When you talk about the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history, Dan Marino was as good as anyone to ever play the position. He was productive, he was a leader, and he was a winner. Still, many have not given Marino his proper dues. All they see is a great quarterback who never won the big one.
I will explain not only why Marino was one of the all-time greats but why he should be ranked up there with any other quarterback to ever play the game.
Marino was a nine-time Pro Bowl selection, a league MVP, a comeback player of the year, and an AFC Champion. When he retired, he owned virtually every significant passing record in league history. He totaled 61,361 yards, 420 touchdown passes, 252 interceptions, and had a career quarterback rating of 86.4. To put that into perspective, his 61,361 passing yards amounted for a distance longer then the entire state of Rhode Island.
Not only that, but he retired with 147 total wins in his career. He won more games than former quarterbacks Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw, Fran Tarkenton, Roger Staubach, Bart Starr, Dan Fouts, Warren Moon, and Troy Aikman. He’s also ahead of current quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.
Yes, Marino was that good.
He was also good at a very young age. He made it to the Pro Bowl in his rookie season after only starting nine games. That was only a sign of things to come. Even then people could not have imagined what he would do the following year.
In 1984, Dan Marino had one of the greatest—if not the greatest—season in NFL history. He threw for an NFL record 5,084 yards and 48 touchdown passes. He not only broke the single season touchdown pass record, he obliterated it. Before Marino threw his 48 touchdowns in 1984, the previous record was 36! That would be the equivalent of if a quarterback threw for 62 touchdowns today. Marino won the league MVP and carried his Miami Dolphins to Super Bowl XIX.
The Dolphins had an impressive record of 14-2, but they had to face a very balanced 49er team that came in at 15-1. Miami might have had the slight edge on offense, but not on defense. The 49ers had the No.1 ranked defense in the NFL, and on the other side of the ball they had Joe Montana. The Dolphins as a team (and the key word being team here) were outmatched.
They lost the game 38-16.
Not hard to lose when your defense allows the other team to score 38 points, your running game was so unreliable that they only carried the ball nine times, and your offensive line lets you get sacked four times.
Thus was the story of Dan Marino's career.
Marino never had the proper backing in his career, not by a long shot. People have often criticized Marino mercilessly for never winning a Super Bowl. My point here is, you can not do it alone.
I did a little research regarding the 17 Super Bowl winning teams during Dan Marino's career. I noticed that there were two things that stuck out almost every time. Most of those teams had a 1,000 yard rusher and most teams had a top 10 defense. I hit the books and totaled the frequencies.
13 out of the 17 teams possessed a 1,000 yard rusher.
16 out of the 17 teams had a Top-10 ranked defense.
Meanwhile, Marino played with a 1,000 yard rusher only once during his 17 seasons. He played with a top-10 defense in only four out of his 17 seasons.
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about 1 month ago
Thank you so so so much for writing this. Marino was and always will be my favorite player.
about 1 month ago
No problem man, he was the reason I got into football. Please spread the word about this article so hopefully it can get the exposure it deserves.
Thanks :)
from about 1 month ago
it's already on the dolphins community leader message if you want to check it out. I've already printed it out for myself
about 1 month ago
Awesome article! The first football game I ever watched was between the Dolphins and Redskins. Why? Because I wanted to see who this Dan Marino was! Unfortunately the Dolphins lost, but as you said, no defense, and a shoddy offense. This was while Jimmy Johnson was head coach of Miami, and I didn't thrill too much to him while he was with the Dolphins either. 5 stars, POTD!
about 1 month ago
There's nothing erroneous about the perception of Dan Marino. Dan Marino has consistently been put in the top 10 greatest quarterbacks of all time. The reason why he will never come up in the top 5 is because of the issue of him not winning a Superbowl and even some Superbowl quarterbacks will never be considered in the top 5 either.
Joe Montana wasn't blessed with great running backs either. In fact only 4 times in Montana's careeer did he have a 1,000 yard rusher behind him.
Your argument about having 3 Pro-Bowl wide receivers isn't much of one. That could be said about Brett Favre too. What actually should be considered is how many 800-1,000 plus yard receivers he had. Dan Marino had 20 such times where a receiver had that amount of yardage.
