I honestly wasn't a fan of either of them. O'Brein threw a nice mid range and deep ball. Chad clearly was better in the pocket and was much better at the play fake and short passing game. Both were highly flawed QB's.
I have to assume those who say Chad was "clearly better" never saw O'Brien play. Either that or they literally do not appreciate a qb who can throw the ball down the field. O'Brien's major flaw was that he took too many sacks, which was of course not his fault at all, but this in turn made him increasingly gunshy as the years wore on. It was a real shame. Despite the pounding he took he was far, far more durable than China Dollington. Chadwick would have been dead long before O'Brien left if he had to take the same pounding. IMo that counts for alot.
O'Brien never won a postseason game. I blame Joe Walton for a lot of that. He was benched for Pat Ryan in 86 for the win vs the Chefs. He had some great regular season games, though. I put Chad ahead of O'Brien because of the two postseason games he won.
Actually, two-time Pro Bowl alternate who went because the guys ahead of him skipped the game due to physical reasons.
I didn't start watching until the late 90's, so I am ignorant of KOB and his play. Chad was inconsistent year to year and injury prone while he was our QB except for 2002. He'll always be a favorite Jet, more for his character, than his on the field performances.
Also, Chad rallied us to a division title which O'Brien never did. The only Jet QBs on division winning teams have been Namath 1968, Vinny 1998 and Chad 2002. The division was as hard in Chad's era as it was in any other too, because we had the New England dynasty in it. You can make a case for Buffalo in Ken O'Brien's later days, and the Pats and Dolphins were both good in the mid 80s, but nothing the caliber of the 2000s Patriot teams.
O'Brien was a good character guy, too. Stand up guy, honest, smart, never complained and put up with a lot of bullshit while he was here, just like Chad. The way they let him go was disgraceful, I mentioned it in another thread last night. Coslet brought Boomer in and they had his press conference with them smiling and holding up Boomer's #7 Jet jersey, while O'Brien was still on the active roster and had been here ten years wearing #7 for nine of them. At least Chad's was handled the right way, I as happy with management for that as I am them pulling off the Favre deal in the first place. Other players see that shit and they remember it.
No trust me when Vinny Testerverde is your 2nd greatest QB in your teams history is pretty sad. Sure he has been good for us but this is Vinny that we are talking about and it gets even uglier when you go down the line.
The Jets were fun to watch when O'Brien played. If he had gone to Miami and Marino had come here, Marino doesn't make the HOF. Not saying that O'Brien would have been a HOF candidate had he gone to Miami, but Miami consistently protected their QB's and and Clayton and Duper at WR for what seemed like forever. If Chad played in the 80's he wouldn't have survived his 1st season. They didn't handle QB's with kid gloves back then. If you're down by 2 scores late in the 4th and Chad is your QB you lose. O'Brien gives you the punchers chance, so I take O'Brien over Chad any day of the week, in any of the past 3 decades. I really don't see how O'Brien > Chad is debateable.
Vinny had a great career, college and pro. He's not a Hall of famer, but he's nothing to shake a stick at. It's amazing how his early reputation plagued him his entire career and managed to stick to him so long. He had a lot of success in his career, too.
It was also MUCH harder to win the division with 5 teams. The Colts were never that good, but they were in our division back then.
Chad did not play the whole season in 2002. What was the Jet record that year? The rest of the division was worse was the reason the Jets snuck in there. It was hardly a stellar year for the division. Brady has greatly improved since 02. After 02, the years the Pats took off, how many times did the Jets surpass them? The Colts were division opponents in the 80's, and were quite weak compared to the Bert Jones led Colts of the seventies. But overall the Bills, Pats and fish then were stronger than they have been since 01. The fish have never been worse than this decade. In fact not to digress but you could make the argument that Miami has been the worst franchise in the NFL this decade. When O'Brien played the Bills had Kelly and the fish had Marino. The whole time O'Brien played, too, not just his later years. Grogan may not have been on their level, but he was certainly better than who Miami has had this decade. I know you Chad Fans want to puff up his rep, but the facts do not support it.
How could you not see that it's debatable? Their careers here were very similar although they were different types of QBs. And I love when people base everything on coming back from way down. That should never be your game plan, it may happen once in a while but if your QB is that good you shouldn't be down so big often enough for it to matter that much.
No I am not hating on Vinny but him being our 2nd greatest QB maybe even with a decent gap is pretty sad, we have been a QB purgatory for far too long, even Namath was fighting with injury most of his years with us.
New England was the defending Super Bowl champs in 2002 when the Jets won the division. They came back to win it the next two years, so I don't see how you can say they weren't in the middle of a great run. On top of that, Chad came in when the team was 1-3, so it's not like he rode someone else's record to win the division. He came in and brought the team back when Curtis Martin was hurt and was the only reason they won the division. Point being, O'Brien's teams never won a division because O'Brien usually tailed off late in the season. You can't argue with 1985, that was a toss-up, but we had it in 1986 and they couldn't close the deal. A lot of guys got hurt, especially on defense, but O'Brien still got pulled for the playoffs and Pat Ryan came in and QBd a big win. His other playoff apperance was on an 8-8 team, which kind of also nullifies the 9-7 aspect of the 2002 division winning team. That happens, but you either win your division or you don't, you either win the playoff game or you don't. Chad's teams did, O'Brien's didn't, those are facts.
I agree. OB took some vicious beatings and kept getting up to fight! I think he was more talented and with a good Ol, could have been one of the better QBs to be in the NFL. He had it all but a good OL. If Pennington had to play behind an OL like OB had, well if you think BUTTFUMBLE wwas horrific, he would have been just as bad! OB had the arm to wing it when he was in trouble. Chad didn't and could not withstand a pounding. OB by a mile!
Of course what you are not saying is that CHAD had a far better OL then OB ever had! In the playoffs against the best teams, what do you really expect from a QB with no OL? How do you think MARINO would have fared if he had to play behind the atrocious Jets OL in the OB era? What about CHADWICK?
