South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
The Marks Brothers love the fast impact of Hill and Waddle
For Mark Duper, those first two, turbo-charged steps of Tyreek Hill are captivating.
“The acceleration in those steps, getting into the defensive back as quick as you can, that shows you his game,” said the former Dolphins receiver, whose acceleration once was the stuff of magic.
For Mark Clayton, it’s the manner this offense is built on the top-tier talent of Hill and Jaylen Waddle.
“Dupe and I got the ball thrown to us, but nothing like this,’’ he said, “They’re getting the ball thrown to them 13, 14 times every game. And they should be.”
Before Hill and Waddle — “long time before them by now,” Clayton says — there were the Marks Brothers catching passes from Dan Marino across the 1980s. Clayton was the elusive receiver who twice led the league in touchdowns. Duper was the former track star with the most receiving yards in team history.
Duper and Clayton rank first and second among Dolphins receivers in catches and yards. Now they look at the numbers being put up and know their numbers appear temporary.
“If they play for the Dolphins for five or six years, they’ll have every record we got,” said
Duper, 63, and living in Broward.
Clayton’s team record of 1,389 yards in a season? Hill has 961 yards in eight games. Duper’s eight 100-yard receiving games in a year? Hill and Waddle each have four such games already.
“I want to see them keep going,” Clayton said. “Records are made to be broken. I know I had it good. I’m fine with someone coming along and having it good, too.”
Sports is about the moment, always the next game, so the current Dolphins generation doesn’t remember Duper and Clayton catching Marino’s record 48 touchdown passes in 1984. Hill and Waddle didn’t know them, either, when they visited the team facility last spring. Then coach Mike McDaniel put in a video of their play.
“Tyreek said, ‘Damn, legend, you were putting in work — 18 touchdowns [in the 1984 season],’ ” said Clayton,
61 and living in Houston. When Clayton returned to the Dolphins facility a couple of weeks ago, he told Hill, “You’re getting it done.”
Hill ranks first in the league with 30 catches of at least 10 yards for
702 yards. Waddle ranks second with 25 such catches for 541 yards.
The Marks Brother agree not to anoint their successors just yet. Give it some time. Give Waddle the space to grow his game in the NFL. As for Hill?
“He’s proven,” Duper said.
His personality says as much, too.
“Tyreek talks a lot of s—-,” Clayton said. “I like that. When you talk a lot like he and I did, you better back it up.”
There’s one notable difference in Hill and Waddle. Each arrived in Miami as a recognized talent, Hill through a major trade, Waddle as the No. 6 draft pick. Clayton arrived as an eighth-round pick, and Duper was a secondround pick who didn’t play football until his senior year in college.
“Do you really want to play football?” coach Don Shula asked Duper at the NFL Combine. He then had Duper run repeated 40-yard dashes just to make sure the stopwatch kept confirming why to draft him.
Now he sees a team with speed again like they had.
“I like those guys a lot, but I hope they don’t make the mistake that we made,” Duper said. “You’ve got to have a running game.
“Lets’ face it, if you don’t have running game, you’re going to be good and you can break a lot of records. But win the Super Bowl? I think those guys can win the Super Bowl. But one man or two men can’t win a Super Bowl.
“You need everybody. Just think about it. We had one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, and how many Super Bowls did we win? Because we didn’t have a solid enough team around him. A team.”
That’s their lament, just as it is Marino’s. They won games. They broke records. They never knew what holding the trophy was like.
“Every time I wake up in the morning that’s what I think about,” Duper said. “We did not win a Super Bowl. That’s the most important thing. I would love to have a Super Bowl ring on my hand saying we’re champions and I was a part of it.”
The numbers in the record books tell their part. Now Hill and Waddle are coming after them in a manner the Marks Brothers respect.
They’re coming fast.