Then the second part of the argument about Jim McMahon, Jim Plunkett, Mark Rypien, Jeff Hostetler, Doug Williams, or Troy Aikman who won superbowls rings during Marino's career, but I've yet to see anyone of those quarterbacks on a list stating that they were better than Marino or should be in a list of top 10 quarterbacks of all time.
Joe Montana went up against two quarterbacks that are in the top 10 of all time. In 1984 against Dan Marino's Dolphins and in 1989 against John Elway's Broncos.
If Elway hadn't won the two Superbowls before he retired he would be below Marino on the list, but since he got his two rings he jumped over Marino. In all honesty yes it is moronic to base it all just on rings, but it's important that once the quarterback gets to the Superbowl that they do perform.
Steve Young has won a superbowl ring as a starter for the 49ers and 2 as a backup to Joe Montana. See this is what makes it hard when comparing quarterbacks. If you wanted a quarterback who could throw the ball down the field all day long then it's Dan Marino. If you're looking for someone who can make plays with both his arms and his legs then it's Steve Young.
So, in all reality it's a matter of preference between the two. You couldn't go wrong with either as your quarterback, but both Young and Marino are behind the quarterbacks with multiple rings. Heck, Brett Favre has only one ring and I would put Marino and Young over Favre.
Dan Marino's career winning percentage 61 percent. There are quarterbacks like Joe Montana, Steve Young, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning who have better winning percentages.
The perception of Dan Marino as of now and will remain that he is a top 10 quarterback of all time, but definitely not in the top 5.
about 1 month ago
While I believe Dan Marino should go down as the greatest and most accurate long ball thrower in NFL history, I also agree that he doesn't belong in the Top 5 all time any more than Emmitt Smith belongs in the top 5 running backs of all time.
Dan's biggest problem is he never threw a pass that he didn't like, and also just like Joe Willie Namath didn't bother with actually reading defenses. Dan believed that no matter what the coverage was when he picked out the receiver to throw to that was the one. Consequently, he threw into coverage far too often.
Additionally, Marino has to be one of the worst play action QB's that ever played the game. That was the primary reason the running game failed so miserably with the Dolphins. Defenses could always tell when it was a running play due to Dan's lack of ability in concealing running plays.
One thing that Marino revolutionized was making the old adage "There are 3 things that can happen when you throw the ball and 2 of them are bad" not accurate.
Because Marino was such a fantastic long ball thrower even if it was intercepted it was as good as a great punt so technically there was only one truly bad thing that could happen and that was a non completion while the good ( TD) could happen quickly.
That being said because many Marino drives were so instant this tended to wear out the defense because of time of possession of the other team. A good ball control team was always a nightmare for the Dolphins under Marino.
about 1 month ago
Thank you so much for this article. I was about to write one similar myself but this is much better than I would've done. I agree with every word in there. Oh here's another QB that won a super bowl that can't even compare, Trent Dilfer. Now tell me Trent Dilfer is better than Marino, nooooooo way.
I had been arguing this point in B/R's top 10 QBs article. Thank you for shedding the light.
about 1 month ago
Nice job. This was much less biased and more factual than your Peyton Manning one. :)
about 1 month ago
Fabulous article, Ryan. You definitely did your research. I really appreciate you giving credit to Marino even though he never won a Super Bowl. People need to get over that. He was a tremendous quarterback during his career and did everything possible to win a championship.
It's a shame that the year he took his Dolphins to the Super Bowl, he went up against one of the greatest teams of all-time. Marino did throw two interceptions, obviously hurting his team, but he also threw for over 300 yards and a score against a defense that ranked No. 1 in the league in fewest points allowed and sent all four defensive backs to the Pro Bowl! And he had no running game, so as you said, the defense knew he was passing the ball almost every play. And as to the four sacks - well, Marino was said to have the quickest release of any QB who ever lived, so that would most likely be the blame of the O-line. And as we all know after watching last year's Super Bowl, it doesn't matter how good a QB is, if he's not getting protection, he can't do his job.
