When I see stories like these I always envision they are talking about Mahomes.
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The day was September 19th. The year was 1983. The opponent was the Los Angeles Raiders and the scene was Monday Night Football. It was a day that would change the Miami Dolphins franchise forever and for the better.
The Dolphins did not win that humid, September night at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but what they did witness was the debut of the greatest quarterback ever to take snaps for their franchise.
After Greg Pruitt's five-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter gave the Raiders a 27-0 lead, Dolphins head coach Don Shula decided that it was time to sit starting quarterback David Woodley. Woodley had helped lead Miami to the Super Bowl the previous season and was having far from a terrible night going 10-for-18 passing with 144 yards and an interception. But nevertheless, Shula decided that it was time to give the rookie from Pittsburgh a chance.
Dan Marino, a draft pick taken by Miami late in the first round, walked onto the field for the first time and while he was unable to rally the Dolphins from a 27-point hole, the sense that Miami had something special came immediately.
Marino finished the night 11-for-17 for only 90 yards passing, but led two scoring drives against a Los Angeles defense that had shut Miami out for three quarters. Marino's first career touchdown toss went to tight end Joe Rose from six yards out to make it 27-7.
Later in the quarter, Marino added a second touchdown pass, this one to a player he would end up playing the next 10 years with, wide receiver Mark Duper.
The Dolphins fell to 2-1 on the season that night losing 27-14, but the Marino era in Miami had arrived. Marino went on to finish his rookie season with 2,210 yards and 20 touchdowns compared to just six interceptions and the rest was history.
With Marino at the helm, Miami had just one losing season over his 17-year career. Marino finished his NFL career with 61,361 yards passing and 420 touchdowns, both were league records at the time of his retirement following the 1999 season. Today, the stadium where the Miami Dolphins play their home games sits on Dan Marino Boulevard with a statue of the great number 13 just outside of it.
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Marino: the Great Quarterback Heist
When Dan Marino began his first Miami Dolphins training camp last summer, he was scrutinized closely by his veteran teammates. They wanted to take a long, skeptical look at the $2 million rookie quarterback.
But instead of resenting his lucrative contract and his massive publicity buildup, they wound up liking the guy.
"He came in right away and was one of the guys," said linebacker A.J. Duhe. "He didn't want to be a showboat. We need guys who want to fit in and that's how he's been from Day 1."
The veterans now see only good things when they look at Marino.
They see a return to the Super Bowl. They see a future all-pro. They see the one player the Dolphins have lacked since Bob Griese's glory days.
They see what is becoming obvious to everyone as the NFL season enters November: the Dolphins, picking next to last in the first round of the 1983 draft, recorded pro football's version of the Brink's robbery.
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While no one working for the Dolphins likes to make that boast, consider Coach Don Shula's mood lately. You'd expect him to follow his profession's caution-first credo and downplay his enthusiasm about a rookie quarterback. But Shula just can't do it.
Has Marino got any faults, Don? "I haven't seen any, have you?" Shula replies.
But there must be some things he hasn't been able to handle? "He's done everything so far that we've asked him to do," Shula replies with a big smile.
In Marino's four starts since replacing David Woodley, he has completed 62 percent of his passes for 10 touchdowns against only three interceptions. His average completion covers almost 14 yards and already he has had three scoring passes of at least 40 yards. He leads the AFC in passing and is trying to become the first rookie to be No. 1 since Parker Hall in 1939.
The Dolphins are 3-1, including three straight victories, since he replaced Woodley. Overall, they are tied with Buffalo for first place in the AFC East with a 6-3 record. Before the move to Marino, the Dolphins were the league's worst passing team and had scored more points than only four other clubs, statistics that were undermining one of the NFL's best defenses.
Even though Woodley had led the Dolphins into Super Bowl XVII, Shula had to make a change. Woodley had been embarrassed by the Redskins in the Super Bowl (four of 14, 97 yards) and had started dreadfully this season. Without a potent passing attack, even Shula's masterful coaching likely couldn't have kept the Dolphins competitive again in the playoffs.
Considering Marino's obvious edge in talent when compared to Woodley, it shouldn't have been a difficult decision. But it was. A cartoon a teammate had posted in Marino's locker said it best: it showed two youths standing in front of a coach conferring with another player, and one of the youths is telling the other, "with all the football teams around, you have to go and get drafted by a team where the coach's son is the quarterback."
Woodley, elevated to a starting role four years ago as a rookie, had become a special Shula project. But Shula also is too much of a realist to linger long on sentiment, especially when Marino is available as an alternative.
So exit Woodley, who will become a free agent at the end of the season. He might surface next in the U.S. Football League. And enter Marino, the sixth quarterback picked in the last draft. Now, Shula bubbles: "the thrill (in Dolphins football) is back."
