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No running game
IG: aj_mckenzie416
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Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
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00:15Hi, I'm Brian Kenney and welcome to ESPN Classics Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame, a series that
00:21takes a fresh look at sports personalities who are remembered largely for their mistakes,
00:25controversial moments, or questionable decisions. In this show, we'll examine why one of the best
00:30quarterbacks in NFL history is often criticized for never winning a Super Bowl. Other renowned
00:35signal callers have not been so stigmatized, but Dan Marino was coached by Don Shula and Jimmy
00:40Johnson, who between them won four Super Bowls. So what happened? Why no ring for Dan? Before we
00:46start our countdown of the reasons why you can't blame Marino for not winning a Super Bowl,
00:50let's take a look at his brilliant 17-year career.
00:59It was like God said, I made you a football player and you're going to be the greatest
01:05passer that ever lived. He drops quickly to throw, looks right across the middle, he's got
01:09right and open, Dan! Dan was just so impressive, you know, he's just such a big, good guy.
01:16The quickies and the tight spiral, you knew that you had something special in your hands
01:20right there. I'd go and watch practice, you'd get mesmerized by Dan Marino. A beautiful
01:26comment there, you couldn't take your eyes off. As a pure passer, he was the greatest.
01:31Here is Marino, back to throw, going deep, got a man down there, he's got a touchdown!
01:40Dan a lot and you just pick a guy and let it fly. Marino gunning deep and Clayton is open
01:47for a touchdown! In the 1923 NFL Draft, five were so excited about showing those five franchises
01:54what they had missed. After passing for 20 touchdowns as a rookie, he shattered records in his second
02:00year, throwing for 48 touchdowns, 12 more than the previous mark, and for more than 5,000 yards.
02:07As the 1984 season began, the expectations were that this team could go to the Super Bowl
02:13because they had the best young quarterback in the NFL. Early on, you know, we had one-on-one
02:18matchups that we knew we could win. We felt like we could score on anybody. We were witnessing
02:22greatness at its very highest level. I just thought the Dolphins had just been blessed
02:27with the guy who had been placed behind center, and he couldn't lose because he was doing
02:31things we had never seen before. Fueled by Marino's aerial assault, the Dolphins went
02:3714-2 in 1984. They didn't miss a beat in the conference playoffs, capped by a 45-28
02:43route of Pittsburgh, in which Marino passed for 421 yards and four touchdowns, both AFC Championship
02:51game records. The Dolphins have won the AFC Championship game and are now in Super Bowl
02:5819. Super Bowl 19 was billed as Young Gunn versus Joe Cool, Dan Marino against Joe Montana.
03:08But San Francisco muzzled Marino, intercepting him twice and sacking him four times, and the
03:1449ers romped 38-16.
03:20When they lost to the 49ers, I remember thinking, well, they lost, but we're going to see this
03:24guy over and over. This happened so fast for us. I don't think we respected it as much as
03:28we should have at the time. And then I felt like, well, I'm going to be back at some point.
03:32You know, I know I'm going to play this game.
03:37But Marino never did get back. In fact, in the last four seasons of the 1980s, the Dolphins
03:43failed to reach the playoffs. And then in the next six years, they went three and four
03:47in the postseason, including 0-3 against Buffalo.
03:51Eventually, after two or three or four years, they learned, okay, just force him to throw
03:57shallow. Take away the deep stuff, which made him just like any other quarterback. And eventually,
04:03he would make a mistake. In his first four years, Marino averaged 36 touchdown passes
04:08a season. But for the rest of his career, that number plunged to 21. After the 1995 season
04:14ended with a one-sided loss in the wild-card game, Coach Don Shula ended his 26-year tenure
04:20with Miami. His successor, Jimmy Johnson, said the days of the Dolphins' dependency on the
04:25pass were at an end. I think Jimmy Johnson was frustrated by Dan Marino in the sense that
04:32Dan had become a detriment to his team with the number of interceptions he had thrown.
04:40Johnson was unable to reverse the trend, and the Dolphins' playoff frustrations continued.
04:45So did Marino's declining productivity. In 1999, for the first time in his career,
04:50his interceptions outnumbered his touchdowns, 17-12. He was running out of time and patience.
