were in that over front and Reggie was the six-technique and Bavaro blocked him. There was no double- team. He just blocked him. Now that was a good battle."
Belichick isn't the only one who fell in love with Bavaro's blocking, check out what John Madden had to say. The same John Madden who coached Dave Casper who is a Top 10 TE all-time and was known for being a great blocker at his position...
His pass catching fell off in that stretch, but he could sure block. In a Monday night game against the Redskins, he was assigned the job of handling the defensive end. The Giants rushed for 202 yards. "Best job of blocking I've ever seen by a tight end," CBS's John Madden said.
I don't think there's anything overly "Giants homer!" about choosing Bavaro for this topic if you aren't valuing longevity and are simply talking Peak performance. Yea, there are a bunch of other worthy choices but his first 4 or so years before his degenerative knee condition killed his career were dominant. He took the term "Two-Way Tight End" to another level.
I'd go Gronk by a mile from guys I've seen, I don't think Gonzalez or Witten are even close. I don't know if Witten is even better than Antonio Gates.
But Bavaro was a different animal from those non-Gronk guys, and in today's era where the middle of the field is wide open he would have put up huge numbers too when he played. He really was a freak.
+1 .... Thank-you Osi.
Mike Ditka's "A Football Life" was on yesterdayy Â
Gronk is probably 2nd. Winslow third. And I would be thrilled if any one of the 3 was my TE.
Zeke Mowatt was also an very underrated TE. He was on his way to being a star before he hurt his knee. Bavaro stepped right in and was amazing. It would be hard to find too many 1-2 punches better than them when Mowatt got healthy.
The reason I say Bavaro over Gronk is the all around Â
criteria. His blocking was good enough to consider him a 3rd OT. That's what sets him apart from most other TEs, given he could catch with the best of them.
He's certainly in consideration as the Best Offensive Player Ever....there'e simply no comparison to Him as a TE.
His blocking ability...His Pass Catching and After the Catch...Probably the Biggest "Field Tilter" in the History of the Game.
Best offensive player ever? Better than Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, Gayle Sayers, Joe Montana, etc, etc.? Take a breath, please.
I believe what I wrote...he's the best TE ever, and He may be the best Offensive Player ever. His Production and His impact On Game PLanning for Defenses have been enormous. There is no Matchup against him... he dominates in all factors of the Game.
To Other's Comments... My considerations would certainly include Jim Brown and Peyton Manning ---Peyton changed every single thing that The NFL has come to expect of the Modern QB. Jim Brown was "The Babe Ruth of Football". There would be a handful of others I'd consider.
PS.... Bavaro was a Great Player---and the NFL HOF has long been a tough place for TE's.... NFL coaching has also been tough on TE's, for too long ignoring the mismatches that Big, Fast TE Receivers can cause.
He's certainly in consideration as the Best Offensive Player Ever....there'e simply no comparison to Him as a TE.
His blocking ability...His Pass Catching and After the Catch...Probably the Biggest "Field Tilter" in the History of the Game.
No he's not and that's a ridiculous assertion, when you put him in the same class as Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, Gayle Sayers, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning and his own QB Tom Brady. In fact, I could name 10 more offensive players in a heartbeat that were greater than Gronk. Give me a break...
Walter Payton? OJ simpson?
Gronk probably isn't in the same class as Earl Campbell or Eric Dickerson, either...
Gronk is among the top 5 TEs ever, but not the top 5 offensive players all time, IMO.
Certainly Tom Brady deserves consideration----but Eric Dickerson and Earl Campbell??????.... I think you're way off base, and I'm sure that the next 10 you "name in a heart beat" will be just as stupid.
I love Gronk's game. There is only one legit knock on the guy. In 9 seasons he's missed a combined 29 games not including the playoff games he's missed. That's over two full seasons. Over 20% in total. I just can't give him the #1 overall spot.
Tony Gonzalez is the #1 TE all time imo. In 17 seasons he played in every game of his career except 1. He caught over 70 balls in 14 of them and significantly more than that in many of them. He has 111 career TD's and achieved that with an incredible pair of hands.
His combination of elite production, consistency, reliability, playmaking and durability are ridiculous.
AS for the Giants Shockey was the most talented TE we've ever had on the roster. Foot injuries and attitude prevented him from fulfilling his promise. Bavaro is the best TE in franchise history. He did it with toughness, clutch playmaking and elite physicality.
All things considered Bavaro's 86 season is probably the best a tight end has ever played. He was as effective as a tackle blocking, and had more catches and nearly the same amount of yards as the two starting WRs combined on a 14-2 championship team.
Gronk, Gonzalez, and Gates have had better careers. But all things considered, Bavaro's peak is as good as it gets.
For a few years there in mid80s, Simms to Bavaro Â
He's certainly in consideration as the Best Offensive Player Ever....there'e simply no comparison to Him as a TE.
His blocking ability...His Pass Catching and After the Catch...Probably the Biggest "Field Tilter" in the History of the Game.
No he's not and that's a ridiculous assertion, when you put him in the same class as Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, Gayle Sayers, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning and his own QB Tom Brady. In fact, I could name 10 more offensive players in a heartbeat that were greater than Gronk. Give me a break...
