Stemming from the botched trivia question I posted, who would you say had a better career as a Jets QB?
Pennington: one of the smartest QBs ever, no arm. O'B-wan: One of the toughest QBs ever to play the game, great arm, no O line. Shame they never made a baby. Draw.
Kenny O... guy had some serious tools. The guy won that stupid QB competition they used to have (not that it says how good of a QB he was) but other then the uncanny ability to turn a big play into a sack it was all there. People will always knock O'Brien for being the guy that wasn't Dan Marino but that shouldn't dimish how good of a QB he was.
I still sometimes find myself thinking of what could of been had Chad not suffered the rash of injuries. He was something else when he first hit the scene.
Yeah I went with Chad. I still remember the feeling after the '02 season that we had an elite QB for the next 10 years, but those f-in injuries killed it.
It's a tough comparison with the differences in the era's they played. If Chad was never injured I don't think this would even be a question, but he was and clearly his career suffered because of that. Chad had more playoff success, but O'Brien played before free agency when there was less parity, before the west coast offense was used across the league and when DB's could still touch WR's. I think O'Brien probably had the better receiving corps, but Chad may have had the better overall teams. Both had scumbag HOF QB's to contend with in their division.
Other than the ability to not get hurt and miss games, Pennington had a better Jets career than O'Brien in most categories (Pennington: 32-29 regular season W-L record, 2-3 playoff record, 4.3% TD percentage, 2.9% INT percentage, 6.7 yards/attempt, 199.1 yards/game, 88.9 rating; O'Brien 50-55-1 regular season W-L-T, 0-2 playoff record, 3.6% TD percentage, 2.7% INT percentage, 7.0 yards/attempt, 196.7 yards/game, 81.0 rating). The key difference is 11 games per season for Pennington (in the years he started) versus 14 games per season for O'Brien. Each was a classy guy and a good teammate with fundamental flaws that meant they would never be elite. Each had a great first year as a (full-time) starter, and never came close to achieving that level again. One won two playoff games, the other won none, so to me it's got to be Pennington.
Both had promising careers derailed due to injuries but there's no doubt Chad had a better career w/ us. Both led the league in passing once but every time Chad was healthy he led us to postseason and he won 2 postseason games which was 2 more than kenny won. I love Kenny growing up but Chad gets the nod fairly comfortably.
Pennington had a better offensive line and a squad that had largely been trained by Bill Parcells. O'Brien was easliy the better QB but took a hell of a beating and lost plenty of teammates to injury at the worst possible times. Walker and Toon were rarely healthy at the same time. When the team went 11-1, everyone got hurt.
That can be a pro or con. The Jets were able to keep a good group together for O'Brien's early years, both the O-line, McNeil and Hector behind him and of course Toon, Walker and Shuler. The problem was they got old around him and management waited too long to address it, then had to completely rebuild around him with a new coach. Chad lost his favorite WR, Coles, to free agency after his first year as starter, along with a key O-lineman. Then Curtis got old and we couldn't keep Jordan like back in the McNeil/Hector days.
Our Ols in the mid 80s were very good, O'Brien had plenty of time to throw but always held onto the ball too long looking for the big play so he took more hits than he should have- think a smaller version of Drew Bledsoe.
Chad seemed to win more consistently but I think O'Brien was the better QB. He didn't have a very long career though.
And of our three appearances, twice we were the #6, the 2002 division title being the exception. Still, even 2002 was more late/playoff success than we ever had with O'Brien.
Chad's era, 2 WC teams out of 16 in AFC. For most of ken's career it was 2 WC teams out of 14 teams in AFC and the WC team could host a playoff game unlike in Chad's era. Later on they added a 3rd WC spot which was how we made it as an 8-8 team in 1991.
You just confused the hell out of me. I thought it was 1 WC spot from each conference in O'Briens day and 2 WC spots from each in Penny's day. I don't recall there ever being 3?
