49ers Have an Edge, but Marino Is Great Equalizer

Miami Dolphin quarterback Dan Marino is the athlete who makes this the strangest Super Bowl of them all.

He is the reason the Dolphins have a chance in Sunday’s game.

That is the view of most National Football League coaches and scouts, who believe the San Francisco 49ers have an edge in everything else.

San Francisco, they say, has better special teams, more defense, a stronger running attack and enough pass offense. It has outscored 17 of its last 18 opponents.

Yet one man pretty much nullifies all those assets.

There may never have been a comparable football situation. This isn’t a fight between two heavyweights or a match between two golfers. It’s a contest between two championship teams that classify a total of more than 50 individual players as starters.

Many are All-Pros. Most make $200,000 a year or more. All are the survivors of three months of competition that eliminated 26 of the NFL’s 28 teams. And one man apparently is a match for half of them.

Facing the superior club, Marino comes in with the precision, craftsmanship, courage and magic to make it even.

His is always a game plan without mystery, without surprises, without many frills.

He will stand back as usual Sunday and throw passes.

He is the only quarterback in the pros who makes it a practice to drop back and throw on first down.

“When other teams pass on first down, they use play-action (fake-run) passes,” said Tom Bass, the San Diego defensive coordinator. “Or they’ll use a quick screen, or throw the ball out to a back. The thing that makes Marino unique is that he drops back on first and 10 as if it were third and 10.”

In other words, Marino is always going for the big play. He has taken the foot out of football and made it passball. He is the answer to a question that has been asked by football fans for 30 years: “Why don’t these teams use their two-minute drill all day and score all day?”

The Dolphins’ most distinctive play is out of everybody’s two-minute drill. They line up four wide receivers, two on each side. As the four race down the field, Marino quickly reads the defense, then throws to the one who has attracted the least defensive interest.

Other NFL passers attempting this tactic frequently are sacked before they can fire. It is Marino’s unreal quickness that keeps the odds in his favor.

That isn’t to say that he throws long passes exclusively. There are a lot of five-yard passes in Marino’s game plan. But whereas 49er quarterback Joe Montana plans to get six yards on his five-yard passes, Marino plans to get 20.

The fact is that Miami’s offense differs so extensively from San Francisco’s that they don’t seem to be playing the same game.

“Miami has the fastest pass offense I’ve ever seen,” an NFL offensive coach said, meaning Marino’s throwing motion and the foot speed of Mark Clayton and Mark Duper, the Dolphins’ 5-9 receivers.

A defensive coach added:

--It is Duper’s speed that stretches the field, creating large gaps in the secondary for Clayton and Miami’s two slower wide receivers, Nat Moore and Jimmy Cefalo.

--Clayton is the best athlete on the Miami team and one of the three best football players in the game, ranking with Montana and Marino.

It is the athlete in Clayton that offsets his height disadvantage. He gets to the ball with well-timed leaps, then is able to wrestle passes away from anyone who can jump with him.

Still, Duper is almost as dangerous, and Miami’s other targets, Cefalo and Moore, the tight ends, the backs, are effective catchers.

Since midseason, Marino seemingly has preferred Clayton as a target over Duper, but some coaches think that is more apparent than real.

Said New England’s defensive coordinator Rod Rust: “Something is leading him to Clayton, and it’s probably the coverage (on Duper).”

When Clayton and Duper are out of the lineup, Marino throws with confidence to whoever is on the field. Indeed, there are some NFL coaches who think he could win if his only targets were Cefalo, Moore, halfback Tony Nathan and tight end Joe Rose.

The platform on which Marino performs so spectacularly was built by Miami Coach Don Shula, one of the NFL’s most respected leaders.

Shula’s contributions to Miami’s game planning include all this and more:

--During a close inspection of each opponent’s movies, he discovers ways to provide a blocker for every blitzer. If the other team attacks Marino with eight pass rushers, the Miami offense lines up at least eight blockers.

This has benefited Marino enormously. The knowledge of it--the knowledge that he is unlikely to be sacked if he carries out his own part of the job properly--has been a major factor in developing and maintaining Marino’s self-confidence as a pocket passer.

--Shula modernizes the offense continually. Unlike the Raiders, who have played football the same way for 22 years, the Dolphins bend with the game. Thus they borrowed the shotgun formation from Dallas and the one-back formation from Washington. More than half of Miami’s plays come out of that formation, which gives them four receivers.

--Shula also bends with his personnel. For example, Marino vigorously objects to the tightly structured, short-pass offense that Montana operates so successfully. When Pitt changed coaches in Marino’s senior year, he was a flop. He wants a wide-open, long-ball, gambling offense, and Shula gives him one.

--The coach also has taught the young Miami quarterback how to throw away from coverage, minimizing interceptions. His uncommon confidence often lured Marino into throwing toward receivers who were covered, but he knows better now. In college, he didn’t. Thus as a college senior he threw so many interceptions that his draft value in one of the NFL’s best draft years sank from No. 1 to No. 27.