04:58These questions are ridiculous. I'll tell you how tough it is, is you work your butt off
05:03all week, and then you lose a game like that, three points or two seconds left. That's how
05:06tough it is. You wouldn't know, would you?
05:10Marino had a tough time dealing with the fact that he'd never won a Super Bowl. And all of this
05:17was
05:19compounded by fans and media asking him how he felt about it.
05:24That's the perception, because the media gives you that perception as a quarterback, and that's
05:28always going to be there. You never really get yourself over the top in the media's mind
05:32until you win a Super Bowl.
05:35Marino's last grab for the elusive ring ended in embarrassment, a 62-7 flogging by
05:41Jacksonville in the second round of the 1999 playoffs. He was a shell of himself,
05:46passing for a paltry 95 yards and throwing two interceptions.
05:50Picked off by Beasley, and the problems persist for Dan Marino. How about that?
05:59His first pass is intercepted. By the time he got his first completion, it was the second quarter,
06:04and his career really was over at that point.
06:08Marino was easily a first Ballot Hall of Famer in 2005, bringing with him to
06:13Canton's most major NFL career passing records. An unshakable smudge on his portfolio
06:18was that while he had won 61% of his regular season starts, he had won only 44% of
06:25his playoff games.
06:25And there was the haunting matter of the missing ring.
06:29You look at somebody like Tom Brady or Elway, these guys had ways of inspiring their teammates
06:35to kind of go a little bit beyond what they were. I don't think Marino had that capability.
06:39I'm not a big Dan Marino fan. He's a Hall of Fame passer and thrower. He just didn't win.
06:46Your quarterback is responsible for winning, not passing.
06:50Dan put up a tremendous amount of stats and provided a tremendous amount of excitement for a lot of people.
06:56But see, I got this on, and got another one at home in the drawer, and that's what counts.
07:00We didn't win a Super Bowl together, and that's something I always regret.
07:04That's a joke. That's a crock. You would think guys who have to carry their quarterback, Bob Greasy,
07:11who knows how many Super Bowls Dan Marino wins in Bob Greasy's shoes.
07:16You would think these guys would have more concept of team and having a great running game.
07:22Put more remorse on any of Dan Marino's teams that are multiple times Super Bowl champions.
07:32He knows that.
07:36What that feels like?
07:37There's no question. I think every time people talk about him, it'll be one of the first things they say.
07:42When you don't win the big one, no matter how good you play,
07:46there's always a question, well, you know, are you really the best? Are you really good enough?
07:50Dan Marino's legacy will not be what it should be simply because he went 0 for 17 in Super Bowls.
08:00That's the conventional wisdom behind why Dan Marino has been blamed for never winning a Super Bowl.
08:05When you set every major career passing record and still come up empty,
08:08it's hard to point the finger of blame elsewhere.
08:10But before we start our countdown of the reasons why Marino is not to blame,
08:14here are several arguments that didn't make the cut.
08:17We call them the best of the rest.
08:20The 1984 49ers.
08:26Season in the NFL, Marino drew the short straw in Super Bowl 19.
08:31He had to face a dynasty in the making.
08:34They have to get a Super Bowl against the 49ers in Joe Montana.
08:37The 49ers are at their peak.
08:39And at their peak, they're as good as any team's ever played in this league.
08:42In the drubbing by the 49ers, Marino watched a surgeon at work.
08:47Montana throwing those short catch-and-run spirals.
08:50Of his 24 completions in an MVP performance,
08:53seven went to Roger Craig out of the backfield.
08:56Two for touchdowns.
08:58Their linebackers couldn't keep up with Roger Craig.
09:01Every time he'd go out, he'd get behind one of those linebackers.
09:04And San Francisco exposed him.
09:07Another best of the rest.
09:09Injuries.
09:10In the 1990s, rarely was Marino playing without pain.
09:14His knees went under the surgeon's knife repeatedly.
09:17He had hip problems, ruptured an Achilles.
09:19And in his last season, suffered a cervical nerve injury.
09:23The neck injury was a tough injury on him, both physically and psychologically.
09:28Because this was the first injury he'd ever had in his career that his arm was affected.
09:32He could not throw the ball the way he wanted to.
09:39We're counting down the top five reasons you can't blame Dan Marino for never winning a Super Bowl.
