Marino Still Confident

Dan Marino’s turkey of a Thanksgiving Day performance in a 20-0 loss to the Dallas Cowboys has prompted speculation that the pinched nerve in Marino’s neck has permanently diminished his arm strength and put his career at a crossroads.

If Marino, 38, plays well in Sunday’s division showdown against the Indianapolis Colts, he and the Miami Dolphins could be on their way to the Super Bowl. If he plays poorly, he might finish the game--and the season--on the bench, watching Damon Huard lead the Dolphins.

But Marino, who ranks 31st in the league in passing efficiency, said rust was to blame for his five-interception day.

“I’ve got a hard head,” he said. “I think I can just walk out there and play, and I thought that going into the Thanksgiving Day game. I don’t think I had the feel I needed. That’s the whole thing--getting a feel for the pocket and making the throws you need to make.”

Wide receiver Tony Martin said talk of Marino’s demise has been greatly exaggerated.

“The guy still can throw it,” he said. “The guy has a lot of zip on his [passes]. He can still get it there. I think it’s really unfair for somebody to say he has nothing left on his arm. He has to get back to feeling comfortable, but his arm strength is there.”

CENTRAL / Disgust Follows Illness

When offensive tackle Scott Rehberg scratched himself from Sunday’s game against the Tennessee Titans because of stomach flu, he seemed to unleash a virus in the Cleveland Browns’ locker room.

After the Browns’ 33-21 loss, left tackle Orlando Brown ripped his teammate: “I’ve never seen that before, a lineman not playing because he’s sick.”

Added fellow tackle Lomas Brown, a 15-year veteran, “I came in back in 1985. And in ‘85, you couldn’t do that because other guys on the team would kick your tail. It was a matter of you had to go. You didn’t have a choice in the matter. It’s different these days.”

Explained Rehberg, “That’s the sickest I’ve ever been in my life. I couldn’t even stand up. Before the game I was hooked up to IVs, covered up with blankets, freezing.”

In Cincinnati, quarterback Akili Smith said his rookie season may be over after he tested his severely sprained right big toe for the first time since suffering the injury Oct. 31 and came away discouraged.

He almost surely will not play Dec. 12 against the Browns, who irked him last April when they took Tim Couch instead of Smith with the No. 1 pick in the draft. In his first NFL start Oct. 10, Smith passed for the winning touchdown against the Browns and then taunted the Dawg Pound and gestured toward the Browns’ bench.

“It’s disappointing,” the former Oregon standout said of the lingering injury. “I’m not happy with that, but I’m happy I just got in the game and got a feel for it.”

WEST / Holmgren the Great?

Coach Mike Holmgren missed the playoffs in his first season with Green Bay, in 1992, but then took the Packers to postseason play six consecutive seasons. If he succeeds this year with the Seattle Seahawks, the seven-year playoff streak will put Holmgren in some elite coaching company.

Tom Landry coached the Dallas Cowboys into the playoffs nine years in a row, starting in 1975, and Chuck Noll coached the Pittsburgh Steelers to the playoffs for eight consecutive years, beginning in 1972.

But the Seahawks, surprising 16-3 losers to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, are taking nothing for granted, despite their two-game lead in the division race.

“We still have to understand we have a long ways to go,” said punter Jeff Feagles. “They still haven’t put a little asterisk next to our names yet.”

So you think playing in the NFL is all glamour and big contracts?

Consider defensive end Harald Hasselbach of the Denver Broncos, who was poked in the left eye by San Diego Charger lineman John Jackson on Nov. 7, suffering a broken orbital bone, crushed blood vessels and grotesque swelling.

Describing last week’s 90-minute operation to correct the problems, Hasselbach told reporters:

“They moved the eyeball to the left. They didn’t pop it out, they just moved it to one side. They put a stitch in there to keep it to one side. They dug some tissue out of my sinuses. A muscle was jammed in there pretty good. Then they put a plate in where the hole was, where my eyeball caved in my sinus. That plate is keeping everything in place.”

Hasselbach, by the way, experienced double vision for two days after suffering the injury but has not sat out any games.