#23
DAN MARINO
Every year at draft time quarterbacks are at the center of most discussions. Scouts, analysts, coaches, and other experts discuss the qualities needed to excel at the most important position. Factors like accuracy, release, and decision making ability are examined ad nauseam. Then, when talk turns to arm strength, the subject is usually downplayed.
“It seems they don’t like to give a lot of credit to the quarterbacks with the strongest arms,” said Fox analyst Jimmy Johnson, who coached the Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl titles. “But here’s what you have to know: A quarterback with arm strength can turn a nothing play into a big play in an instant. The quarterback who is mobile and can read defenses but doesn’t have that velocity can’t do that.”
No quarterback ever threw the football with more velocity than Dan Marino. Many of the other great quarterbacks of his era—Joe Montana, Steve Young, Troy Aikman, and Phil Simms—give credit to Marino for having an absolute gun that could whistle the ball to the sidelines or deep down the field to receivers like Mark Clayton and Mark Duper (a.k.a. “The Marks Brothers”) and give the Miami Dolphins an edge in big games.
Marino had tremendous arm strength but he also had the quickest release this side of Joe Namath. There must be something to the theory that if you want a quarterback you should go to western Pennsylvania to find him. Namath, Montana, Jim Kelly, and Johnny Unitas all spent their formative years in Western Pennsylvania, as did the redoubtable Marino.
The Dolphins were fortunate to get Marino in the great quarterback draft class of 1983. Marino was the No. 27 overall pick (the last of six quarterbacks chosen in the first round) and Miami head coach Don Shula couldn’t have been more thrilled to get him. Before Marino had arrived in Miami, the Dolphins were a team that had a strong defense and a decent running game, but its passing game was just a rumor. With the strong-armed Marino lining up under center, Shula was convinced that he had another Super Bowl team to go with the titles he had won with quarterback Bob Griese in 1972 and ’73. “He had everything you were looking for in a quarterback and I was not about to let him get by,” Shula said. “I never thought we would get a chance to draft him. It was a great day when we made him a Dolphin.”
Marino was eager to show the 26 teams that passed on him that they had made a regrettable mistake. If he had had a mediocre senior year at the University of Pittsburgh that caused his draft status to suffer, Marino was determined to get off to a quick start with the Dolphins. He was more than happy to put his gun on display as well as his quick release.
It was obvious in his first training camp that the Dolphins would no longer be a team content to play defense and run the ball. They would become a team that aired it out. There was little opposing teams could do when Marino got decent protection, a fact that was not lost on Hall of Fame defensive back Ronnie Lott.
“You were basically at Dan’s mercy,” said Lott. “All the great ones see the game so quickly that when everybody else is running around like a chicken with his head cut off, they know exactly where they want to go with the ball. It’s like they see everything in slow motion.
“Then you also have the release and the arm strength. He knew the ins and outs of the game so well and then he could just put so much on the ball. He was one of a kind.”
A nine-time Pro Bowl selection and the 1984 league MVP, Marino owned 22 different NFL passing records at the time of his retirement after the 1999 season. He led the league in completions six times, threw for 20 touchdowns or more in a season 13 times, had four TD passes or more in a game 21 times, and threw for 3,000 yards or more in a season 13 times.
In the 1984 season, Marino threw for a league record 5,084 passing yards and 48 touchdowns, shattering the previous record of 36 set by George Blanda and Y.A. Tittle. That touchdown mark has since been broken by Peyton Manning (49) and later by Tom Brady (50), but Marino’s 1984 MVP season still stands as one of the greatest single-season performances in NFL history.
“What he accomplished is to have a better season than anyone who has ever played this game,” said former Dallas quarterback Roger Staubach. “I’m talking about quarterbacks, wide receivers, or anyone else. He was unbelievable.”
The Dolphins rolled to a 14–2 record that season and captured the AFC championship, setting up a Super Bowl showdown against the San Francisco 49ers. The glamorous matchup between Marino and Joe Montana was one of the most anticipated in Super Bowl history. After years of one-sided matchups, many thought Super Bowl XIX would be a high-scoring game that would come down to who had the ball last. In reality, it started out that way but the Dolphins could not keep up and the Niners walked away with a 38–16 win.
Unfortunately for Marino, that would be the only time he would get to compete in a Super Bowl. As the seasons rolled by, Marino felt the pain of never being part of a championship team. Critics and analysts always finished his career assessments by talking about the fact that Marino had never won a ring. Marino never denied that it hurt.
“I’d trade every record I have to have been a part of a championship team,” Marino said. It’s not like it was Marino’s fault. The great defense the Dolphins had when he came to the team out of Pittsburgh disappeared. As the years went by, Marino had to throw the ball in order to help the Dolphins compete in most games. The defense regularly failed in big games, giving up an average of 44.5 points in 10 playoff defeats. That was clearly not a problem caused by Marino. He was left to cope with a poor defense and he was not able to do it all by himself.
But that doesn’t mean he didn’t have the best arm of anyone who ever played the game.
| MOST 400-YARD GAMES BY A QUARTERBACK (THROUGH 2008 SEASON) | ||
| Quarterback | Team | 400-Yard Games |
| 1. Dan Marino | MIA | 13 |
| 2. Peyton Manning | IND | 7 |
| Joe Montana | SF-KC | 7 |
| Warren Moon | HOU-MIN-SEA-KC | 7 |
| 5. Drew Bledsoe | NE-BUF-DAL | 6 |
| Dan Fouts | SD | 6 |
| 7. Sonny Jurgensen | PHI-WSH | 5 |
| Dave Krieg | SEA-KC-DET-AZ-CHI-TEN | 5 |