The 1983 NFL Draft: 30 Years Later

This week is the NFL Draft, where the lives of young men that have played football at the collegiate level are about to change forever.  Everybody that's declared for the draft--from quarterbacks to defensive ends to tight ends to placekickers are anxious to hear if their name will be called starting Thursday night.  But 30 years ago, the 1983 NFL Draft forever sparked debates of a whole lot of "what-ifs," which center mostly around two highly coveted quarterbacks: John Elway and Dan Marino.

On April 26, 1983, the NFL's 28 teams convened at the New York Sheraton Hotel, hoping to decide the future of their teams, with the Baltimore Colts holding the first overall pick in the draft.
Elway, who was a standout quarterback at Stanford, was obviously the primary choice of the Colts, and Elway steadfastly refused to play in Baltimore if the Colts drafted him and wanted to play baseball for the New York Yankees system instead if this happened.  But the team drafted him anyway, hoping he would change the path of a franchise that had not been to the NFL postseason since 1977 and had gone through five straight losing seasons, including a winless 1982 season where the team went 0-8-1 during the strike-shortened season.

As the Elway saga was beginning to take off, the draft had to continue.  Six picks later, the Kansas City Chiefs had their turn to make a draft pick.  The team was on the fence between Marino, who starred with his hometown Pittsburgh Panthers, and Penn State quarterback Todd Blackledge, who had led the Nittany Lions to the national championship in 1982, along with running back Curt Warner, who had been drafted earlier by the division-rival Seattle Seahawks.  In astounding fashion, the Chiefs selected Blackledge over Marino.  Blackledge proceeded to struggle throughout his NFL career and was never a consistent starter in the league before leaving the league in 1989.

While Marino was still available, let's transition to another quarterback on the table: Jim Kelly of the Miami Hurricanes.  He had a list of teams that he did not want to play for largely because they played in cold weather: the Green Bay Packers (who hosted the famed "Ice Bowl" for the 1967 NFL Championship against the Dallas Cowboys), the Minnesota Vikings (they actually started playing their home games in the climate-controlled Metrodome during the 1982 season, after spending their entire existence beforehand at The Met in Bloomington), and the Buffalo Bills (who always play in unpredictable weather).  After the team selected tight end Tony Hunter with the 12th overall pick,  they selected Kelly two picks later.  But instead of playing for the Bills right away, Kelly took his talents to the USFL and thrived in Mouse Davis' run & shoot offense with the Houston Gamblers, winning league MVP honors in 1984.  When the USFL folded, Kelly eventually did come to Buffalo, and had a Hall of Fame career, guiding the Bills to four straight Super Bowls (all losses).

The next pick after Kelly belonged to the Bills' AFC East rival, the New England Patriots.  The Pats took their chances with undersized Illinois quarterback Tony Eason (likely a backup to veteran Steve Grogan).  Eason would lead the Patriots on an improbable run to Super Bowl XX, which included three road playoff wins (Jets in the Wild Card, Raiders in the Divisional game, and Miami in the conference championship) before getting crushed by the Chicago Bears and their powerful 46 Defense, and thus sending Eason to the bench in the second quarter of the game after getting to an 0-for-6 start.

There was still the possibility that Marino's hometown Steelers would select him, likely as the heir apparent to veteran quarterback Terry Bradshaw, who was entering the twilight of his career.  Steelers owner Art Rooney loved watching Marino play in the Steelers' backyard, as the Pitt Panthers played their home games at Three Rivers Stadium much like the Steelers did.  However, Steelers coach Chuck Noll wanted to build for the future with defense, and passed on Marino.  The team selected defensive tackle Gabriel Riviera out of Texas A&M instead.  Riviera was beginning to hit his stride in the league until an automobile accident during the 1983 season rendered him paralyzed for life from the chest down.

Then came the New York Jets.  Their fans were hoping the team would draft a quarterback, and thought Marino would be the answer, even though the Jets already had Richard Todd.  But the team pulled a rabbit out of its hat, and went with Ken O'Brien, who starred at UC Davis, a Division II power at the time.  Jets fans, like they always are on Draft Day, were far from pleased.  Yet the Jets fans shouldn't have had anything to be ashamed of with O'Brien, who was regarded as one of the league's most underrated quarterbacks in the 1980s, and had two games where he recorded a perfect passer rating during his career.

The first round of the draft was winding down, and the Miami Dolphins had the 27th pick of the round.  The team had just played in Super Bowl XVII, losing to the Washington Redskins on the running of John Riggins.  They drafted Marino anyway, and the opinions were mixed since the Dolphins already had a young quarterback in David Woodley.

Marino would come in handy for the team just five games into the season.  Woodley, who was having a decent start to the 1983 season, struggled mightily during the team's game against the New Orleans Saints and was benched in favor of the rookie.  The Dolphins lost the game 17-7, but the following week, head coach Don Shula decided to insert Marino as the starting quarterback, and the rest they say, is history.  Marino would have a breakthrough season in 1984 that would forever cement him as an elite quarterback in the NFL, as he threw for a record-setting 5,084 yards and 48 touchdowns (those records have since fallen).

There's a whole lot of what-ifs about Elway and Marino and how the fortunes of many franchises would have changed for the better, but that's a story for another blog post.