I personally don't know how people couldn't put Marino in the top five of all-time. Blaming him for not winning a Super Bowl is like blaming Ted Williams for never winning the World Series. Both players lost in their only opportunity (and didn't play great), but they were consistently amazing year after year, always putting their team in position to win. I don't want to say winning a Super Bowl is overrated... because it's not, and that's what every QB strives for every season. Ask any QB before the season if they would rather win the league MVP or the Super Bowl, and 10 out of 10 would take the Super Bowl. But I sometimes feel that QBs sometimes get too much credit for winning the big game, especially if they are surrounded by Hall of Fame talent at every position (see Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw), and too much blame if they lack the supporting cast of some of their counterpart QBs.
I don't know for sure how I would rank the greatest quarterbacks of all-time... but I would probably put Montana and Unitas ahead of Marino, and maybe Otto Graham. And that's probably it. I agree with you that Marino doesn't get the respect he deserves. His career is constantly a story of What if? What if Marino had won the Super Bowl? Personally, I believe Marino did everything he could with the talent he had, and he is a legitimate top five quarterback of all-time.
about 1 month ago
This article is fantastic! Dan Marino is my favorite athlete and deserves to be on the list of best NFL quaterbacks to play the game. The man is ridiculously intense.
about 1 month ago
When I look at Marino I pay little attention to career stats.
I believe more so in the " God for a day " than " Angel for a week " approch if you know what I mean.
That said, Marino was one of the greatest, what makes him even more great is how bad his team was, the Dolphins under Shula for most of Dan's career werer garbage defensively and had no running game.
Shula gets overrated as a coach I believe, and so the team was completely one dimensional, they relied on Marino to win games along the scores of 41-35, etc.
That's what makes him great.
If we're not comparing QBs from different eras, like so many do, Marino is Top 2.
Here's the way you can look at it:
#1 or #2 is Dan The Man, and then you fill the other blank with either Montana, or.......that's pretty much it.
Steve Young was elite during Marino's career, but the later half, so even then if you did a list of best QBs of the 90s it would be:
1. Steve Young
2. Dan Marino.
See how that works?
On top of this Marino was the only QB to pass for 40 TDs in a season, doing it twice, for over a decade.
He passed for 48, destroying the old record of 38 I believe, in 1984, and then 44 in 1986.
It took 13 years for Kurt Warner to reach the 40 mark, and still he got to 41.
Marino held the #1 AND #2 spot for most TD passes in a season for almost 20 years.
Nobody still has passed for 5,000 yards in a season, 24 years and counting.
Here's the passing leaders in 1984 btw:
YARDS
1. Marino-5,084
2. Lomax-4,614
3. Simms-4,044
TDS
1. Marino-48
2. Krieg-32
3. Lomax-28
COMPLETIONS
1. Marino-362
2. Lomax-345
3. Fouts-317
Greatest season by a Quarterback ever? I think so, makes Brady's 2007 season look like nothing, seriously.
Brady's 50 TDs were only 14 ahead of #2 Romo with 36.
Marino had 16 more TDs than #2 and 2 TDs less than Brady.
Beat it, you can't.
In terms of success, Montana is 1#, in terms of quality QB, Marino is #1.
about 1 month ago
Ryan, this is a FANTASTIC article!
about 1 month ago
very nice.
i've always been a Marino fan and all this did was move him up my list. I think i usually have him at 6. sandwiched between Otto Graham and Steve Young
about 1 month ago
Fantastic analysis here Ryan. Marino was without question one of the all-time best, and anyone who says different needs to do a little more research!
You are correct that 1984 is one of the VERY best seasons a Quarterback has ever had. And yes, he did it without a 1000 yard rusher to keep defenses honest. They knew exactly what was coming every time but could do nothing to defend against Marino's quick release and deadly accuracy. The only team that could stop Marino and the Fins that year was one of the greatest teams in the history of the NFL which featured a nearly unstoppable defense and of course Joe Montana at the helm.
The fact that Dan never won a Super Bowl will haunt him forever and it's pretty unfair. The guy was a leader and a clutch player; he's got 37 career 4th quarter comebacks, yet most wouldn't dare utter him in the same sentence as "John Elway" when it comes to winning big games.
They should. Give him Terrell Davis and that Bronco line from the late 90s and we'll see what happens.
Thanks for doing the man justice!! 5 stars and POTD.
about 1 month ago
I am glad to see some positive comments on Marino other than those first few. Dan truly is the man.
about 1 month ago
*started* in pro bowl rookie year
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