NFL Urban Legends: Dan Marino, Drug Rumors and the Draft-Day Slide

great find. I remember this all too well. I think Mr Shula was behind this and it worked to perfection

 

Even though I'd like to think Shula pulled this off, Shula has told the story that he even called Foge Fazio , dan's college coach at Pitt. to find out if the rumors were true

 

I doubt Shula or anybody in Miami was involved. I heard about the rumors from a former team mate of mine who had graduated and was a frosh at Pitt. There is no doubt that Marino was a party guy. That coupled with a really sub-par senior year was more than enough to give the rumor legs. Nobody in Miami would have had to do anything.

I actually don't see the draft day drop as all that mysterious. If you looked at just his senior season, he probably wasn't deserving of being a 1st round pick. Going into that year it was him and Elway as 1 and 1a so that had given him a national name, but he was bad that last year. There were reasons or excuses for it beyond the drugs, but the fact is that he forced a ton of passes and things didn't go well. Throw in a funky throwing motion and drug rumors and it's not difficult to see him dropping behind other QBs coming off of better seasons. Personally I still liked him b/c I focus more on skills than stats, but even I had him behind Elway and Kelly going into that draft. (I had Marino well above Eason and I'd never even heard of Ken O'Brien).

 

I think that's right. It was a pretty awful senior season. 17 TDs and 23 INTs with just 6.4 ypa. On the NFL rating scale, his passer rating would have been 67.25. I'm not sure any other QB with such a bad final college season has been picked in the first round (although there may be some going way back that I don't remember). And it was a QB-rich draft. The O'Brien pick was certainly a surprise, but he was a decent NFL QB. I think that drop might have happened even without any drug rumors.

 

I'm not saying the drug rumors were true, by all accounts they weren't. But something was up with Marino in his senior year. Maybe got lazy and bought into his own hype? I don't know, but a motivated Marino in 83 tore it up. It's so odd to see those numbers knowing what he would do a year + later.

 

Fair point, but his freshman and sophomore numbers weren't great either. That's not too strange, but he really only had one good year out of four in college. So when he was coming out, one could have easily concluded that his good junior season was the aberration, not the bad senior year. He had great arm talent and the quick release, but poor athleticism/mobility and, let's face it, he's not the most cerebral guy around and doesn't come across as such. Purely as a player/prospect, there was plenty of risk. Then he comes out in a draft with Elway, who some said was the best QB prospect of all time to that point, and Kelly who was also a bona fide big time prospect (albeit with some questions of his own). Blackledge had a pretty good final season and won a national championship. Tony Eason was another first rounder. And at some point, it just comes down to the preferences of individual teams with a somewhat limited list of QB-needy teams as you get later in the first round.

 

His WRs graduated and he had a real young group. I think that was a big factor in why he just forced too many passes.

 

I forgot about Blackledge. I had him behind Eason. I really felt that there was a huge gap between the top three and everybody else.

 

I was young back then, but still something of a draftnik, or as much of one as one could realistically be back then. From the way I remember it, it was no huge surprise that Blackledge and Eason went before Marino. O'Brien was a big surprise as such a small school guy. And there was a little surprise that the Steelers didn't take the local kid to groom behind Bradshaw as he aged.

 

Dan Marino's lack of mobility prior to the Achilles wasnt at all bad. He could move pretty well. And as Gil Brandt noted in his 83 evaluation, Marino had killer awareness anyway.

 

First time I saw Marino was his junior year at Pitt. It was Thanksgiving Day and Pitt played Penn State. Saw him and Blackledge go at it in that game. I was I think a Sophomore in HS and I really didn't care much about college football then, but I remember being totally impressed with Marino. He left enough impression on me at that time that I actually followed him as much as was possible at the time and I remember him falling off quite a bit his senior season. I dont think they broadcast the draft at that point or maybe it was one of the first. In those days you usually picked up the paper the next day to see who you got and I couldn't believe that we had ended up with Marino in that draft.

Good article.

 

It was still pretty bad before the Achilles. He was a 4.9 40 guy. He did have quick feet in the pocket and great awareness, but he was never a guy who would/could hurt you as a runner.


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