Passing Judgment

It has been the longest-running NFL argument, a wonderful 16-year debate: Elway or Marino?

“Who’s more beautiful--Cindy Crawford or Raquel Welch? Who’s better? Bruce Springsteen or Mick Jagger?” says Bruce Allen, senior assistant for the Raiders, and asking the guy who employs Wade Wilson and Donald Hollas as quarterbacks to settle a quarterback debate is admittedly a stretch.

What’s the problem: Crawford, Springsteen and Elway.

Crawford’s younger, Bruce is the Boss, and Elway has won a Super Bowl and more regular-season and postseason games while surrounded by lesser talent in his career than Marino, Mr. Sizzle with the flashy statistics.

“Al Davis would have taken Marino,” says Ron Wolf, general manager of the Packers, who was working for the Raiders when Marino and Elway were selected. “At least that’s what he kept saying to me.”

There you go--Davis thought Todd Marinovich was a good quarterback--case closed.

Tonight, for only the second time in their pro careers and the first time since 1985, John Elway will throw footballs on the same field that Dan Marino’s handing off to Karim Abdul-Jabbar, with the Broncos playing in Pro Player Stadium against the Dolphins.

“He’s the best collegiate quarterback I ever scouted,” says Wolf, and he was talking about Elway. “Winning--winning championships, that’s what this game is all about. That’s what we judge people by. Who wins? Whose face was plastered everywhere after the Super Bowl holding the Lombardi Trophy above his head? Whose face was in ads with a milk mustache? Did you see Dan Marino’s?”

Elway or Marino? Elway went to Baltimore with the first pick in the 1983 draft before being traded to Denver, Marino to Miami with the 27th pick after drug rumors and a poor senior year at the University of Pittsburgh dimmed his credentials. Elway went to a struggling team, Marino to a team coming off a Super Bowl loss.

“The [Elway-Marino] debate has been going on our whole career,” Elway says. “I came to a team that was 2-7 the year before and he went to a great football team. He hit the ground running, while I kind of went in the other direction and had to climb out of a hole.”

Maybe you give the edge to Marino the first year of the great debate after Marino took the Dolphins to a 12-4 record, or even the second year when Marino set an NFL record with 48 touchdown passes and lost in the Super Bowl.

“Pretty amazing,” admits Elway. “I was hoping I could do that in three years, but he did it in one year. Didn’t he throw for 5,000 yards that year? Five thousand yards. That second year he had will go down in history as probably the greatest year a quarterback has ever had.”

Three years into their careers, sure, Marino stood tall and when they met for the only time in their careers in Mile High Stadium, Sept. 29, 1985, one Miami area reporter wrote: “The major knock against Elway is this: He’s not Marino.”

Of course, you can’t believe everything you read--in Miami. Marino completed 25 of 43 passes for 390 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions in a 30-26 victory over Denver, but that would be as good as it gets for the Marino supporters in waging the great debate.

Elway completed 18 of 37 for 250 yards in their showdown with no touchdowns and one interception that halted a game-ending comeback. One of the few comebacks that has failed.

“He got to a Super Bowl right away,” Elway says, “and while we had a good team, our philosophy under Dan [Reeves] was totally different--control, play to the defense and see what happens. He had a heck of a lot more success than I did early in his career. But now that has kind of evened out.”

There’s nothing even about it. Marino might have averaged 30 touchdown passes a season when he started every game with “let ‘em rip” Coach Don Shula, but in his last 57 games, Marino has thrown 75.

Elway, separated from Reeves and prospering in Coach Mike Shanahan’s system, has thrown 97 touchdown passes in his last 58 regular-season games.

“I’m just glad I had an opportunity to play for Mike before I was done,” Elway says. “I get asked that question a lot: If you had played in this deal your whole life, how would you have done?”

It’s a question that he has also asked himself a lot. As good a career as he has had, Elway admits there are times when he covets Marino’s statistics. Had the two competed evenly in wide-open offenses, Elway’s convinced: “Well, we would probably be neck and neck now for the numbers.”

They are the only quarterbacks in NFL history who have thrown for more than 50,000 yards, and they have each passed for more than 3,000 yards 12 times. But Marino has the real gaudy number: 403 touchdown passes to Elway’s 296.

