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Points East
DAN Marino led his Dolphins to the NFL championship game only once, but he got all these guys to the Pro Bowl: Bill Kenney, Ken O'Brien, Boomer Esiason, Jim Kelly, Jeff Hostetler and Steve Bono. Marino deserved
a happier swan songThanks to Marino's "injuries" (actually, some of them were legit), Hawaii football fans got the pleasure of seeking autographs from Boomer and Bono and Kelly and Kenney - now that has a nice ring to it, even though none of them, except Hostetler, have Super Bowl rings.
And it looks like that's the way it's going to end for Marino, too.
He did play in two Pro Bowls. The one I remember was after the 1984 season, when a 23-year-old Marino came in to Honolulu International Airport from San Francisco.
I don't think he took an overnight flight, but his eyes were certainly red.
The Dolphins had just lost, 38-16, to the 49ers in Super Bowl XIX as Joe Montana built on his burgeoning legend.
At the time, everyone - everyone east of Palo Alto, anyway - thought Marino was the Montana-in-waiting.
I asked him about that possibility at the baggage claim area. Marino said there was no doubt in his mind that he would get more chances.
Who among us thought that wouldn't be the case? Who could have predicted that 15 years later, after building Hall of Fame career numbers, it would end so badly for him?
He hasn't officially called it quits yet. But what else can Marino do after spending a good part of Saturday staring straight up at the Jacksonville sky, and an even better portion of it watching from the sideline, having pulled himself out of a 62-7 debacle?
THE dreamers among Dolphins fans will say now that Jimmy Johnson is gone, the real Marino can come back and re-take his team, without fear of criticism or benching. But Marino never lost the team - what he lost was the inhuman zip on his passes and what little mobility he ever had.
And Johnson's presence didn't hurt Marino, it was the other way around, as Marino limited Johnson's freedom to coach the team. J.J. learned you can't bench Miami's most popular figure of all-time for a Damon Huard, even if Huard wins.
Of course, a running game and a defense might have helped the Dolphins on Saturday - weren't those the ingredients that let John Elway go out a winner?
Instead of Elway, his classmate in the 1983 draft, Marino will now be more closely linked in football history to Giants great Y.A. Tittle, Kelly and Fran Tarkenton - the best quarterbacks to never win a championship.
Football has changed a lot in 37 years. But one thing remains the same, as it does in all of sports - a great player like Marino deserves a happier ending.
Even if he did stick us with Steve Bono in '95.
Dave Reardon, who covered sports in Hawaii
from 1977 to 1998, is a sportswriter at the
Gainesville Sun. E-mail reardod@gvillesun.com