I watched Peyton Manning's retirement announcement yesterday. The entire time I could think of only one thing: we are still 5 months and 26 days away from kickoff of the 2016 football season.

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Happy 53rd Birthday to the greatest quarterback in the history of football!

It's been 15 years since Marino retired, and about the only record those upstarts Peyton Manning and Drew Brees haven't stolen from him is the record mentioned on the 1998 card above. Dan led the league in pass completions for six years; that's as many as Manning and Brees have combined. It figures that it would take two quarterbacks to combine to topple Marino's stranglehold on the record book.

Enjoy your cake, Dan!

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No, I did not forget about yesterday's post. I was just too depressed to write. Two thousand-twelve is shaping up to be the latest in a long series of disasters for the Miami Dolphins.

First, the Dolphins say goodbye to former first-round pick Chad Henne. Henne had been the starting quarterback for the last three years. But new team coach Joe Philbin decided that he could do better. In all fairness to Philbin, he probably can.

Second, the most-celebrated-free-agent-ever, Peyton Manning, tells the Dolphins that there is no way he would play for the team. This is despite the fact that Peyton already owns a house in Miami, and the Dolphins typically have ideal football weather for a non-domed stadium. It probably didn't help that the Dolphins management traded away the only deep-threat receiver on the roster while they were in the process of trying to woo Peyton. If you aren't sabotaging your own plans, you aren't a member of Dolphins management.

Third, Matt Flynn signed with the Seahawks. Flynn is the back-up quarterback who stepped into Philbin's system in Green Bay and proved that starter Aaron Rogers isn't the source of the Packer's powerful offence. In their infinite wisdom, the Dolphins' management figured that since Flynn's former quarterback coach Philbin was now the Dolphins' head coach, signing Flynn would be a slam dunk. So they simply refused to offer Flynn the contract he was asking for. If anyone ever asks you how to sign a free agent, be aware that the answer is not "don't give him what he wants."

Now the Dolphins are stuck with journeyman Matt Moore as the only quarterback on the roster. Surely, the team is hoping either to land whichever quarterback is dislodged by the winner in the Peyton Manning sweepstakes (either Alex Smith or Tim Tebow) or to find Texas A&M's Ryan Tannehill available to be selected 8th in April's draft. Given their track record, I expect them to screw those options up as well.

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By any chance, have you seen ManningToMiami.com? Apparently a group of dedicated fans are doing what they can to encourage their favorite team to sign their favorite quarterback. They've bought a billboard in Fort Lauderdale, and even NFL.com has taken notice (mainly because NFL.com really doesn't have better things to do between the Super Bowl and the Combine).

It's hard to know if the people behind the site are sincere. The site sponsors are currency exchange Dinar Inc ("Worldwide Wholesaler of Iraqi Dinars"), online mortgage sellers Mortgage Company Rocks, the television show Southern Bike Night TV, and Rizzolo Group Tax & Accounting Services of Port St. Lucie, Florida. It's hard to imagine that this eclectic group of companies who advertise during the late, late, late movie has a lot of pull with the Dolphins, but I suppose stranger things have happened.

After all, the Dolphins are same team who decided that rather than sign a broken Drew Brees, it would sign a broken Daunte Culpepper. That turned out well. The Dolphins also previously decided that their best option at quarterback was a broken Chad Pennington. Surprisingly, that turned out slightly better. So what's one more broken quarterback? Someone should ask the fans in Indianapolis what's the worst that could happen.

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