Theres no “if” game involved in acknowledging and pointing out that Marino didn’t play with near the same amount of HOF talent or a stellar defense. Those QB‘s clearly did.
And despite the flawed public narrative, it’s ‘teams’ and ‘organizations’ that win championships, not one player.
It‘s rather simple, actually, to realize that if a QB of Marino’s talent and accomplishments were placed on a SB caliber/winning organization that he would have undoubtedly been apart of it too. After all, he was never one to hold a team back. He never made the fatal mistakes in the most important moments to cause his team to lose. So with surrounding talent capable of doing the same, he surely would have won too.
You can call it “if” all you want. I call it having a firm understanding and grasp on the game and how things work. And acknowledgement how Marino was on or above the same level of those other QB’s.
In the end, too many fans erroneously use winning a title against individual players when the reality is that football is the ultimate team sport. Whomever the true GOAT football player is, that player isn’t ever winning a title w/o not just a little, but a ton of help. The only difference between Montana, Brady and Marino is that they we’re on better teams. They weren’t better players.