In 1983 (his first year), he had 28 rushing attempts for a total of 45 yards.
What we don’t know is how many of those rushing attempts resulted in positive yards, and how many resulted in negative yardage. He could have had 20 positive rushes for a total of 100 yards, and 8 negative rushes for -55 yards, for a yearly total of 45 yards.
Or every one of his 28 rushes resulted in positive yards, for a total of 45 yards.
It appears to me that you added all the rushing yardage in the ‘positive’ years to come up with the figure of 186 yards. If one then calculates the yardage in the ‘negative’ years, that figure is -99 yards. Thus a career total of 87 yards rushing.
Unless and until we see the result of each and every one of his 301 rushing attempts, we won’t know his exact positive rushing yards and his exact negative rushing yards.
You’re math is right. You simply lopped off all the seasons in which Marino ended with negative yardage. In his remaining seasons, his total yardage totaled 186, as you noted.
His negative yardage wasn’t from sacks, as noted above. A player like Marino, when forced to keep the ball and leave the pocket, basically made a slow loping beeline for a sideline. Often, he’d either get tackled short of the line of scrimmage or he’d scoot out of bounds short of the line of scrimmage – ergo, a negative-yards rushing attempt on the scorecard. Sometimes, he’d catch the defense napping, maybe selling out to defend Miami’s receivers and dropping five or six men back, and even Marino’s loping stride would find a little daylight, and maybe he’d pick up five to ten yards (again, typically scooting out of bounds).
Generally, Marino avoided rushing attempts much more than his contemporaries and far more than virtually all 21st-century quarterbacks. Marino’s quick release from the pocket almost always guaranteed that he’d either throw a legitimate pass attempt to one of his own players, or if necessary throw the ball away to the sideline. To force Marino to eat the ball and run took an exceptional defensive play or a breakdown in Miami’s generally excellent offensive line (at least in Marino’s early career).
I think that unless it’s a designed run, which with Marino you could probably count on 2 hands, it’s still considered a sack. I’d guess that the majority of jis negative “carries” were from kneeldowns at the end of halfs.
I just checked the play-by-play log for a game in 1985 where he’s credited for -18 rushing yards. He kneeled for -2 at the end of the first half. At the end of the game he kneeled four times for -2, -4, -6, and -4 yards.
My takeaway is that when he kneeled, he often took his time and kneeled father back than you normally see.
Actor DeWayne Jessie lip-synced “Shama Lama Ding Dong” while playing the fictional character Otis Day (and the Knights) in the movie, Animal House.
He played the frontman Otis Day on screen during the roadhouse and party scenes, while the actual lead vocals for the song were performed by singer Lloyd G. Williams
And I just checked the play-by-log for a game in 1983 where he’s credited for 18 yards rushing on 2 attempts. Both were scrambles; one for 15 yards and another for 3 yards.
In another game in 1983, he had 2 scrambles for a total of 11 yards, and an actual carry for another 4 yards. Then he later had two kneel downs for a total loss of 5 yards, so he ended up with 5 rushing attempts for 10 yards. So in that game, he had three positive rushes and two negative rushes, as I described above.
I found a play where he’s credited for -6 yards where he fumbled and recovered it (possibly a botched snap or handoff - QBs are blamed for both on the stat sheet). The negative yards add up without sacks counting.
The point I should have made was that Marino was fairly rarely flushed from the pocket — far more often in the face of an unblocked rusher or other play-busting breakdown, he’d just throw the ball away.
I ran across the Russian word for Saturday, Суббота, with a pronunciation guide: “subota”. I thought that was weird, so I went to Google translate and pasted it in and suddenly it was Суббота. It turns out that several Cyrillic characters take a completely different shape when done in italics.
(If you’re not seeing it – and honestly I’m doubting my own lying eyes – the penultimate letter shows up for me as “m” in italics and and “т” in regular text.)