Today’s guest post comes from hscer, a frequent commenter here at Football Perspective. Hscer is starting a project on his website, MVPQB.Blogspot.com, where he is working on his most valuable quarterback for each season since 1951. Here’s a sample chapter today: as always, we thank our guest posters for their contributions.

“Say What?” – Was Ken O’Brien really better than Dan Marino at any point in time? For one season, he at least had an argument.

The Stats

Marino (AP1): 336-567 (59.3%) 4137 yards (7.30 y/a) 30 TD 21 INT, 84.1 rating, sacked 18-157, 6.21 ANY/A, 12-4 record in starts (4 4QB, 6 GWD). Rushing: -24 yards on 26 attempts (-0.9 avg.), 0 TD, 9 fumbles.

O’Brien (MVQB): 297-488 (60.9%) 3888 yards (7.97 y/a) 25 TD 8 INT, 96.2 rating, sacked 62-399, 6.60 ANY/A, 11-5 record in starts (1 4QC, 1 GWD). Rushing: 58 yards on 25 attempts (2.3 avg., 0 TD, 14 fumbles.

The Argument

Yes, really. Even though Ken O’Brien took far too many sacks in ’85—62 to be exact, losing 399 yards—when he got the ball off, he was better than Marino. Even when he didn’t, his passing edge was large enough to secure a higher ANY/A than The Man in Miami. Dan Fouts was another reasonable selection despite missing four games by throwing for 3638 yards and 27 TD with a league-leading 7.02 ANY/A in the games he did play, but this year comes down to Marino and O’Brien.

Dan Marino was coming off of the greatest season an NFL quarterback has ever enjoyed in 1984, still the best ever in my opinion. This likely helped his cause. It didn’t help O’Brien’s cause that he had one of the ugliest season debuts you can imagine. In a 31-0 loss to the Raiders, he was 16-29 for 192 yards, 0 TD, 2 interceptions, and sacked a whopping 10 times for -61 yards, producing an adjusted net yards per attempt of 1.05. In the final 15 games, his ANY/A was 7.14, but the first game counts all the same.

When comparing these two, it’s easy to think about how the Jets and Dolphins had some ridiculous shootouts in the 80’s. Well, 1985 was not a year that featured one; the Jets won 23-7 in New York first and then the Dolphins won 21-17 in Miami. O’Brien arguably outclassed Marino in both games:

October 14: O’Brien 18-28-239-1-0, sacked 1-7; Marino 13-23-136-0-1, sacked 1-10

November 10: O’Brien 26-43-393-2-0, sacked 5-22; Marino 21-37-362-3-3, sacked 3-15

Despite the head-to-head outcomes, passer rating and ANY/A are O’Brien’s main arguments.

Since sacks were an issue for O’Brien and rarely for Marino, you might expect far more fumbles for O’Brien. But while O’Brien had 14, Marino had 9 of his own despite being sacked just 18 times. Counting a fumble as half a turnover, O’Brien had a 2.6% turnover rate compared to 4.2% for Marino. The same method gives O’Brien a 1.67-1 (25-15) TD-to-turnover ratio vs. 1.18-1 (30-25.5) for Marino.

While O’Brien was sacked a lot throughout his career (8.9% of the time), his sack rates were never too much in excess of those of his backups in spot duty. Pat Ryan, his main backup, was very good at avoiding sacks (although they were sacked at about equal rates in 1984, Ryan’s largest one-season sample size); his other backups, not so much. Troy Taylor, Kyle Mackey, and Tony Eason took 16 sacks on 125 dropbacks during O’Brien’s time as the main starter, from 1985-91. In that same period, not a single Jets offensive lineman made the Pro Bowl. The cause and effect of O’Brien’s sack numbers is tough to untangle, although anecdotally the Jets offensive line was below-average during those years.

In 1985 specifically, O’Brien’s offensive line was:

LT Reggie McElroy, who missed five games and was moved to right tackle the next season

LG Jim Sweeney, a second-year player at the time who ended up never missing a game from 1985-95

C Joe Fields, a 1982 Pro Bowler who after 1985 would start 19 more games in 3 more seasons with the Jets and Giants

RG Dan Alexander, who started 183 games from 1977-89 but never made a Pro Bowl

and RT Marvin Powell, a 5-time Pro Bowler from 1979-83 but who was in his final season as a starting lineman, and would only start 3 games for the 1986 Buccaneers.

Marino had two Pro Bowl linemen in 1985, LG Roy Foster and legendary center Dwight Stephenson. Marino gets a lot of well-deserved credit for his ability to avoid the sack, but the Dolphins were also the least sacked team in 1982 and ’83. Miami definitely had the better line than the Jets in 1985, although by just how much is less clear.

The rest of this chapter might sound a lot like an argument for Marino. This season is killing me.

Marino was throwing more to overcome a weaker defense. Miami allowed 5.6 yards per play and 320 points; the Jets only 4.8 and 264, respectively.

Freeman McNeil ran for 1331 yards on a 4.5 average for the Jets while Tony Nathan led the Dolphins with 667 yards, but this isn’t as major an issue as it might seem. Even though the Jets ran the ball far more often, they did it with about equal effectiveness to the Dolphins. How each team’s non-quarterbacks ran the ball:

Miami 416 attempts, 1759 yards (4.23 average), 19 TD, 22 fumbles.

New York 536 attempts, 2259 yards (4.21 average), 18 TD, 21 fumbles.

Miami fumbled the ball somewhat more often but the yards per carry are effectively identical. That said, Marino clearly was the driver of Miami’s team. O’Brien, with a defense that allowed 16.5 points a game and a team that ran the ball 33.5 times a game, had less to do. That can’t be an explanation for why he ended up more efficient, but it probably helped.

As for the receivers, Al Toon was a rookie and Wesley Walker missed four games, while Mark Clayton had a down year (996 yards in 16 games) and Mark Duper missed seven games. Neither quarterback was operating with a full-capacity passing attack.

Recap: Miami had the better offensive line. The receiving corps were about equal. New York had the better defense and running game, or at least an equally effective but more-used one. Quarterback? The numbers are divided; circumstantial evidence would determine the answer. In this situation, I’m going with the better ANY/A—for now.

I got so deep in the weeds for 1985 I even looked at how often each team kicked.

The quarterback isn’t wholly responsible for how often a team doesn’t convert on third down, but the Jets punted 74 times and the Dolphins only 59. The Jets also attempted more field goals, 34 for Pat Leahy to 27 for Fuad Reveiz. This would appear to be another point in Miami’s favor.

I would counter that how often the teams resorted to kicking may well be a function of New York running the ball much more often. Considering the effectiveness of their 1985 passing game, perhaps if they had thrown the ball more often, they’d have avoided some third downs, made more manageable third downs, and/or converted more third downs. (Or maybe O’Brien would have taken another sack.)

I might change my mind regarding this selection. Despite committing more turnovers per play, Marino averaged 0.6 more yards per pass play on 35 more dropbacks. It is utterly inarguable that Marino was the more established quarterback entering 1985 and went on to have the better career.

For now, however, Ken O’Brien is your MVQB for 1985.