Walter Payton? OJ simpson?
Gronk probably isn't in the same class as Earl Campbell or Eric Dickerson, either...
Gronk is among the top 5 TEs ever, but not the top 5 offensive players all time, IMO.
Certainly Tom Brady deserves consideration----but Eric Dickerson and Earl Campbell??????.... I think you're way off base, and I'm sure that the next 10 you "name in a heart beat" will be just as stupid.
Earl Campbell and "way off base" doesn't go together.
He didn't have the longevity because of the way he played but the day he entered the NFL he was the best player on the field every week & that run lasted at least his first 3 years. Nobody was better. He was the MVP of the league in those 3 years? Gronk? Never once was he the best player in the league.
Gronk is not the best player ever. That comment is way off.
From the article that Osi linked to a few posts up. Â
"Oh, we've got one, even if he's only 24 years old," says Phil Simms, the quarterback-turned-narrator, in the best Giants tradition. "We've got our legend." Simms pauses for dramatic effect, rolling the name off his tongue, drawing it out. "Bavaaaro! Mark Bavaro. Great big kid. Real quiet. Some guys have never heard him talk. Loves to block, knock people down, plant 'em. First game [of 1985, his rookie season] we rush for 192 yards, more than in any game the year before. Against Cincinnati he breaks the club record with 12 catches for 176 yards. We're a veteran team, but we're a little bit in awe of this guy."
"They make an odd pair, kind of like a rhino and a tickbird. McConkey is 30 years old, 5'10", 170 pounds, knobby-looking, battle-scarred. Bavaro is 24, 6'4", 245 pounds of chiseled marble, and startlingly handsome in a sleepy-eyed, innocent-looking way."
Pretty much this. How integral was what MB could do to make the Giants successful. All around was Bavaro’s blocking’s as significant as Gonk’s receiving. At this point choosing one over the other at their peak in want was asked.
Gonzalez and Winslow are both great and are HOF players but healthy and at the peak im pretty torn between Gronk and Bavaro. Two guys you’d be happy to have in a huge game. But talk about. Yin and Yang personality wise Lol.
Link - ( New Window )
Was this posted? Maybe.
But this was when Belichick was asked to compare Bavaro and Gronk during Gronk's rookie season.
Quote:
...."I don't mean that in any way to slight any of our players. He set the bar up there pretty high. He could block, he could catch, he could run, and run after the catch. He was a great competitor. Mark was there every single week," Belichick said. "That's a guy you could count on. We lined up every year at training camp and he could block Carl Banks and Lawrence Taylor. Not too many guys blocked them. You talk about competitive battles -- if you like football, that's about as good as you could find right there."...
For me it's Bavaro, no one asked about longevity or the HOF, but best two-way TE is Bavaro.
Gronk is next, he was like Bavaro but bigger, so to be that athletic, strong, and have Gronk's size - creating offensive mis-matches just made him the perfect weapon for this era.
There's one long interview with Bavaro, years after he retired, wherein Mark tells a funny/ironic story about prescience. He said ND played at times in the Meadowlands stadium, and once Bavaro coming out on the field got to see a cluster of Giants OLBs practicing together - Banks, Headen, Taylor, maybe Hunt...
And his thought was: "who the heck would want to block those guys in practice every day!" Comparing this group of guys 6'3"-6'5" and 240# plus to the 6' 215# guys playing OLB in college programs at that time.
What an irony that the Giants drafted him, and those practice sessions and Bavaro's drive to excel (or at least not to embarrass himself) vs. whomever he lined up against made him the player he became.
But if we are choosing up sides...I pick Bavaro for my team in any decade...
Belichick isn't the only one who fell in love with Bavaro's blocking, check out what John Madden had to say. The same John Madden who coached Dave Casper who is a Top 10 TE all-time and was known for being a great blocker at his position...
His pass catching fell off in that stretch, but he could sure block. In a Monday night game against the Redskins, he was assigned the job of handling the defensive end. The Giants rushed for 202 yards. "Best job of blocking I've ever seen by a tight end," CBS's John Madden said.
https://www.si.com/vault/1987/09/09/116127/nfc-east-legend-in-the-making-after-only-two-seasons-tight-end-mark-bavaro-has-quietly-become-a-giant-among-giants
I don't think there's anything overly "Giants homer!" about choosing Bavaro for this topic if you aren't valuing longevity and are simply talking Peak performance. Yea, there are a bunch of other worthy choices but his first 4 or so years before his degenerative knee condition killed his career were dominant. He took the term "Two-Way Tight End" to another level.
I'd go Gronk by a mile from guys I've seen, I don't think Gonzalez or Witten are even close. I don't know if Witten is even better than Antonio Gates.
But Bavaro was a different animal from those non-Gronk guys, and in today's era where the middle of the field is wide open he would have put up huge numbers too when he played. He really was a freak.
+1 .... Thank-you Osi.
Zeke Mowatt was also an very underrated TE. He was on his way to being a star before he hurt his knee. Bavaro stepped right in and was amazing. It would be hard to find too many 1-2 punches better than them when Mowatt got healthy.
