Dan Marino reached the Super Bowl in his second season, but he hasn't been since.

Remember Dan Marino? Fine quarterback, suspect defense, no running game, perennial man-denied-heart's-desire storyboard material? The last time Marino played in a Super Bowl, the president of the United States had a SAG card and a trickle-down theory.

Come to think of it, so did the Miami Dolphins.

For years, the operational theory around Fin-land was that a good offense could pretty much cover the whole shebang, and a good offense was predicated upon Marino and any combination of pass receivers you could name. It seemed like a rational idea at the time.

Heading into tonight's Monday Night Football season-opener against the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos, however, the shocking truth is that Marino hasn't been to the Big Dance in 15 years. Neither have the Dolphins themselves, of course, but at least they might get another chance somewhere down the line.

Dan Marino?

Not so fast.

For a number of reasons, tonight's game might well mark the start of Marino's last great run at an NFL championship. And we can think of one reason right off the point of our head: Jimmy Johnson.

It all depends on what percentage of your football faith you place in rumor and innuendo. Ourselves, we go with whatever ESPN's people tell us. And the word around the campus is that Johnson quite conceivably makes one more run with these Dolphins -- he's in the fourth year of a three-year plan -- and says adios.

When Johnson goes, it's reasonable to assume that Marino goes with him -- you figure if you can't get to the Super Bowl with Jimmy running the show, you aren't going to get there. Assuming that is the case, and surveying an AFC field that is very deep, balanced and dangerous, this certainly could be a swan song for Dolphin Dan.

It's amazing how often Marino's excellence was taken for granted in his earlier years. And now that he's old enough to be elevated to icon status, he also is being asked to do less and less as a passer as Johnson continues what has become a Quixotic quest to establish a running game.

That makes sense, of course; it simply has proved brutally difficult to do. It is one thing to sit down and pencil it out and conclude that, absent a running attack, Marino just isn't going to get past most decent defenses out there; but getting there is something else again. This year's models are Cecil Collins, Karim Abdul-Jabbar, James Johnson and When Can You Get Here?, and the savage truth is that Miami hasn't spat forth a 1,000-yard rusher but once in the last 20 years.

And even if Miami runs, it's a tough year to be aiming for the top. The Jacksonville Jaguars already have served notice of their Super Bowl intentions; the notice arrived Sunday stuffed inside the head of some San Francisco defender or other. The Jets are good -- even without Vinny Testaverde. The Patriots already beat the Jets, and the team on the other side of the ball tonight seems to know a thing or two about winning, and Chris Berman already laid his public money on the Buffalo Bills.

Tough field. Strong field. And an imposing hurdle for Marino to be contemplating in his 38th year, every one seemingly spent behind center in a Miami uniform.

John Elway was Denver. Joe Montana was San Francisco. The great, multifaceted Dallas teams of the early '90s were Troy Aikman more than any other single player. They all won rings.

And Dan Marino, of course, is Miami, which means the Dolphins ought to take the field tonight in Denver wearing giant ticking clocks on their shoulder pads. That sound you hear is the string running out on a bona fide Hall of Famer, and the last act is almost always the most implausible.

Mark Kreidler is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, which has a web site at http://www.sacbee.com/. During the 1999 NFL season, he will write a weekly column for ESPN.com, focusing on the Monday Night Football matchup.