An Interview With:

DAN MARINO: I appreciate you saying that. I felt like I could say that I was one of the best players during my era of playing, sure, but there were a lot of other great players, guys that are in the Hall of Fame right now. Guys like John Elway and Joe Montana, who were friends of mine during those 20 years when I held this record that were great, great players. Those are guys that I admire. I appreciate you saying that.

DAN MARINO: You know, well, I threw a bunch, so it's tough to pick one. I guess for me, the year when we broke the record or we set the record, 48 touchdowns. The important thing that year was that we won and we got to the Super Bowl.

But I still go back and I think a game that was important to me was getting there, playing the Steelers in the Orange Bowl when I think I threw three or four touchdowns in that game. When you throw touchdowns that are meaningful like that, it puts you in a position for your ultimate goal, winning a Super Bowl.

DAN MARINO: Peyton Manning is a student of the game. He's a star, but he's a great, great player.

I felt like I was able to control a game with the people that we had offensively, kind of dictate what we wanted to do, and you can see that in Peyton, that's what he does. He goes to the line of scrimmage, he puts in a play, and he's done that, and he's got weapons to do that.

I think in that manner, that's something I always put pride in is having our team run an offense, I've always thought I was pretty good at running -- there's a huddle, a two-minute drill, and that's something he's excellent at as far as similarities. Every quarterback you look at, no matter if it's Elway or Montana or Favre or myself or Peyton Manning, everybody has their own style. What you love about him is he gets it done as smooth as anybody ever has for sure.

DAN MARINO: I saw Coach Shula about a month and a half ago; I played in a golf tournament with him. He didn't really bring up Peyton Manning at all.

DAN MARINO: The thing about it is from that whole year right from the get-go, right from the start, he struggled a little bit earlier in that year, but you could see as the year went on, he started to play better and better, and by the end of the year he was really doing a lot of great stuff. I saw him a lot on film because we used to play in the same division, and when you're watching you see a lot of the Colts as the year goes on, and you could see him developing as the year went on, and you could see that he was going to be something special for sure.

The first game, I don't think anybody could say how a guy's future is going to be in one game, but as the year went on you could tell he was going to be an excellent player.

DAN MARINO: Well, I definitely think he's going to throw more than 48. How many that is, it all depends on the kind of games he's playing in. Of late, he's had to play some games where he's had to score a lot of points because the other teams would score on him, but I think he's going to get well into his 50s.

DAN MARINO: I think baseball is a little more involved in statistics. Football is like more of a team game and more about winning, and baseball is a team game about winning but people look at statistics and think a lot more. In general I think we all would agree with that. I always thought that 48 was something you could look at and say, wow, if you can throw 48 touchdown passes you're having a heck of a year. He's pretty much getting to that pretty easily this year.

I think in the process of winning games and you're able to do that, it's something that's pretty special. You know, I threw 44 two years after I threw the 48, and I thought that was a lot, too.

DAN MARINO: You know, it might a little bit. Around the whole week it's had an impact around just as far as quarterbacks and offensive play and how receivers have been able to get a lot of free releasing from the line of scrimmage, which you didn't see as much before. But I think with his offense and with the talent that they have, they've just got everything going right now. He's been in the same system, has the same coordinators, got Brandon Stokely and Reggie Wayne, guys that have emerged. You can take one guy away but the other guy is going to be there and you've got a great running back.

He would have been able to do this regardless of the rules changing or not, but I do know that it has definitely affected how receivers get releases off the line of scrimmage because some of the defensive backs were just afraid to do it. Guys don't do it like they did before.

DAN MARINO: I thought this was a Peyton Manning conference call (laughter). You know, I guess as far as A. J. is concerned, I see the kid has talent. He can throw the football and I think they're in the process of knowing what they're doing offensively and the people they have around them. The one thing I think that he does have is a lot of tough decisions, playing hurt and through some tough times because they've been losing, so you've got to give him credit for that.

DAN MARINO: I've actually asked Peyton that. He wouldn't answer it. There are two ways that you look at it and there are two ways that in both cases it would be tough to stop him, but the type of receivers he's had, if you can find ways to get pressure on him where you have three guys, if he's going to make a throw, at least you'll get a guy in his face who's going to make a quick decision and make a throw.

There are definitely guys who are going to have an opportunity to get one-on-one coverage and get the big plays against you. It's going to happen quicker. Or you do what New England did last year and sometimes you drop eight and you rush three and every now and then you'll take a chance and make him be patient, make him try to beat you running the football and don't give up the big play, and you play that man-to-man type defense and hopefully you can get some hits on people and they can fumble, turn it over and make some mistakes.

That's kind of what New England did. They jammed guys on the line of scrimmage. There are two ways to look at it. That's a decision you have to make is if you want to go after them and maybe give up a big play or just try to be patient.

DAN MARINO: I wouldn't be human if I didn't tell you that no one else -- like anybody else in their life doesn't want to see someone else beat it. For a guy to do it the way Peyton is doing it, he has a lot a class and he's everything that's right about the NFL and playing the quarterback position. He's a hard worker, the work ethic is there. If anybody is going to do it, you'd like to see a guy like Peyton because of what he's done and the type of person that he is.

DAN MARINO: I think it might be due to two things. In my opinion the quarterbacks have something to do with that, but I think it has to do with if you look at the Steelers, Patriots or Chargers, they are teams that have been able to run the football consistently throughout the year. They're guys who can run and they're all playing good defense, so what you have really is -- you've got to dominate the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, and I think that's what the AFC has, better defenses and guys that can run the football and teams that can control the ball. If you look at it that way, that's probably why they're a little more dominant than the NFC.