09:46Welcome back.
09:46Without any further ado, let's get right to our countdown.
09:50Reason number five, replacing the Marks Brothers.
09:54In Marino's first ten seasons, he threw 290 touchdown passes.
09:59And almost half of those went to the dynamic duo known as the Marks Brothers.
10:03Mark Clayton and Mark Dupont.
10:06You can blame part of the reason for Marino not winning a Super Bowl
10:10in the sense that when he lost to the Marks Brothers, then he lost a lot.
10:14He never had anything close to that again.
10:17He went from 29 touchdowns a season to 18 and a half.
10:23You cut a guy down from 10 to 10 and a half touchdowns per season less,
10:30you're not going to win many games.
10:33Or important games.
10:35You should tell the defensive back, you can't stop us.
10:39Marino drops the throw.
10:41Looks, fires for the corner of the end zone.
10:42It is caught by Clayton Walker.
10:47Marino lost his Roadrunners in 1993.
10:50Clayton, a free agent, left for Green Bay.
10:52And Duper was cut in training camp.
10:55Other guys would come in and play with him one year and then they're gone.
10:58Wasn't like when the Marks Brothers were here, where they were here for years and years and years
11:01and then they got a chance to develop a rapport with them.
11:04In 1984, the season when Marino torched the record book,
11:08Clayton caught 18 touchdown passes.
11:10His first of four years in double digits.
11:13But after the departs...
11:19Marino no season.
11:21They went out and got Mark Ingram and he failed.
11:24They went out and hoped that Tony Martin would emerge and he didn't.
11:28The Dolphins did a parade of a lot of veteran guys who came in after that.
11:34But nobody who replaced Duper and Clayton as the favorite target.
11:40One reason down, four to go.
11:42Here's reason number four.
11:45The Dolphins defense.
11:47From 1984 to 1997, Miami's defense ranked in the lower half of the league 12 times.
11:55Touchdown, Buffalo.
11:56Hurts for the Miami defense.
11:58Offense sells tickets.
12:00Defense wins Super Bowls.
12:02If you can't stop anybody, you're not going to win.
12:05Simple as that.
12:08Shootouts tended to be fatal for Marino and Miami.
12:11Case in point, in 21 losses to the Bills between 1987 and 1999,
12:16the Dolphins surrendered 29 points a game while being bullied for 177 yards rushing.
12:23On the defensive side of the ball, they were constantly trying to find their one or two or three or
12:27four stars.
12:29But it wasn't built on a foundation of depth.
12:31If you look at their draft picks, they had John Boza, Eric Comerow.
12:37There's a whole cattle call of defensive bust throughout the first six to eight years of his career
12:43that really defined the fact that he wasn't going to get a ring.
12:47Miami's defensive deficiencies were gruesomely apparent in the 31 to 14 loss to New England
12:52in the 1985 AFC Championship game.
12:55The Patriots ran 59 times for 255 yards,
13:00controlling the clock for 40 minutes and keeping Marino chained to the bench.
13:05If you look at his...
13:08it comes down to four words.
13:11I feel like Craig James run over them.
13:14Craig James was good, but he wasn't...
13:19wasn't 255 yards for his...
13:23for his team's ground game good.
13:32...awful.
13:34Everybody kept waiting for the defense to get to that level that could win a championship,
13:38and it never got there.
13:44We're counting down the top five reasons you can't blame Dan Marino for never winning a Super Bowl.
13:50Did our first two reasons grab you? If not, here's reason number three.
13:56Jimmy Johnson, the architect of the Dallas dynasty of the 1990s, came out of retirement to succeed Don Shula.
14:03He was going to be the one to make the Marino resume complete at last.
14:08Anybody that's going to give you a chance to win a championship...
14:16...of which everybody believed that Jimmy would do that.
14:19You buy into the program, and that's the way you have to look at it.
14:24Johnson's mind was made up.
14:26He would wean Miami from its dependency on Marino and emphasize the ground game.
14:30But when that failed, offensive coordinator Gary Stevens, a holdover from the Shula regime, was led to the gallows by
14:38Johnson.
14:39I think what he realized is that he had made a mistake.
14:42He had to file Gary Stevens, and he had to force some things down Dan Marino's throat.
