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What if the Miami Dolphins didn't draft Dan Marino?
Things in the NFL would have gone far differently had either the Steelers or Jets drafted Dan Marino instead of the Dolphins. Sylvia Allen/Getty Images

Starting on February 14, 2014, Sam Quinn and The Sports Post have decided to run down the 52 Greatest What Ifs in NFL History, one per week, for the next year. For a list of published What Ifs, as well as the introductory piece, click here.

By Sam Quinn

Almost every team in the NFL regrets passing on Dan Marino. The two worst, though, are without question the Steelers and Jets. Marino played his college ball at Pittsburgh, just a stone’s throw away from Three Rivers Stadium, and Terry Bradshaw played a grand total of one game after Marino’s ’83 draft. Meanwhile, the Jets were known to be interested in drafting a quarterback and the fans desperately wanted Marino. Instead, they wound up with UC Davis’ Ken O’Brien, and spent the next 15 years getting killed by Marino. Two teams, two what ifs, so what if the Steelers or Jets drafted Dan Marino?

What if the Steelers had drafted Dan Marino?

The names aren’t the same. Bradshaw is on his way out the door, so are Franco Harris, Jack Ham, Mel Blount, and Jack Lambert, but with Marino on board the Steelers don’t miss a beat. Marino steps in for an injured Bradshaw in 1983 and leads the Steelers to the playoffs at 10–6. A year later in 1984 he sets the NFL record with 41 touchdown passes — 17 to John Stallworth — and the Steelers make it all the way to the Super Bowl where they lose to the star-studded 49ers.

It takes a few years to restock the rest of the roster, though, and Pittsburgh continues to fall short in the playoffs against more complete teams. One such team? Boomer Esiason’s Miami Dolphins. Without Marino on the board there isn’t another quarterback available to Miami in the ’83 draft, so they wait until 1984 and grab the top available signal caller, Esiason. With Mark Duper and Mark Clayton to throw to and Don Shula coaching him, Esiason quickly becomes one of the best players in football. They eventually make it all the way to Super Bowl XXIII (beating Pittsburgh on the way) where they lose in the final moments to San Francisco.

With its loss to Miami fresh in mind, Pittsburgh resolves to sure up its passing defense in the draft. The Steelers move up to take Arkansas safety Steve Atwater in the first round of the ’89 draft and grab UCLA’s Carnell Lake in the second round, giving them both a shutdown corner and middle-of-the-field enforcer to keep Clayton and Duper at bay. This propels the Steelers past Miami and Denver and into the Super Bowl, where they get yet another shot at Montana and the 49ers. This time, however, their passing defense holds up, and Marino combines with veteran receiver Louis Lips for two touchdowns en route to a 28–21 win.

Pittsburgh loses the AFC title game to Buffalo and Jim Kelly a year later, but with Bill Cowher taking over for the retired Chuck Noll and a young roster ready to pick up the slack as Marino ages, the Steelers are primed for another decade of contention. Miami never wins a ring with Esiason, but he does keep them competitive until he leaves for the Jets in 1993. All in all, nobody really has too much to complain about.

What if the Jets had drafted Dan Marino?

Both Marino and the Jets hit the jackpot here, as Marino joins a team with the legendary New York Sack Exchange on defense and a well-established running game with Freeman McNeil to support him while the Jets get the quarterback they needed to finally make the leap from contender to champion. A strong 11–5 season in 1983 is followed by a 13–3 championship season in 1984, in which the Jets beat Joe Montana and the 49ers in the Super Bowl behind a stellar performance from the defensive line and an excellent game by Marino.

But the line is aging, McNeil has injury problems, and the Jets know that the future is squarely on Marino’s shoulders. Therefore, they resolve to trade up in the draft and find a true No. 1 receiver to pair with the solid Wesley Walker for their young star quarterback. San Francisco has similar ideas, and the two engage in a bidding war on draft day to go up and grab Wisconsin receiver Al Toon. New York is ultimately successful in moving up to No. 10 and getting its man, so the 49ers have to “settle” for moving up to No. 16 and grabbing Mississippi Valley State’s Jerry Rice.

Rice becomes a star in San Francisco pretty quickly, but nothing matches what Marino and Toon have in New York. McNeil runs for over 1,200 yards, Marino throws for over 5,000 and Toon wins the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year Award as the Jets go on to win their second consecutive championship, this time against the Chicago Bears and their seemingly flawless defense.

Meanwhile, things aren’t quite as promising in Miami. With Marino off of the board in 1983 they’re forced to take Ken O’Brien, a quarterback who’s pretty good but definitely no Marino. He keeps the Dolphins just competitive enough not to find a better option, and they ride out the decade in mediocrity.

The Jets don’t quite fall into mediocrity as the ’80s wear on, but they aren’t quite the unstoppable juggernaut they’d previously been either. The defense falls apart, and with McNeil essentially out of the picture defenses are free to focus all of their attention on Marino and Toon. They still put up big numbers, but they cede the conference to Denver and John Elway in 1986.

It takes them over a decade to win it back, as Toon’s concussion problems forced him out of the league in 1992 and the defense never quite got it back together. Only in 1997, a year after the Jets stumble into University of Miami linebacker Ray Lewis at the bottom of the first round, do the Jets finally give Marino his one last run. They squeak into the playoffs as a wildcard team, but eventually beat the upstart Jaguars, top-seeded Chiefs and Steelers and, ultimately, Brett Favre’s Packers to win Marino’s third and final championship. With all of that hardware already in his trophy case he sees no reason to stick around and retires as the greatest player in Jets history.

This article first appeared on The Sports Post and was syndicated with permission.

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