But then Marino’s career has been all about individual accomplishment, the clean uniform with the quick release, avoiding the sack and zipping the touchdown pass to Mark Clayton or Mark Duper. By all appearances he has never made a mistake, chewing out his teammates every time something has gone wrong.

The Miami Dolphin media guide dedicates 45 pages to Marino’s statistical gluttony, letting us know he was the youngest Pro Bowl quarterback in NFL history at “22 years, 4 months, 14 days.” Elway’s bio covers 26 pages. You only have to look at the cover of each guide, however, to notice the only thing that counts: Elway holding his left fist inthe air in victory, his right raising the Lombardi Trophy above his head.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Elway says. “But there’s an asterisk behind somebody’s name who hasn’t won a Super Bowl. There shouldn’t be, but that’s kind of the way history works.”

Make that a big asterisk behind Marino’s name.

“It takes a whole team around you to win championships, so winning Super Bowls can’t be the criteria for greatness,” says John Butler, Buffalo general manager. “If you take a guy like [Charger quarterback] Dan Fouts and overlook that greatness, what a crime if he wasn’t in the Hall of Fame.”

Knowing Marino, he would throw one of those tantrums. He’ll need a ticket or pass to see this year’s Super Bowl in his own stadium, but Marino will be in the Hall of Fame one day with Fouts and Fran Tarkenton, three guys who never won a Super Bowl.

Wolf concedes as much, with a proviso.

“The fact that Marino’s overall accomplishments outweigh those of his predecessors, even though he has not won a Super Bowl, should not prevent him from being in the Hall of Fame,” Wolf says. “But I still feel the Hall of Fame is a hallowed place, a place that recognizes success and only success. When it becomes a popularity contest it ceases to be a unique place.”

Marino might be popular in South Florida, but Elway has been more engaging, respected for his toughness and willingness to shoulder defeat in the past. The football world was rooting for Elway to win last season’s Super Bowl. Would there be such a show of affection for Marino?

“It’s part of a dream that everybody has,” says Marino about winning a Super Bowl. “Does it make a career complete? No.”

It ends the argument, though. Elway or Marino? Who has won the Super Bowl?

Elway’s team is two more postseason wins at home away from advancing to another Super Bowl; Marino and his team are fighting to enter the tournament as a wild-card entrant.

“It really still comes down to winning and losing football games,” says Marino, and there you go, another telling Elway-Marino point.

Marino is 141-86 in regular-season games and 147-94 overall, with better offensive personnel over a span of 16 years. Very good, but Elway is 147-81 in regular-season games, and 158-88-1 overall.

“It was frustrating having our careers compared; it made it tougher on me those first few years,” says Elway, just elected to his ninth Pro Bowl--one more than Marino, who will not be going to Hawaii after this season. “The biggest burden, however, is no matter what you did, no matter what kind of year you had, once you get up in age there’s only one win or loss that counts: that’s winning a Super Bowl.”

Elway took four teams to the Super Bowl, and although maligned by some for losing the first three, in retrospect his getting the Broncos there solely on the talent of his big right arm might one day be regarded as highly as his victory in last year’s Super Bowl with Terrell Davis dominating the day.

“You never really realize what a Super Bowl win means,” Elway says. “It was much better than I ever thought it was. Will Dan miss it? Sure, he’ll miss it. But he also won’t know what he missed, either.”

Winners can be so gracious, so right on the mark. Will Marino play in the Super Bowl again? Depends on the Dolphin running game, according to Coach Jimmy Johnson, who is employing Marino now much like Reeves used Elway earlier.

“If you look at it now, he’s playing to the defense and running the ball,” Elway says. “I heard Jimmy Johnson the other day say he doesn’t care about records and all he cares about is winning. I was like, ‘Damn, give the guy at least some credit.’ Here’s one of the great all-time quarterbacks to ever play the game. Come on.”

But not the greatest to ever play the game.

Elway or Montana?

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Measure of the Men

Dan Marino and John ELway were two of six quarterbacks selected in the first round of the NFL draft in 1983, and their careers have been compared and contrasted since. A look:

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Marino Elway Seasons 16 16 Record 147-94 158-88-1 Attempts *7,915 **7,178 Completions *4,719 *4,084 Completion % 59.6 56.9 Yards *58,238 **50,986 Touchdowns *403 296 Interceptions 2322 224 Rushing 91 3,360 Times sacked 259 *513 3,000-yard seasons *12 *12

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*First all-time; **Second all-time