14:47And it was, to me, the beginning of the end for the two of them.
14:51Jimmy neutered Dan by taking away his right to automobilize.
14:57Jimmy didn't allow Dan to check off at the line of scrimmage.
14:59That was a big part of his game.
15:00Howard Schnellenberger called it asking Mozart to play the piano with one hand tied behind his back.
15:08Despite the rift between the two, Marino actually talked Johnson out of retiring after the 1998 season.
15:14The truce was temporary, however.
15:17Soon, the town and the team were fractured.
15:20Dan's our starting quarterback.
15:22We've been inconsistent at that position, but we feel like that we can improve on it.
15:28You drive to work, you turn the news on, and it's Jimmy and Dan.
15:31I mean, it's, you look in the newspaper, it's Jimmy and Dan.
15:34After a while, it became a distraction.
15:36The day after that humiliating 62-7 playoff loss to Jacksonville in January of 2000,
15:43Johnson retired, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family after the death of his mother.
15:48The Dolphins never got out of the second round of the playoffs during his four-year tenure.
15:53When Shula was there, it was all about Marino.
15:56When Jimmy Johnson came in, that changed.
15:58So, toward the end, I mean, no running game, poor receivers, and a coach who didn't necessarily believe in him.
16:03There was no way Dan was going to win at that point.
16:07Have we begun to change your mind yet?
16:09If not, take a look at reason number two.
16:12The Buffalo Bills. They were the immovable object for Miami.
16:17In Marino's last 13 seasons, the Bills won 21 of 30 games against the Dolphins and reached four straight Super
16:24Bowls.
16:25I remember one time when the Buffalo Bills were dominating.
16:29Marino, the Bills had this great team. Countless Hall of Famers did this, did that.
16:37They never won a championship. They got blown out in three of their four Super Bowl appearances.
16:45If they had no chance of winning the Super Bowl, how were the Dolphins going to?
16:54The Miami Dolphins. And Marino was very, very frustrated.
16:58And he would look up to me and said, look at their roster. Look at our roster.
17:03Can you see what I'm talking about?
17:04That was the team we needed to beat in those years, and they had a great football team.
17:08They just were the team that was, you know, better than us.
17:12Against the Bills between 1987 and 1999, Marino threw 39 touchdown passes,
17:18but also 36 interceptions.
17:21In those late-season games, played in cold, win-last Buffalo, Marino was 0-6.
17:28Marino throwing deep. It is intercepted by Mark Kelso.
17:33When he came up here and the winds were swearing on,
17:38Marino's arm at the time, it might have been a little bit too much on him.
17:42The Bills had a man for all seasons in Thurman Thomas, who represented perhaps the most formidable barrier between Marino
17:50and the Super Bowl.
17:51The versatile running back bedeviled Miami for more than 2,800 yards of total offense and 16 touchdowns.
17:58Thurman Thomas became the symbol for exposing them all and for frustrating Marino when not getting to the Super Bowl.
18:05Thomas on the screen, Thomas, touchdown Buffalo!
18:10Of the three playoff losses to the Bills in the Marino era,
18:14none was more galling than Miami's 29-10 defeat in the 1992 AFC Championship game in its own warm backyard.
18:22At the end of the day, the Buffalo Bills had a team made for the postseason.
18:28The Miami Dolphins had a team made for highlight reels in the regular season, but not the postseason.
18:36People say, how much are the Bills to blame for Marino not getting to some of those Super Bowls?
18:41We'll take the blame on that one.
18:45Counting down the top five reasons you can't blame Dan Marino for never winning a Super Bowl.
18:50Here's a recap.
18:52Number five, replacing the Marx Brothers.
18:54Marino never had receivers.
18:56The Dolphins let Marino down.
18:59Don Shula, not without cause, was enamored of the quarterback's dazzling arm and believed that would be sufficient.
19:06Plan A was Marino throwing.
19:08So was Plan B.
19:10And Plan C.
19:11Marino is football's equivalent to crack.
19:14You know what I mean?
19:15You start smoking it and you can't stop.
19:16You gotta get him to keep throwing the ball.
19:18I think that Coach Shula realized that his strength was Dan Marino and they threw it every down.