Quote:
He's certainly in consideration as the Best Offensive Player Ever....there'e simply no comparison to Him as a TE.
His blocking ability...His Pass Catching and After the Catch...Probably the Biggest "Field Tilter" in the History of the Game.
Best offensive player ever? Better than Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, Gayle Sayers, Joe Montana, etc, etc.? Take a breath, please.
I believe what I wrote...he's the best TE ever, and He may be the best Offensive Player ever. His Production and His impact On Game PLanning for Defenses have been enormous. There is no Matchup against him... he dominates in all factors of the Game.
To Other's Comments... My considerations would certainly include Jim Brown and Peyton Manning ---Peyton changed every single thing that The NFL has come to expect of the Modern QB. Jim Brown was "The Babe Ruth of Football". There would be a handful of others I'd consider.
PS.... Bavaro was a Great Player---and the NFL HOF has long been a tough place for TE's.... NFL coaching has also been tough on TE's, for too long ignoring the mismatches that Big, Fast TE Receivers can cause.
Quote:
He's certainly in consideration as the Best Offensive Player Ever....there'e simply no comparison to Him as a TE.
His blocking ability...His Pass Catching and After the Catch...Probably the Biggest "Field Tilter" in the History of the Game.
No he's not and that's a ridiculous assertion, when you put him in the same class as Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, Gayle Sayers, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning and his own QB Tom Brady. In fact, I could name 10 more offensive players in a heartbeat that were greater than Gronk. Give me a break...
Walter Payton? OJ simpson?
Gronk probably isn't in the same class as Earl Campbell or Eric Dickerson, either...
Gronk is among the top 5 TEs ever, but not the top 5 offensive players all time, IMO.
Certainly Tom Brady deserves consideration----but Eric Dickerson and Earl Campbell??????.... I think you're way off base, and I'm sure that the next 10 you "name in a heart beat" will be just as stupid.
Tony Gonzalez is the #1 TE all time imo. In 17 seasons he played in every game of his career except 1. He caught over 70 balls in 14 of them and significantly more than that in many of them. He has 111 career TD's and achieved that with an incredible pair of hands.
His combination of elite production, consistency, reliability, playmaking and durability are ridiculous.
AS for the Giants Shockey was the most talented TE we've ever had on the roster. Foot injuries and attitude prevented him from fulfilling his promise. Bavaro is the best TE in franchise history. He did it with toughness, clutch playmaking and elite physicality.
Gronk, Gonzalez, and Gates have had better careers. But all things considered, Bavaro's peak is as good as it gets.
John Mackey
Dave Casper
Tony Gonzales
Kellen Winslow
Shannon Sharpe
Navarro was by far the best Giants TE followed by Tucker and Shockey.
Special mention to Jason Witten who totally owned the Giants.
I think every TE the cowboys have had since Ditka has owned the giants .....
Quote:
In comment 14478718 Rafflee said:
Quote:
He's certainly in consideration as the Best Offensive Player Ever....there'e simply no comparison to Him as a TE.
His blocking ability...His Pass Catching and After the Catch...Probably the Biggest "Field Tilter" in the History of the Game.
No he's not and that's a ridiculous assertion, when you put him in the same class as Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, Gayle Sayers, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning and his own QB Tom Brady. In fact, I could name 10 more offensive players in a heartbeat that were greater than Gronk. Give me a break...
Walter Payton? OJ simpson?
Gronk probably isn't in the same class as Earl Campbell or Eric Dickerson, either...
Gronk is among the top 5 TEs ever, but not the top 5 offensive players all time, IMO.
Certainly Tom Brady deserves consideration----but Eric Dickerson and Earl Campbell??????.... I think you're way off base, and I'm sure that the next 10 you "name in a heart beat" will be just as stupid.
Earl Campbell and "way off base" doesn't go together.
He didn't have the longevity because of the way he played but the day he entered the NFL he was the best player on the field every week & that run lasted at least his first 3 years. Nobody was better. He was the MVP of the league in those 3 years? Gronk? Never once was he the best player in the league.
Gronk is not the best player ever. That comment is way off.
"Oh, we've got one, even if he's only 24 years old," says Phil Simms, the quarterback-turned-narrator, in the best Giants tradition. "We've got our legend." Simms pauses for dramatic effect, rolling the name off his tongue, drawing it out. "Bavaaaro! Mark Bavaro. Great big kid. Real quiet. Some guys have never heard him talk. Loves to block, knock people down, plant 'em. First game [of 1985, his rookie season] we rush for 192 yards, more than in any game the year before. Against Cincinnati he breaks the club record with 12 catches for 176 yards. We're a veteran team, but we're a little bit in awe of this guy."
Link - ( New Window )
from Zimmerman's analogy
"They make an odd pair, kind of like a rhino and a tickbird. McConkey is 30 years old, 5'10", 170 pounds, knobby-looking, battle-scarred. Bavaro is 24, 6'4", 245 pounds of chiseled marble, and startlingly handsome in a sleepy-eyed, innocent-looking way."