The 100 Greatest Plays in Dolphins History: No. 27

Combining the countdown to the start of the Dolphins regular season with the best plays in franchise history

To help count down the days to the start of the Miami Dolphins regular season last year, we marked each day with the corresponding jersey number and came up with the three best players to wear that number.

This year, we're counting down to the start of the regular season with a countdown of the top 100 plays in Dolphins history.

Given that the Dolphins have played 849 regular season games and 41 more in the playoffs, it's an awfully difficult task to narrow things down to 100 plays and then rank them. The plays selected were ranked on the basis of difficulty, uniqueness, immediate and long-lasting impact and historical significance.

The countdown initially appeared in Dolphin Digest in 2019 but has been updated.

We continue with No. 27:

No. 27: Dan Marino's overtime TD pass to Mark Duper at Los Angeles in 1986

Setting the stage: The 1986 season was a rather disappointing one for the Dolphins, who could never recover from a 1-4 start and ended up finishing with an 8-8 record. But it was productive for Dan Marino in terms of stats, as he put up passing yardage and touchdown totals that were the best of his career outside of his MVP season of 1984. And he might not have had a better game that season than he did in Week 15 against the L.A. Rams at the Rose Bowl.

The play: The Dolphins were clear underdogs when they prepared to face the Rams but it took a late Eric Dickerson touchdown run for the Rams to tie the score 31-31 and send the game to overtime. The Dolphins won the overtime toss and it was all they needed. A 35-yard run by Ron Davenport — ironic on a day when Marino passed for over 400 yards — put the Dolphins in field goal range, but they weren't going to take any chances. On a second-and-8 from the Rams 20, Marino found Duper in the left corner of the end zone and he adjusted perfectly to the pass to give the Dolphins the victory with his third touchdown of the game.

Week 15 vs the #Rams@DanMarino 29-46-403-5-1@hands83 4-84-1@MarkDuper (5-145-3) catches the OT winning TD.
37-31 #Dolphins pic.twitter.com/BRWC0f1b8K

— Old Time Football 🏈 (@Ol_TimeFootball) March 6, 2021

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Alain Poupart has covered the Miami Dolphins on a full-time basis since 1989. You can follow him on Twitter at @PoupartNFL. Feel free to submit questions every Friday for the All Dolphins mailbag.