19:23I think Don Shula used Marino's greatness as a crutch.
19:28And everybody who followed the Dolphins kept figuring that Dan's gonna lift us to greatness.
19:35All Marino all the time carried a crippling price.
19:39No offensive balance.
19:40During the quarterback's 17-year career, the Dolphins led the league in passing five times.
19:46But their running game averaged a ranking of only 22nd.
19:50When you have a quarterback like Dan Marino is that he camouflages a lot of your weaknesses.
19:55And they only get exposed in big games and tough moments.
19:58The Dolphins consistently gave lip service to the ground game.
20:01But their actions never matched their words.
20:04We used to laugh when we heard every single year.
20:07We're committed to the running game.
20:09We're committed to the running game.
20:10They never had a running game.
20:12And we knew if it came down to it, it was gonna come down to number 13.
20:14When it came down to it, offensive line, we thought we could run the ball.
20:18And also we're calling pass plays.
20:20Really didn't give it a chance a lot of times.
20:22During Marino's tenure, the Dolphins drafted 20 yards per carry in the league over Dan Marino's career.
20:31Now if these guys were that trash with Dan Marino taking the pressure off of them.
20:36So they didn't have eight man boxes.
20:40How garbage would they have been on teams that didn't have a top 10 quarterback of all time?
20:50Five running backs.
20:51Only one.
20:52Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rushed for 1,000 yards in a single season.
20:57There were so many great hopes at running back.
20:59Troy Stratford.
21:01Andre Franklin.
21:02Woody Bennett.
21:04One after one.
21:05They came.
21:06They tried.
21:07And they left.
21:08At one point probably their best running back was Bernie Parmalee.
21:12And he was a guy that they found when he was working for UPS.
21:16And so they decided that they were gonna go with Dan Marino and every once in a while give it
21:21to the UPS guy.
21:23If they had a solid, dependable runner like Terrell Davis, I'm sure Dan Marino would have been an
21:29another Super Bowl and he would have won a Super Bowl.
21:32The Dolphins actually...
21:33They needed a good running back to win back then.
21:35You needed Marcus Howe, Roger Craig, Walter Payne, Joe Morris, George Rogers, Roger Craig again, Otis Anderson, Ernest
21:51Byner, Emma Smith, Ricky Waters, you got Dorsey Levins, and Terrell Davis, and Marshall Faulk.
22:01All those guys were pro bowlers, 1000 yard rushers.
22:07On Super Bowl winning teams.
22:10...could have had Terrell Davis, the runner who helped John Elway to two Super Bowl triumphs.
22:15He was one of several game swinging backs Miami passed over in the draft.
22:20Among the others, Emmitt Smith, Thurman Thomas, Bo Jackson, Herschel Walker, and Curtis Martin.
22:28Sometimes you need to run it to take the pressure off.
22:31What I think that we didn't have is that the guy that you could count on like Aikman and
22:36Emmitt Smith.
22:37You had an Emmitt Smith to the Miami offense with Dan Marino, you'd have to say his chances
22:43of winning the Super Bowl would have been increased immeasurably.
22:47History has shown that quarterbacks with infinitely more modest credentials and backed by balance
22:52attacks have won what eluded Marino all those years.
22:57Look at Trent Dilfer in 2000 with the Ravens.
23:01Marino on a team that had the Ravens defense with a 1200 yard back.
23:07He might have won two or three in a row.
23:10I wasn't able to get the balanced offense that we needed in order to help our defense and
23:15to help Dan get the most out of his ability.
23:18So, you know, I failed in that regard.
23:20They had the greatest weapon in the NFL for 15 years and they really blew it.
23:26They should have been the 49ers.
23:27They could have been the Giants winning multiple Super Bowls in that time.
23:31In football, I don't care how great individually a player is.
23:36And Marino is a great example.
23:38If you put too much stock in your quarterback and you live and die with him,
23:42you're going to die a lot more than live.
23:46Well, there you have it.
23:47The top five reasons you can't blame Dan Marino for never winning a Super Bowl.
23:51We can't get him a Lombardi trophy, but maybe we've helped silence his critics
23:55and let his legacy stand as one of the NFL's all-time great quarterbacks.
23:59I'm Brian Kenney.
24:00Thanks for joining us.
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