In Marino's career with Shula, the most yards a RB gained was Mark Higgs with 915 yards in 1991. Under Jimmy Johnson, he chose Karim Abdul-Jabbar in the third round of the draft andtwice in his first three seasons bettered that 915 mark, and came close in 1997 with 892 yards. In his rookie year, Abdul-Jabbar became Marino's only running back to break the 1,000 yard barrier when he rushed for 1,116 yards. Since 1960 or so, I can't think of another quality QB who only had one or less 1,000 yard rushing season behind him during his career, much less one who lasted as many years as Marino did. And this was from the coach a decade earlier who put together one of the most devastating rushing attacks of my lifetime with Csonka, Morris and Kiick. It simply boggles the mind.7DnBrnc53 wrote:After re-watching that game a few years ago, I came to the conclusion that Shula should have been fired after the 1992 AFC Title Game loss to the Bills. You could sense that Shula and Marino were never going to get it done together. For example, they only tried to run the ball 11 times. That was inexcusable with Bobby Humphrey (ex-1,000 yard rusher with Denver) in the backfield.Don Shula is the textbook example of somebody who stayed in one place for too long, where he couldn't figure out how to come up with a running game to compliment Dan Marino.
After Jimmy Johnson left Dallas, I think the writing was on the wall that it was time for Shula to step aside in Miami so Jimmy could return to Miami to take over the Dolphins. One has to wonder how much of it was Shula's doing and how much was ownership's doing.
