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Dolphins QB
Dan Marino
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Dolphins head coach Jimmy Johnson has a proven philosophy that if you remove the star
power of the players involved, it may sound as exciting as watching paint dry. But when
that paint dries on a Super Bowl champion as it did twice when Johnson was the captain of
the Cowboys’ ship, there is a breathtaking beauty to it.
The Johnson blueprint asks his quarterback to avoid mistakes, hand the ball off to the
running backs, be efficient when first downs are needed and let a deep, talented defense
do its job.
QB Troy Aikman took this blueprint and built the Taj Mahal when he and Johnson were
joined at the hip in Dallas. QB Dan Marino seems to be reading this same blueprint upside
down these days in Miami.
Johnson doesn’t want a pinball game when his offense has the ball. He wants a
nice, calm, old-fashioned game of chess. No flashing lights. Alas, Marino keeps making the
game go "tilt" this season.
If the Johnson-Marino pairing were a marriage, they’d be in need of counseling
right about now. Or a good divorce attorney. In this era of the salary cap, QB shortages
and infrequent blockbuster trades, they’ve been stuck with each other. Call it a
marriage of inconvenience. A marriage on the rocks. A marriage that is not working.
Despite missing five games, and most of a sixth, Marino threw an astonishingly high 17
interceptions this season compared to only 12 touchdowns. For comparison purposes, Aikman
had exceptional TD-interception ratios of 23-14 and 15-6 during the seasons that Dallas
won Super Bowls under Johnson.
Asking Marino to be more like Aikman has been as unsuccessful as asking cutting-edge
Madonna to be more like girl-next-door Sandra Bullock.
Marino has long awed the football community as a pure passer, but he’s never won a
Super Bowl, which is where Johnson comes in with his old-school philosophy. It was
Marino’s job to adapt since his is the hand without the Super Bowl ring. It’s
not working. Makeovers of this sort take time. All-time basketball great Michael Jordan
did not master the Bulls’ triangle offense overnight, but he had youth on his side at
the time. Alas, time is the one commodity the 38-year-old Marino does not have. Barring an
unforeseen turnaround, or time coming to a standstill, this lab experiment is about to go
kaboom.
One thing that must be said is that this does not lessen what Marino has accomplished
throughout his 17-year pro career. His name makes more appearances in the NFL record book
than graffiti on a subway wall. The first year — no, make that the first second
— he’s eligible for the Hall of Fame, he should get rubber-stamped in, with
trumpets blaring and fireworks going off in the background. If you want the definition of
pure speed, forget about Deion Sanders’ time in the 40 and watch how quickly the Hall
of Fame committee votes Marino in as a member.
That’s for career achievement, though. This season, Marino has failed more than he
has succeeded. If this should be his last season in the NFL — a distinct possibility,
with a decision to come sometime this offseason — it’s a sad way for an all-time
great to go out.
Too many ups and downs
Marino has committed just about the worst crime imaginable by a quarterback in a Jimmy
Johnson offense. Marino has been too erratic, too undependable, too mistake-prone. It has
to be enough to make Johnson want to pull out his well-coiffed hair.
One series Marino will look like the superstar of old, zinging completions in a way
almost no one else in the league can match. The problem is that later in the game
he’ll turn into Trent Dilfer, and the defense is running with the ball the other way.
Marino used to be all highlights and celebrations. He used to be Secretariat roaring
victoriously down the stretch at the Kentucky Derby. Now Marino is more like the roller
derby with all of its wild swings in momentum. He has become a human roller-coaster ride
full of ups and downs. Put on your seat belt. It’s a wild, dizzying, sometimes
thrilling, sometimes stomach-churning ride.
Never was this more apparent than during the Dolphins’ Week 16 loss to the Jets.
The Dolphins had everything to play for in that game. The Jets were playing for nothing
but pride. The Jets won 38-31 in a game that displayed all that is good and all that is
bad about Marino 1999.
He made some of the most beautiful throws you’ll see on a night when he seemed
unstoppable at times.
"Marino was hot for a spell," Jets LB Roman Phifer said. "It was like he
couldn’t miss anyone."
Including Jets defenders. Marino tossed three interceptions on the night, and it would
have been more were it not for the stone hands of a couple of Jets defensive players.
"He hurt us bad tonight," Jets head coach Bill Parcells said. "But we
hurt them too."
That is the problem. That is exactly the opposite of what you want from the quarterback
of a Johnson-led team. Aikman was never a take-your-breath-away, human highlight film
during the Cowboys’ Super Bowl runs. He was like termites in your house. You
didn’t realize the damage he had done until it was too late. He beat you quietly,
efficiently, consistently. He almost never beat himself.