DAN MARINO: Who would you like to talk about?

DAN MARINO: You know what's really most impressive about him is what he did the other night. While he's done a lot of great things, they've been able to run the football. But to have your team bring them from behind with a couple minutes left in the game to win, he seemed to have it all under control. It wasn't like he needed to use time-outs. He was very decisive, he knew what he wanted to do when he got to the line of scrimmage. You'll see guys sometimes not get plays run as fast as they were, so he had total control of that, and that's something I guess that we really haven't seen much of this year. He did it when he was up against a good defense and a good team to win the game, so that was pretty impressive.

DAN MARINO: Well, the one issue is I guess all the attention about the 48 touchdowns, and like I said, it's something I was very proud of, but I was proud of the significance to me because it was in a year that we won and we got to the Super Bowl and it was in the process of us as a group, as a team, having a really good year, and that's what Peyton is doing right now, having a really good year, and they're winning in the process. That's what makes it special, in the style of play and how he's doing it.

As far as the Hall of Fame is concerned, when you're a kid, you're not thinking about that. You're thinking about playing football and playing the game and wanting to be a professional athlete and a professional quarterback in this league, and now to know you have the opportunity -- the ultimate recognition is to be honored in the Hall of Fame in the greatest sport in the world is something very special for me. At the same time it's a little mind-boggling to think all these years you've played and now you get this opportunity. It's pretty nice.

DAN MARINO: You know, it's something I will always think about. That's not going to change, and I wouldn't be human if I didn't tell you that I would have loved to know what that felt like to walk off the field and know that you won a Super Bowl and you were the world champs and I never had that opportunity, and that's something I've got to live with.

DAN MARINO: No, not even close. I would have loved to have known what that felt like, but for me to say that winning a Super Bowl, play three years in the NFL and have two Super Bowl rings, I would not trade that for 17 years playing with the Dolphins. Not only would I count it as far as passing records, but having an opportunity to get in the Hall of Fame, it would have been great to play 17 years, get to the Hall of Fame and win a Super Bowl, but I wouldn't pass that all up for just playing a few -- having a short career and winning a Super Bowl, no.

DAN MARINO: Yeah, it is. I've been in touch with Peyton and I've got a lot of respect for him, not only as a player and as a friend but as a person, and it makes you feel good when you've got guys like Peyton and other quarterbacks that respect the game, and they say, hey, they were watching you and enjoyed the style of play. That's good stuff. Same thing, I used to watch Terry Bradshaw and I loved Joe Namath. That's what makes the quarterback position so great. It's something special.

DAN MARINO: You know what, that stuff never gets out of your blood. I don't care what kind of football player or person you are, you always want to think you want to be back involved. I guess that's something -- right now I haven't been thinking about that much, but maybe someday I will think about it.

DAN MARINO: Well, let me tell you something. I love my jobs, they're great. I'm with a lot of good people and working for HBO, CBS, but that doesn't -- you ask any guy that's working as an analyst right now -- it never would replace playing the game or being part of a team. You're all working for one common goal, to win. No one would tell you that TV can replace that.

DAN MARINO: I think that you try to give a fair opinion of what you think is happening. The thing about it is no matter what organization it is, you're basically doing your job to give an opinion on what you think, and that's basically what I'm trying to do. As a former player, you know what some of these guys are going through and how tough it is in certain cases, so you have to respect that part of it, you really do.

DAN MARINO: I will tell you that it's probably totally different. I remember us being really talked about much before I got close the record, which was 36 touchdowns then. It was George Blanda and Y.A. Tittle with the record , and we didn't really talk about it. There wasn't a whole lot of tension about it, and it was a process. We were winning and getting along. Harvey Greene, our PR guy, said we're going to have a chance to break this but I don't think the attention was there like it is now.

Obviously there's a lot more media attention now in the league as far as the NFL is concerned. I don't remember it being that way, and I think I passed it with maybe three or four games to go, I don't remember exactly. When I did it, it was great, but then all I thought about after that was we're trying to get to the Super Bowl and win it. So there was some attention brought to it, but I don't think as much as it is right now.

DAN MARINO: That's the thing about it. You have to have that confidence and you have to feel like that. I'm sure Peyton feels like that now, that he can go out there and do what he's doing and get everything accomplished with the weapons that he has. As a quarterback, you have to feel that way. You have to have that confidence that you're not going to be stopped.

I think that year we were doing what Peyton is doing this year, pretty much putting up the numbers that no one has before and scoring points and touchdowns. You have that confidence when you walk on the field that you're going to do whatever to get it done and that you aren't going to be stopped.

DAN MARINO: Why don't you get the NFL source that put that out there to answer that question.

DAN MARINO: If you look around the league, guys like Favre and Culpepper who are putting up big numbers, too. I'm sure that they might have an opportunity to do it. But when you look at it, there's only one guy doing it, so that's the only guy you can say that can do it. It's Peyton Manning, and he's getting it done with great weapons. He's a star player, and they're fun to watch.

DAN MARINO: You know, I do remember playing. I remember it being a fun game and there were a lot of fans. I think there were 100,000 fans, and it's nice to see that the league and the NFL have people in Mexico that love the game. It was a good time.

DAN MARINO: You look at what teams are doing defensively, I think maybe they're not as aggressive at the line of scrimmage because of the change. You're seeing the receivers get free releases at the line of scrimmage, which was not always the case for years because of the emphasis of the whole change. It's changed a little bit of the defensive philosophy. Maybe they're not as aggressive, and I think it's showing up somewhat throughout the league and you see a lot more scoring.