The core of the team got old fast and many players, especially Wesley Walker always seemed to get hurt when the team started to do well.
The sacks hurt, no doubt, but he was way better at the beginning of 1986 than he was in 1985. For 10 games or so he was just phenomenal. He developed bicep tendinitis in his throwing arm later on in that season and that hampered his play. The sacks then began to add up and he just lost whatever it was he'd had, whether that was ability or just confidence. It's fun to see how other Jets QBs have been hammered as well, isn't it? Boomer Esiason, Chad Pennington, Mark Sanchez... even short-term guys like Glenn Foley took a beating. When you look at Sam in his boot, it's enough to make a Jets fan shudder.
Ken O’Brien was a very good QB with one serious problem, he couldn’t move a Inch with the ball in his hands, he was a weak tree waiting to be knocked over. if you were to watch a hilight film of him you would say wow this guy is good but he was only good with time in his case he needed extra time. If you were to combine getting sacked 6-7 times a game with penalties most holding you are going to have a struggling offense, he never had Marino’s quick release and it cost him big time. Last but not least the Jets back then wrote the book on draft picks not panning out, they would draft offensive lineman who couldn’t pass block, Cadigan and the guy from Iowa come to mind right away, the drafting back then was almost as bad as it is now.
It's not that they got old fast it's that it took a while for the team to jell and start winning they were late bloomers. So it seemed they got old fast....
Mike Haight - first round pick in 1986. The entire rest of the draft didn't make the team....were all cut by the start of the regular season that year.....
I just looked up the stats from that season ... in 8 of the 16 games, he was sacked 4 or more times. He had one game where he was sacked 10 times (Raiders) and another where he was sacked 7 (Detroit). https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nyj/1985/gamelog/
Great Post by Joewalton. O'Brein actually threw a very beautiful accurate deep ball. He was an absolute statue in the pocket. We had a deteriorating OL. 85 marked the beginning of the end of Tackle Marvin Powell as a great anchor on the OL. He literally went from a reliable all pro tackle to done overnight. 85 was his last productive season.
I spent many Sunday afternoons watching Ken O'Brien get the piss knocked out of him. He was an under appreciated stud quarterback that was tough as nails. I work with a guy (linebacker) who faced him in college. He says O'Brien was levels above the other qb's he played against...his talent was obvious even as a college player. I have a soft spot in my green heart for any quarterback that can survive the NY Jett shitshow for a 10 years.
It's sad but he got hit so often that he developed "Happy Feet" in that he could never settle into the pocket and always seemed to be looking to where the next big hit was coming from. He was a very gifted QB but he just got killed early on and it affected his play for the rest of his career.
Lack of confidence after being benched by Walton certainly hurt. I remember this........I believe they put Jim Sweeney in at LT in 1986 but soon realized he'd be a better fit as a center after Fields was released....
Yes this sums it up perfectly......his shoulder also took a beating from being slammed onto that artificial turf week after week.....
That raiders game was awful...opening day. It looked like it was going to be a disaster of a season. The OL was down a couple of starters, Gastineau was hurt and Al Toon was still a holdout.....but everything straightened out pretty quickly - they wound up winning 5 straight games after that shutout loss - several in blowout fashion.
I really like you, MrJet80, and I always enjoy reading your posts. You really know your Jets football, man.
The cocain pipeline from Miami to NY hadn't been built yet so I don't think Marino would have come here anyway.
I agree with you. A medium force wind could knock down O'Brien in the pocket. A very accurate passer that needed time to throw. He was the most immobile QB I've ever seen. It was frustrating to watch him crumble so easily in the pocket when grazed by a defender. However, when O'Brien had time to throw he was very good and very accurate. For him to succeed consistently he needed the best pass blocking O-LINE in the league, which he didn't have.
As several posts have mentioned, O'Brien did take a serious beating (due to poor protection and lack of mobility) and that artificial turf was as hard as concrete during the cold winter games in the Northeast. I could never understand why they ever decided to play professional football on that cheap rug. Shea Stadium probably had the worst field in the league, but it was real football with infield dirt and all. Especially when the elements would come into play.
lol man that was a long time ago and i was pretty young back then so my memory is probably a little fuzzy but o brien was a good QB and had a great arm but he was slow as balls (and earned the nickname "slow B") and we had a bad o-line so a non mobile QB and no o-line isn't a good recipe for sucess. but of course back then most QBs were statues in the pocket but he was as stone as they come. onc you get pressure on a QB that can't move and he can't hit on a quick read because it's covered, it's not hard to figure out
