Interesting Pic: For those of us who remember 1983 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Interesting Pic: For those of us who remember 1983

The Bopkin

The Bopkin

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So, I followed the tweet about Austin Jackson's injury, and then scrolled down, and saw a mention as to the anniversary of Marino's first start. And there's a picture of Duper and Marino. But look to the left: Any body remember who that is, wearing number 20?(answer under pic)

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For those of us around at the time, That is David Overstreet, who we drafted high, didn't play for us, came back, and then had a bad car accident in the offseason after 1983 and died.
This picture struck me, as there was a thread not long ago about What if moments, and his name came up in reference to Marino's only Super Bowl.
We had no running game, and part of the reason was we lost Andra Franklin to injury in Week 2 of 1984, and lost Overstreet in that car wreck in the offseason.
That picture of him really caught me, as there aren't many photos of him around.
 
Overstreet was only a couple of years before me. He’s one of the best high school football players in Texas history. Texas football is different for those that know. I played high school football in Texas for Bay City right as Overstreet was moving on to Oklahoma.

Incredible what he did in high school. I remember it like yesterday. Numbingly tragic what happened to him. I believe Lovie Smith was a teammate of his up there. They won a lot of championships back in them days.
 
Bopkin02 said:

So, I followed the tweet about Austin Jackson's injury, and then scrolled down, and saw a mention as to the anniversary of Marino's first start. And there's a picture of Duper and Marino. But look to the left: Any body remember who that is, wearing number 20?(answer under pic)

View attachment 56323
For those of us around at the time, That is David Overstreet, who we drafted high, didn't play for us, came back, and then had a bad car accident in the offseason after 1983 and died.
This picture struck me, as there was a thread not long ago about What if moments, and his name came up in reference to Marino's only Super Bowl.
We had no running game, and part of the reason was we lost Andra Franklin to injury in Week 2 of 1984, and lost Overstreet in that car wreck in the offseason.
That picture of him really caught me, as there aren't many photos of him around.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing this @Bopkin02 !

David Overstreet was a very good player and a game-changer for Miami. When he went to the CFL I didn't know what kind of a loss it really was for us, but when he came to the NFL he was immediately a star--eye-poppingly good. Many players have elite speed and good quickness, but most don't really have the vision and mind to pick the right lanes and set up the defender to miss like David Overstreet. Chunk yardage was almost a given with him around. Shocked at how good he was when he arrived ... and even more shocked to learn he died suddenly. I was young and had not seen someone that young die before, so it effected me a great deal.

Thank you for the time you gave us David, and rest in peace.
 
BigNastyFish said:
Lots of bad luck for a long time!!!

Overstreet could have made a difference.

Maybe a huge difference...
Click to expand...
You think about that time frame and what might have been. The Killer B defense was good, but injuries came quickly for these guys, followed by some bad drafts and deaths to Overstreet and Gordon, the LB from Arizona State. Overstreet looked like he could be a star.
 
I'm intrigued....I'll go check out a few games from that era and see Overstreet play on YouTube...think I saw some full 1983 games available...I was only 4 yrs old at that time so I have no personal recollection...
 
I attended Marino's first start. I was ticked. I'm still ticked. The Dolphins hadn't lost at home to Buffalo since the first year of the franchise in 1966. In 1983 we were clearly superior to Buffalo and 6 point favorites.

Then we proceeded to get into the most ridiculous back and forth insulting cupcake game. No kidding we lost. You're supposed to lose when adopting that style. We shut out the Bills in the season opener at Buffalo then give up 38 points at home.

I knew darn well it was a sign of things to come. Everyone departing the stadium was so disgracefully cheerful. I yelled out loud going down the ramps, "Does anyone realize we just lost to Buffalo...at home?'

"Oh it doesn't matter. Don't you see we now have Danny Marino...and he can THROW the football!"

That was the consensus response. I felt like I was surrounded by simpletons. I was.

Per norm with that mentality, only one variable is spotlighted. It's the same thing that happens here when Marino is proposed to throw for 6000 or 7000 yards. They only contemplate one variable. Dan Marino is good at throwing. Therefore that single variable will somehow dominate all 16 games. Nothing else will intervene. It is pricelessly hilarious. It's the same mentality in politics when somebody loses a state by let's say 10,000 votes and analysts announce that all they needed was greater turnout. Oh sure. Let''s just magically assign 10,001 extra voters to that particular candidate. None to anyone else. All the dozens of variables that contributed to a 50/50 race and the puny 10,000 margin don't mean anything at all. Let's just bake a cake of 10,001 votes and hand it to Candidate A.

Sorry for the rant but it's the type of thing that would be laughed out of the room in my Las Vegas confines. Likewise I was so thrilled to be living in Las Vegas throughout the Marino years because the Dolphins were laughed out of the room. I didn't know anyone who respected that team or the style of play. That's why I was so astonished when the internet exploded late '90s and Dophin fans were actually misty about that era.

The Dolphins stopped running the ball at San Diego in 1984 and basically never returned throughout Marino's career. Personnel didn't mean a darn thing. An older coach got lazy and decided everything he had emphasized to that point no longer needed to be done. Too annoying and time consuming. Same thing happened to old Bobby Bowden when he announced that Steve Spurrier taught him the running game was no longer necessary. Nebraska 62 Florida 24

Anyway, David Overstreet was a nice sleek fast running back. I was a huge Sooners fan in that era. Overstreet was very good, but not he caliber or instincts of Oklahoma backs like Greg Pruitt and especially the awesome Billy Sims, who preceded Overstreet as feature back in the Sooner wishbone. Nor the caliber of Marcus Dupree, who arrived in Norman in 1982 and was unquestionably superior to Bo Jackson when both were freshmen that season. Nobody was silly enough to compare Bo to Dupree. But then Dupree left Oklahoma and eventually had a devastating knee injury in the USFL.

The Overstreet death obviously was tragic. It did not receive the same degree of sympathy as the Chambers or Gordon deaths in the same era, because Overstreet basically did it to himself despite countless warnings from friends. He was known to drive at extreme speed, and also to push matters instead of stopping to rest. I remember all of those stories, from friends and family bemoaning that he assumed nothing could go wrong. It was extremely fortunate that Overstreet did not kill others as well. The crash was 100 mph and covered an long extended path, more than a tenth of a mile, crashing through poles and signs and narrowly missing businesses, before slamming into gas station and bursting into flames. All the reports indicated Overstreet was probably dead from earlier impacts before the car exploded. The saving aspect was it was 6 AM or thereabouts, so nobody else was hit by the out of control vehicle.
 
I remember seeing the news that he died while watching Sportscenter. It was unfortunate that he didn't sign with us when he was first drafted in '81.
 
Overstreet was a good back, not a great one. He would have helped.

The two linebackers, Chambers and Gordon, were both better players and one reason why Miami's defense went from pretty good, to blergh... so quickly. It was very sad, both on... and off the field.
 
Hey Awsi Dooger. I still don't understand why Shula got away from his philosophy, at least not to the degree that he did.

I understand when you have a quarterback like Marino that it doesn't make sense to run the ball 50 times and pass it 10. But the team had no balance and couldn't run the ball when they needed to.

Perhaps, as you suggest, Shula cut some corners and got a little lazy. Anyway you slice it, hard to imagine not winning a single title with Marino.
 
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