Every NFL team's FIRST player to lead the league in receiving yards

I don't know if there's a point in doing these posts, but I do find it fun to go back in history and pull up a bunch of random names that nobody has heard about before or will likely ever hear about again. This list has some of the biggest "wtf" names of any dive I've done thus far.

One little note before moving forward, if you're confused by the Baltimore Colts appearing twice on this list, they are NOT the same franchise. The original Baltimore Colts played in the AAFC and folded in 1950, while the second version of the team was founded in 1953 and moved to Indianapolis in 1984.

Anyways, on to the chart

Year	Team	Player	Games Played	Yards	Receptions	Touchdowns
1932	New York Giants	Ray Flaherty*	12	350	21^	5^
1933	Pittsburgh Pirates/Steelers	Paul Moss	10	283	13	2
1934	Detroit Lions	Harry Ebding	12	264	10	2
1935	Boston Redskins/Washington Commanders	Charley Malone	11	433	22	2
1936	Green Bay Packers	Don Hutson*	12	536	34^	8^
1937	Chicago Cardinals	Gaynell Tinsley	11	675	36	5
1940	Philadelphia Eagles	Don Looney	11	707	58^	4
1945	Cleveland Rams	Jim Benton	9	1,067	45	8
1946 (AAFC)	Cleveland Browns	Dante Lavelli*	14	843	40^	8
1948 (AAFC)	Baltimore Colts (AAFC)	Billy Hillenbrand	14	970	50	7
1957	Baltimore Colts	Raymond Berry*	12	800	47	6
1960 (AFL)	Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans	Bill Groman	14	1,473	72	12
1962 (AFL)	New York Titans/Jets	Art Powell	14	1,130	64	8
1963 (AFL)	Oakland Raiders	Art Powell	14	1,304	72	16^
1964 (NFL)	Chicago Bears	Johnny Morris	14	1,200	93^	10^
1965 (AFL)	San Diego Chargers	Lance Alworth*	14	1,602	69	14^
1965 (NFL)	San Francisco 49ers	Dave Parks	14	1,344	80^	12^
1971	Kansas City Chiefs	Otis Taylor	14	1,110	57	7
1977	Dallas Cowboys	Drew Pearson*	14	870	48	2
1979	Seattle Seahawks	Steve Largent*	15	1,237	66	9
1981	Atlanta Falcons	Alfred Jenkins	16	1,358	70	13^
2004	Carolina Panthers	Muhsin Muhammad	16	1,405	93	16^
2006	Cincinnati Bengals	Chad Johnson	16	1,369	87	7
2008	Houston Texans	Andre Johnson	16	1,575	115^	8
2010	Denver Broncos	Brandon Lloyd	16	1,448	77	11
2019	New Orleans Saints	Michael Thomas	16	1,725	149^	9
2020	Buffalo Bills	Stefon Diggs	16	1,535	127^	8

*Denotes Hall of Famer

^Also led NFL

Teams without a receing yards leader:

• New England Patriots (est. 1960)
• Minnesota Vikings (est. 1961)
• Miami Dolphins (est. 1966)
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers (est. 1976)
• Jacksonville Jaguars (est. 1995)
• Baltimore Ravens (est. 1996)

I also decided to add little notes to the other stats they led the NFL in that season just for fun. I thought about adding in games started alongside game played, but it would've made the chart a bit too cluttered, so I just kept it to games played.

The biggest outlier here for me is Drew Pearson in 1977, who led the league with only 870 receiving yards. In fact, according to PFR, it is the only year since 1960 where nobody hauled in at least 1,000 yards receiving. It's no coincidence that the NFL adopted the Mel Blount rule the following year to open up the passing game. That should tell you everything you need to know as to how ridiculous defenses were back in the day.

Anyways, if you ever wanna look like a total loser impress your friends, here's some dumb trivia you can present from this list:

• The Bears have a player that won the receiving triple crown (hooray Johnny Morris)
• One player with the last name Moss led the league in receiving yards
• Art Powell led the AFL in receiving yards 2 years in a row while playing on a different team each season
• The Giants were the first team to have a player officially lead the league in receiving yards. It's also the only year they had a player lead the league in receiving yards.

Statistics available on Pro Football Reference