I rewatched Marino's first start against Buffalo the other day. I was struck by how poorly he played. If you watch the highlights or read the titles of the Youtube clips you'd think he was incredible from the start. But watching the whole game that was hardly the case. His first pass was intercepted. He missed several passes throughout the game. He was credited with two interceptions on the day, but also had a third pass that he airmailed right into the safety's chest that was dropped. He was booed loudly after that second interception (the game was in Miami).
He was on a really good team that coming off of a SB appearance and they were playing at home against a team they owned, but it was a struggle. That OL was pretty good. He had good protection most of the time and the run game provided some nice support. But he still was sacked a couple times for just holding the ball too long. He fumbled a couple of snaps that Miami luckily recovered. He must have had 50-60 yards at the end of that first half. Miami's defense and STs coverage were good too. I think they got two TOs to help out. The saving grace was that Duper was uncoverable in the second half. He was getting open by 5-7 yards so that provided some easy completions. One was about an 85 yard TD that people would now call "Alabama open". Marino did have two other short TDs after some questionable penalties that put the ball on the 1 yard line.
In the end, I would say Marino was very shaky, but also showed flashes. The Dolphins lost, but the flashy stats protected him from much of the blame and Von Shamann was terrible so he took the brunt.
dolphinswire.usatoday.com
