I have ALWAYS thought Irvin was better then Rice, clearly classifying him as the greatest WR the game has ever known.
Unlike Rice who was the focal point of all his offenses, Irvin was secondary to the running of Emmitt. And as so, changed the position. One could only imagine what Irvin could have done in Rice's roll.
And also lets not forget how much padding of the numbers occurred for Rice by being in the west coast style offense. In fact, we see a lot of this currently in GB with their WRs, but few would consider any of them up there some of the elite in the game at the moment. Rice totally benefited from this and from being on a high profile team that was consistently winning and playing for championships.
IMHO, Michael Irvin, THE GREATEST WR to EVER play the game!
But then there are 2 other sides to consider...
a) How much of Irvin's dominance was actually from the drugs? Cocaine is quite the motivator.
or the flip side;
b) How much did Irvin possibly lose due to the drugs presence in his life? Could he have possibly even been better?