Orton doesn't excite you? Get over it
Kyle Orton would upgrade Miami Dolphins - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
So
Kyle Orton wouldn't excite you as the new Dolphins quarterback? Well, take a number. That thought is nothing new around him. That's the running storyline of his career.
But do you really think there are a lot of
NFL quarterbacks who had a 2:1 ratio of touchdowns to interceptions over a two-year stretch and got run out of town for an unproven replacement?
Well, there aren't.
You could fit all of them over the last two decades in a two-man canoe, as near as I can find. There's
Drew Brees, who was dumped by San Diego in part because he also suffered a career-threatening injury with Philip Rivers waiting.
Now there's Orton. He threw 41 touchdowns and 21 interceptions over the last two years (OK, not exactly a 2:1 ratio) even while the Denver franchise disintegrated around him. And now
Tim Tebow is the flavor of the day there.
If you believe the numbers – and that's not the option most Dolphins fans are choosing today – this franchise is on the verge of getting a quarterback with the best credentials since you-know-who retired. And, no, not
Chad Pennington.
That's not hype typing. That's not hope and twisted numbers talking. That's not some coach's smoke rising, such as when Dave Wannstedt lit a celebratory cigar after getting
Jay Fiedler.
That's using the kind of simple arithmetic that douses most arguments of emotion.
In fact, Orton's touchdown-to-interception ratio is better than any Dolphins quarterback since
Dan Marino had his iconic 68 touchdowns and 23 interceptions in the first two years of his career.
Wait just a second. Let me re-run the numbers. They can't be right considering all the adjectives people keep attaching to Orton. Boring. Losing. Just darned unexciting. Does that about sum it up?
But the numbers remain on second look. They're constant, confounding and confidently suggesting the Dolphins might just have something better in Orton, at 28, than the average quarterback he's been over his full career.
Even Pennington, who became the Dolphins' patron saint of quarterbacks falling out of the sky, didn't arrive in 2008 with the kind of numerical track record of Orton's past two seasons.
Let's not overdo it. Orton isn't a Top 10 quarterback in the league. He didn't prop up Denver the way Marino did some bad teams. He couldn't be expected to throw a team to the
Super Bowl the way today's game nearly demands quarterbacks to do.
But when you look at the option of
Chad Henne and when you study the decisions other teams are making in these strange days, you'd have to agree lots of teams did much worse.
Minnesota, for instance, with an almost -35-year-old
Donovan McNabb.
Arizona, if it takes unproven Kevin Kolb.
Washington, if it's banking on unknown
John Beck.
Orton trumps any of those scenarios. He won't step in and make this team a full-fledged contender. But he does give it credible post-season hope. That's a step up, isn't it?
You don't have to applaud. You don't even have to like Orton, if you want. Again, he's used to it. But his former and future teammate,
Brandon Marshall, is on board with this, which only adds to the hope here.
As long as the trade compensation and money deal isn't crazy, the biggest question of this deal isn't to the Dolphins. It's to Denver. What is it thinking? That Denver's air inflated Orton's numbers?
Orton dealt with a mid-season coaching change, the specter of Tebow, the 26th-ranked rushing game and league's worst defense and remained a beacon of respectability with 20 touchdowns and nine interceptions last year.
You know the last Dolphins quarterback to throw for 20 touchdowns? Jay Fiedler in 2001. He threw 19 interceptions then, too.
Orton isn't
Aaron Rodgers. You can yell and scream about that if you want. Or you can look at his numbers and say the Dolphins finally are on the verge of getting a real quarterback.