Devastating mistakes
Against the Jets in the second and third quarters, Marino was the hammer pounding away
at the nail — seemingly unstoppable until he’d make yet another dreaded, painful
mistake and wallop himself on the thumb.
The Jets had a 10-7 lead at the end of the first quarter. A three-point lead. Remember
that margin.
On the first series of the second quarter, the Dolphins marched to the Jets’
four-yard line. It was then that Marino made his first horrendous play of the game. His
pass was intended for O.J. McDuffie, but it was late getting there, and Marcus Coleman
picked it off and raced 98 yards the other way for a Jets touchdown. Despite the fact that
the Jets managed only seven net yards of offense in the quarter, they went into the locker
room with a three-point lead. (I told you to remember that margin.)
The third quarter was déjà vu all over again. The Dolphins dominated the action. Yet
when Miami was pinned deep in its own territory, Marino made a terrible, off-target throw
into the flat that Phifer intercepted and returned to the Dolphins’ one-yard line,
leading to a Jets touchdown. Despite the fact that Miami outgained the Jets 137-9 in the
quarter, the Jets were clinging to a 24-21 lead heading into the final quarter. (Yes,
there’s that three-point margin again.)
Despite a rout in yardage in the second and third quarters of 289-16, Miami did not
make a dent in the Jets’ three-point lead. Trading touchdowns under those
circumstances is bad value, on par with swapping Manhattan for mere trinkets. That’s
how badly Marino’s two interceptions killed the Dolphins. Sure, the Miami defense
collapsed in the fourth quarter, but the Dolphins should have already been blowing the New
Yorkers out of the stadium by that time. It was a cardinal sin by Marino in the Johnson
scheme of things, especially on a night when the Dolphins’ often injured, often
unproductive ground game ran the ball well.
"We just didn’t make enough plays and had too many mistakes to win,"
Marino said. "I gave them some points."
Even worse, Marino gave the Jets the game.
Depend on your teammates
New York’s offensive players spent so much time on the sideline during the second
and third quarters of this road game that Dolphins management probably should have charged
them rent. And when the Jets’ offense did get a turn on the field, it returned to the
sideline so fast you’d swear there was champagne in the water bottles. Despite all of
this, New York’s defense, which through most of these two quarters seemed to be
putting up all the resistance of an umbrella vs. a tidal wave, saved the day with its
crucial interceptions of Marino.
"I think that’s what teamwork is all about," Jets WR Keyshawn Johnson
said. "If the offense is struggling, the defense needs to help us out. If the defense
is struggling, then the offense needs to keep us in the game. Today it was the defense
trying to do the job, and they stepped up and pulled off that big challenge."
Keep your team in the game. Count on your teammates. One wonders if Marino forgot about
that on the pass Phifer picked off. It was the type of 3rd-and-10 pass Marino never should
have thrown near his own goal line. The pocket was starting to crumble, and there was
virtually no chance the erratic pass he threw into the flat to a receiver who was hardly
wide open would have gone for a first down. The sensible decision would have been to throw
the ball away, lose the battle but stay alive in the war, punt and depend on the defense
to bail out the offense.
The problem is, that has never been Marino’s way. He carried the Dolphins for so
many years that one wonders if he can change his mindset so late in the game. For most of
his career, Marino believed he could squeeze the football through a keyhole during a
hurricane, and then, amazingly, he’d go out and do it. These days, as age robs him of
some of what he once was, that type of confidence will get him in trouble more than it
will get him into the winner’s circle. His enormous interception total is proof of
that.
"He’s a confident quarterback," Jets CB Aaron Glenn said. "He
relies on his arm a lot. Sometimes he bites you, and sometimes you make plays on
him."
That sounds more like a roll of the dice at a Vegas craps table than sound play in
Johnson’s scheme. In games in which Marino has thrown the lion’s share of the
passes this season, the Dolphins are below .500. In games this season in which steady,
workmanlike, make-no-mistakes, never-going-to-be-voted-into-the-Hall of Fame Damon Huard
has been the main man because of a Marino injury, the Dolphins are well above .500. No one
in his right mind would argue that Huard is the better quarterback, but he just might be
the better quarterback for the system.
Johnson’s Super Bowl track record says he has the right philosophy, but this
season’s results just might be saying he has the wrong starting quarterback for the
job. If Johnson decides to coach the team again next season, an interesting decision must
be made if Marino wishes to play another year.
Could it be that if Marino does play again next season, both he and the Dolphins would
be better-served if he plays elsewhere? That’s a difficult mouthful to swallow, but
here is something to chew on:
Right now, Marino, as great as he once was and as great as he still can be in bursts,
is a square peg in a round hole for Johnson’s Dolphins. |
