Thursday, June 07, 2007

Eight Years Later, Marino's Shadow Still Looms

Shit.

It's time we faced it, Dolphins fans. Face the truth and move on with our lives. Otherwise we're doomed to keep setting ourselves up for failure. Much like Celtics fans with Larry Bird (and look at how cursed that franchise has been the past two decades), we need to come to grips that Dan Marino is gone. Every QB that comes along down here (and there've been a lot!) is invariably compared to Danny Boy in some way or another. The man was great. The man was a winner. The man was a record breaking machine. The man spoiled us rotten. And now every signal caller that we trade for or draft is forced to stand in his ginormous shadow.

From ProFootballTalk:
Since Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino retired after the 1999 season, the team had burned plenty of draft picks in an effort to replace him...The irony here is that, when Marino was playing, the team's defense generally wasn't good enough to propel the team to the highest levels of success. After Marino left, the defense became dominant. And now that the pendulum on offense could be swinging back the other way, we've got a feeling that the defense will gradually begin to slide backward.

And from the Fan House:
I don't sense that Denver's fans and sports writers are clinging to John Elway in the same way. Elway is a beloved figure in Denver and Broncos fans would kill to have a quarterback of his talent again, but Broncos fans also seem to understand, in a way Dolphins fans don't, the need to move on.... whatever the reason, when Trent Green becomes the Dolphins' starting quarterback -- and when John Beck gets the job after Green -- let's hope they're judged on their own merits, not on how they compare to someone who's incomparable.

So ... be it Jay Fiedler, Trent Green, John Beck, or whomever ... Dan Marino is gone and there will never be another. Period. He's happily retired and working his cushy TV gigs and hawking weight loss meals (and bringing Don Shula along with him. And Mike Golic. And Chris Carter. And John Kruk too. Except that with Kruk, the Nutrisystem diet seems to be having a reverse affect... but I digress). He's gone. And the only way he's coming back is to participate in ceremonial coin tosses in Super Bowls. And the occasional Ring of Honor induction.

Rick Pitino was laughed out of Boston when he tried to turn the Celtics' fortunes around in the post-Bird seasons. But his tenure will always be remembered for a famous line he gave the frustrated fans and media there: "Larry Bird is not walking through that door, folks."
So let us take it from the guy who wrote Success Is A Choice.

Dan Marino is not walking through that door, folks.

Shit!


Labels: , , ,


Comments:
there wont be another Dan for a long time to come and it is time to move on with it. We can sit here and say Cam is so wrong but when we make poor choices we dont lose our jobs just rethink things. Maybe Cam needs the lattitude to make his career effecting choices.

As for the Green CPep stat comparisons how about shitty game costing decisions. Has anyone compared those. If you do I think you will find Green always make a better choice. If we are willing to tolerate game altering bad decisions (Joey,CPep,Fiedler) why even make a change at all right.

By the way it was reported on moving the chains that B Quinn is hitting at least 30% of his passes in the OTAs
 
I agree hank. I don't know the exact numbers but it seems to me that Trent is a safer option when it comes to bone headed plays and bad interceptions.

As for Marino, yup there will never be another like him. And we do need to move on. He'll always be the greatest Dolphin of all time but that doesn't mean we have to judge other Fins QBs by him either. It's just not fair.
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?