By the 15th pick of the 1983 draft, John Elway, Todd Blackledge, Jim Kelly and Tony Eason had been selected. But Pittsburgh, in need of a young quarterback, passed on Dan Marino, as did Cincinnati. The Jets stunned everyone by taking little-known Ken O'Brien from Cal-Davis.
It was now Miami's turn. The Dolphins had been looking for defensive line help. But Shula couldn't ignore Marino. "We were surprised he was still there," he said. No way did he expect a Super Bowl team to be able to draft a quarterback of this caliber.
Marino, however, had become a victim of a common NFL draft quirk. Despite all of the draft's sophistication, it still is run by humans. Once a player is considered a "problem," the tendency of the pack is to shy from him and not buck the odds.
And Marino was considered a problem. Going into his senior year at Pitt, he was considered a prototype quarterback (6 feet 3, 215 pounds), almost as good as Elway. But after throwing 22 interceptions, his ranking plunged. In the scouts' minds, he acted too cocky, forced too many passes, seemed too undisciplined.
"People were scared that they couldn't handle him," says one NFL scout now. "Why waste a No. 1 on a problem?"
What Shula saw was a franchise player who could carry a team for a decade or more. He saw an already polished drop-back passer who had spent four college seasons in a pass-oriented offense. He saw the MVP of both the Senior Bowl and Hula Bowl who had thrown for 8,416 yards and 79 touchdowns at Pitt.
Marino says his senior year at Pittsburgh was a learning experience, "but I didn't think we did all that badly. I didn't know where I was going to be drafted so I wasn't hurt when so many teams bypassed me. I figured they all knew what they were doing.
"I was happy the Dolphins got me. This is all I've wanted to do, to get a chance to play in the pros, and Miami is giving me this chance. Everything else is behind me and I let it go at that."
His college nickname was "Mr. Cool" because nothing seemed to rattle him. He has pale blue eyes and a new Corvette and a $150,000 salary. But Dan Marino acts unaffected by the hoopla that is enveloping him with greater strength every week.
"I've got a lot to learn, but I am getting more confident every week," he said. "I'm just trying to play the way they want me to, and do the best I can. I didn't know what was in store for me this season, so I decided to come in and learn the offense and then just see what happens."
Marino is being deliberately cautious in his public pronouncements. No need to irritate Shula or his veteran teammates. Everything he says is nice and humble and polite, and who can blame him?
Why mess up a great situation? Unlike most first-round quarterbacks, he came into a winning atmosphere, surrounded by a veteran team coached by a legend. Those factors have gone a long way toward neutralizing all those cliches about rookie quarterbacks needing four or five years to survive in the NFL.
Marino remains what Pitt Coach Foge Fazio once called a "Pittsburgh Guy." Says Fazio: "A Pittsburgh Guy carries himself with an air that he knows what's going on. He smiles and has something nice to say about everybody. He can relax on either side of the tracks but basically is a shot-and-beer guy."
Marino says he's a "boring guy." He grew up in Pittsburgh, in the shadow of Pitt Stadium. He was part of that school's rise to a national power. With him at quarterback, the Panthers were 39-5. He is blunt, good-humored, friendly, an off-key but willing singer who has an easy-to-take cockiness.
He impressed the Dolphins from the first day of rookie minicamp. His passes were sharp, his work habits impeccable.
Shula saw in him "a player with a quick release and a gun for an arm, stronger than Griese's. He has decent mobility and a way to get the ball where he wants it. He sees well downfield. No matter what anyone throws at him, he doesn't get rattled. He's just a natural leader."
Asked about pressure, Marino laughs. "Hey, compared to what I went through at Pitt, this isn't so bad. I'm used to being in the middle."
At Pitt, Marino would audibilize on maybe 50 percent of the plays in some games. "It made me really learn defenses and study films and get myself prepared," he said.
In his first start at Miami (three touchdowns and 322 yards, fifth-highest in Dolphin history) he was timid enough to go with every play that was called. "Now I'll change up," he said. "I guess I didn't want to test Coach Shula's patience in the first game."
Although receiver Nat Moore says the offense has been simplified for Marino, Shula disagrees. "We've given him the full load, everything and it's a lot. But he's handled it well.
"He gives us the long pass threat, something we needed. For so long, we have had to punch it out. Now we don't have to."
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Marino has emerged at the same time as Mark Duper, a former world class sprinter from Northwest Louisiana, who finally has learned the nuances of being a pro receiver. They worked together closely in training camp, never expecting such prominence this season.
"My hat's off to Marino," said guard Bob Kuechenberg, the last left-over from Miami's 1970s Super Bowl teams. "He had been doing it without a healthy running game and that made it even more difficult. Nothing seems to bother him."
Not even one game in which he called some plays in the huddle without telling the offense to which side the play was directed.
"How about a direction?" his teammates asked. "It doesn't matter," Marino said.
So far it hasn't.
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