LA Rams: 15 greatest wide receivers of All Time

One of the most exciting players to catch a pass was LA Rams wide receiver, Flipper Anderson. With a nickname like Flipper, you just know he’s got to be good, right? He was another Rams receiver who averaged better than 20 yards per catch with the team. But first things first. How did he get his nickname? You can thank his babysitter, a kind-hearted woman known as Mama Pearl:

"“She said that when my mother dropped me off, I would cry like a dolphin. In fact, she told my mother that I even sounded like a dolphin. So, she started calling me Flipper.” – Per Willie Anderson per LA Times Archives (Subscription required)"

Flipper Anderson holds the NFL All-Time Single Game Receiving Yards title with 336 yards put up against the New Orleans Saints on November 26, 1989. That’s a record that has now survived 33 years and may stand much longer. While he holds a single-game receiving yards record that is fading from memory, he was far more than just one game to the Rams’ organization.

He was a field stretcher. An electrifying wide receiver who would become the template for the soon-to-be Greatest Show On Turf offense of the Saint Louis Rams. In fact, it was that move to Saint Louis that became a parting of ways for the Rams and Anderson. In 1995, as the Rams were setting up shop in Saint Louis, Missouri, he was setting up his locker with the Indianapolis Colts.

Willie Lee Anderson Jr. stood 6-foot-0 and weighed 175-pounds, was a native of Philadelphia, PA, but attended college at UCLA.  When he was drafted by the LA Rams, he joined veteran standout wide receiver, Henry Ellard.  Ellard left the Rams after 1993, and his teammate Anderson followed a year later. they would reunite once more with Washington in 1996 for one final season.

Through Anderson’s seven seasons with the Rams, he would catch 259 passes for 5,246 yards and 26 touchdowns. He was always a threat to take it to the house, and his longest reception each year was always 50+ yards for the Rams. Despite his speed and elusiveness on offense, he only returned one kickoff for nine yards.  Curiously, Anderson’s 300+ yards in one game is only the second time two players (with Cleveland Rams Jim Benton) have achieved that milestone. The only other NFL pair is Calvin Johnson, 329 yards in 2013, and Cloyce Box with 302 yards in 1950, both while playing for the Detroit Lions.