Marino missed the majority of the 1993 season because of an Achilles injury, but he started off the 1994 season with a bang, engaging in a shootout with Patriots QB Drew Bledsoe, combining for 894 yards and nine passing touchdowns. But it was Marino who came out on top, as his 35-yard touchdown pass (his fourth) to Irvin Fryar proved to be the winning score.

It is not hyperbole to call this possibly the most-anticipated "Monday Night Football" game of all time. The Bears were 12-0 going into the game and facing the Dolphins, the team that went undefeated in 1972 -- with many of those Dolphins alumni strolling the stadium. Marino threw for 270 yards and three touchdowns as the Bears' vaunted 46 defense was no match for the Dolphins' offense. The biggest crime is that there was not a rematch in Super Bowl XX -- because the Dolphins would have won.

The Dolphins reached the only Super Bowl of Marino's career by knocking off the Steelers in the 1984 AFC Championship Game. Marino passed for 421 yards and four touchdowns in a game that closed the door on the Steelers' dynasty and provided an exclamation point to the team that passed on him in the 1983 NFL Draft.

Anybody who remembers Pete Carroll calling for a spike at the end of the "Bush push" USC vs. Notre Dame game in 2005 understands why he was doing it -- Carroll's Jets were on the receiving end of the original fake-spike play in 1994. Marino had the Dolphins near the Jets' end zone in the closing seconds, and after Jets cornerback Aaron Glenn relaxed when Marino signalled that he was just going to spike the ball, the cagey quarterback gunned the ball to Mark Ingram to cap a 17-point second-half rally.

Marino has made many notable appearances in pop culture, a cameo in "Little Nicky," "The Simpsons" and was the star of "Knight Rider" (just kidding about "Knight Rider"). But Marino's iconic performance came as himself in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective." People might not realize that Marino was the inventor of the "fake spike," but yell out "lace's out, Dan" and everybody knows what you are referring to.

Jesse Agler with the Finsiders.com considers the whole 1984 season as Marino's biggest moment, and it is hard to argue. Marino set the NFL single-season record with 5,084 passing yards, and when you consider all of the numbers and records that Marino holds -- and he at one time held them all -- this is probably the most impressive. Even in today's relaxed NFL atmosphere when it regards the passing game, there has been only a handful of challengers and nobody has done it yet.