NFL / Bob Oates : Which Dan Marino Will Show Up?

For Dan Marino, the football season next fall is going to be an adventure.

Will his fans see the 1983-84 Marino or the Super Bowl Marino?

Until last Sunday, the second-season Miami quarterback had been throwing nearly perfect passes regularly, one after another, for the better part of two years.

But he found it harder to perform in the Super Bowl, where the pressure can be disruptive--the more so if you’re a 23-year-old quarterback playing there for the first time.

With half the nation in the audience, the tensions of that game seemed to tug at Marino’s throwing arm--pulling the ball into the ground at the feet of his receivers.

He had reached the title round as the leader of an admittedly inferior team going against an uncommonly strong team--but Marino fans expected him to win, anyway.

And the question is how he’ll react next time when it’s third-and-long and a Miami game is on the line.

It is true that regular-season pressure isn’t the same, but there will be pressure enough on a young man who didn’t quite come through in the game that meant the most.

Hall of Fame hitter Ted Williams says hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in major league sports.

But it’s doubtful if Williams would be so sure of that if he had ever played quarterback in an NFL game.

In the days when he stood, quietly, at the plate, there were no 49ers fighting for Williams’ body.

Marino’s specialty--throwing long passes accurately against a heavy rush--is probably the hardest job in football if not in professional sports.

Assuming he can do it again next fall--assuming he’s a success again--Marino will be a more integrated success because his first Super Bowl experience will always be there to sober him up.

By the same token, a first-time Super Bowl win might have been harmful to Marino in the long run, leading possibly to carelessness either on the playing field or in his personal life.

But the consequences of what actually happened to him could also be harmful to Marino.

Magic was his thing--and now the magic is gone.

He had been football’s first true see-and-throw quarterback--the first with a throwing motion so quick and accurate that, regardless of the rush, the ball was there almost as soon as he saw the target.

The pressure on him robbed him of this quality last Sunday. Will it happen again?

When he sees the films of Super Bowl XIX, Marino will realize that he hasn’t been beaten yet by a defensive rush.

Although the 49ers sacked him four times, the sacks all came in the second half after discouragement had cost his teammates some of their intensity.

The truth is that the Raiders rushed Marino harder this season--on a day when he set passing records against them.

Marino will also realize in time, no doubt, that the embarrassment he experienced two years ago--when the pros drafted six other quarterbacks ahead of him--isn’t comparable.

No adversity in football resembles, even faintly, a Super Bowl humiliation in front of television’s millions.

The way Marino comes back from this will be one of the football stories of 1985.

Those who played the game last Sunday have concluded that Joe Montana’s surprise running was the decisive stroke for San Francisco.

“He surprised us as much as them,” says 49er wide receiver Dwight Clark. “Neither of us (Miami or San Francisco) planned on Joe running.”

Montana is the San Francisco quarterback--the team’s passer. His opponents didn’t expect the passer to run because Miami’s defensive coordinator, Chuck Studley, knows Montana so well.

The last time the 49ers won the Super Bowl, Studley was their defensive coordinator.

Studley knows Montana rarely ventures past the scrimmage line. He knows Montana panics slightly when rushed hard. He knows Montana.

Although Studley’s players aren’t as talented as San Francisco’s, the Miami coach did design a sound defense for the 49ers:

--The Dolphins rushed Montana hard up the middle, where they could also keep an eye on the tough San Francisco runners, Wendell Tyler and Roger Craig.

--And they covered Montana’s receivers with seven or eight defensive backs and linebackers, making sure that on key passing downs there were no 49ers open--particularly in the deep zones.

Only one thing could have destroyed this defense--and Studley knew he didn’t have to worry about that. He knew Montana wouldn’t run.

It is prudence that leads Montana to hand off to Tyler or Craig most of the time. His 52-yard scramble against the Giants in the playoffs wasn’t like him.

Here are the more relevant numbers:

--During the 1984 regular season, in 16 games, Tyler ran for 1,262 yards, Craig for 649 and Montana for 118.

--In Super Bowl XIX, Tyler ran for 65 yards, Craig for 58 and Montana for 59.

Against Miami, a Montana scramble was instrumental in each of the 49ers’ first five scoring drives, leading to 31 of their 38 points.

Bill Walsh has built the 49ers into the team they are by coaching them to do the unexpected. And Montana is Walsh’s prize pupil.

From start to finish, Montana threw mostly play-action passes against Miami. His fake handoffs to Tyler and Craig drew in the Miami linebackers, clearing out the short zones into which he threw most of his passes.

Similarly, Montana’s scrambles and fake scrambles also confused the Dolphins and drew them in.

The other quarterback, Marino, was blessed with no such running threat. He isn’t much of a runner himself and his backs don’t trouble a good defense.

Thus it was easier last week for the 49ers to play defense.

--The Dolphins, worrying about Tyler and Craig, could rush Montana hard enough to get him out of the pocket but not hard enough to get him.

--The 49ers, aware that nobody in a Miami uniform could hurt them running the ball, teed off on Marino like a field of sprinters.

In other words, the 49ers have more talent.

The Miami leader, Don Shula, wasn’t out-coached by Walsh so much as he was out-recruited.