Green Bay Packers 100: Fifth best receiver in franchise history
We continue our “Packers 100” countdown looking at the best wide receivers in franchise history. Packers football is just 95 days away. You can find the full countdown here.
5. Antonio Freeman
Choosing the top-five wide receivers in Green Bay Packers history is a bit like sorting out the top-five bikini models in a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue in that there’s so much to choose from among a deep pool of very worthy candidates.
Settling on the fifth member of this prestigious group came down to choosing between current star wideout Jordy Nelson and another Packer fan-favorite from the recent past, Antonio Freeman.
One can argue that Nelson is the more physically-talented athlete whose season-long absence in 2015 proved to be even more disastrous than first anticipated in the immediate aftermath of his pre-season mishap.
Yet for all the big plays Nelson has dazzled us with since joining the Packers as a second-round pick in 2008, he hasn’t quite separated himself from Freeman from a number of aspects.
For one, both receivers have an equal amount of 1,000-yard seasons with three apiece. Moreover, Nelson still has some catching up to do in career receiving yards (6,109 versus Freeman’s 6,651 in a Packers uniform) and total career receiving touchdowns (49 versus Freeman’s 57 in a Packers uniform). Both have also been clutch performers with each scoring touchdowns in Super Bowl title games.
Nelson should eventually surpass Freeman in this ranking assuming he regains his previous form, but for now No. 86 still gets the nod.
Drafted as the 90th pick in the third-round of the 1995 draft, the man who would come to be known as “Free” saw a number of lesser receivers get selected before him, including Chris T. Jones, Frank Sanders, Chris Sanders and someone by the name of Jimmy Oliver who wound up going catchless in his two years at the next level.
Freeman’s average speed and less-than-sure-handed ways at Virginia Tech scared some general managers away, but Ron Wolf wasn’t one of them.
The six-foot-one pass catcher bid his time behind leading receivers Robert Brooks and Mark Ingram as a rookie. The fleet-footed Brooks, in particular, was on his way to quickly replacing Sterling Sharpe in the hearts of diehard Cheeseheads by putting up a then franchise-record 1,497 receiving yards.
Brooks’ emergence as the team’s number-one go-to weapon was short-lived due to a torn ACL he suffered a year later in a Monday night game versus San Francisco.
One man’s tragedy, as it often turns out, was another’s opportunity of a lifetime, as Freeman blossomed into Brett Favre’s favorite target going into the late 1990s.
The Maryland native would typically line up as a split end that made a career out of getting open on slants and quick outs, which put him in position to become a force in the area of tacking on yardage after the catch.
Freeman’s decisiveness and vision as an open-field runner also saw him contribute as a return specialist early on, but the former Hokie’s days as a special teams man soon became a thing of the past with his role growing in the offense.
In Green Bay’s title-winning 2006 season, Freeman gained 933 yards in 12 regular-season games and capped things off with an 81-yard touchdown catch in Super Bowl XXXI that put the Packers up for good over New England.
What made Freeman a special Packer wasn’t his ability to blow by defensive backs with outwardly skills or stop-on-a-dime elusiveness; instead he would often outbattle opponents by slapping their hands away or pulling on their jerseys if necessary.
And he always worked hard at decreasing his annual drop totals and was successful in dispelling the stigma of having unreliable hands prior to being drafted.
One thing that you noticed when viewing the all-time Packer great is the emphasis he would place on tightly securing the football once it was in his hands. After fumbling the ball three times in his second season, Freeman only had three more for the rest of his career with only four that were lost among his 477 receptions.
One reason Favre targeted Freeman as much as he did was because his trusty security blanket knew how to find open seams amidst chaos.
The Favre-Freeman chemistry was firing on all cylinders in 1998 when the fearless playmaker posted a career-best 1,424 yards on 84 catches with 14 touchdown grabs.
His offensive coordinator Sherm Lewis highlighted his superior football IQ when he stated, “Free picked up our offense faster than anybody I’ve ever seen. He has a sense of where to be.”
The one play Freeman will always be fondly remembered for is his Monday night game-winning overtime catch against the Vikings in Week 10 of the 2000 season. During the sequence, cornerback Cris Dishman beat his opponent to the ball, but allowed a sure interception to fall right through his hands and into the mitts of No. 86 who scooped up the ball that was only inches from hitting the ground and proceeded to get back on his feet and score the game-ending touchdown.
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The veteran’s uncanny awareness was on grand display on that rainy night before a packed house at Lambaeu Field.
The lowlight of Freeman’s time in Packerland took place during the dark years of the Ray Rhodes regime that followed Mike Holmgren’s departure to become the head coach and general manager of the Seattle Seahawks.
Rhodes wanted the offense to generate more big plays and had Freeman run deep vertical routes instead of letting him stick to his bread-and-butter in-breaking patterns. No. 86 did go over 1,000 yards that year, but reached 100 yards in only three of them as the Packers would finish the 1999 season at 8-8, their only non-winning season between 1992 and 2004.
Freeman played two more years under head coach Mike Sherman, but it was clear that his play was on the decline with Bill Schroeder increasingly winding up on the receiving end of Favre’s passes.
Freeman’s inability to see eye-to-eye with Sherman and his high salary-cap number forced Green Bay to release him in June of 2002. The 30-year-old signed with the Eagles that year and gained 600 yards as their slot receiver.
His stay in Philly was brief, as he returned to his old team for one more go-around before finally calling it quits at the close of the 2003 season.
After a 10-year career in the NFL, the legendary wideout inked a one-day contract with the Packers and officially retired as a member of the organization in 2007.
Next: Packers 100: Full countdown to 2016 season
Nowadays, Freeman keeps busy making several appearances on ESPN’s First Take or NFL Live and he’s always given a hero’s welcome whenever he’s back in Green Bay.