OK, the ground rules for this gimmick are simple, and they give us the deepest possible player pool: I'm selecting names from any era in pro football history, compiling the best possible fantasy roster. I'll take my nine and beat your nine, whoever they are, whenever they played. And I won't need a bench.
This first name shouldn't surprise anyone who lives outside New England…
QB Dan Marino, 1984 — In his second season, Marino basically played like a visitor from the future, torching the league and treating the NFL record book like his own personal scrapbook. A quarter-century later, he still holds the single-season passing yardage mark (5,084). Marino threw 48 touchdown passes in '84, an almost incomprehensible number at the time. In the 1970s, no quarterback even reached 30 TDs.
In '84, Marino also delivered the greatest end-of-year binge we're likely to ever see at this position. He closed with four straight 4-TD games, reserving his best performances for the fantasy playoffs. In the final three weeks, these were his yardage totals: 470, 404, 340. Good luck beating that, Dave Krieg owners. As great as Tom Brady was in '07 when he set the all-time passing TD record, his 140-yard, zero-touchdown effort in Week 14 got many of his owners bounced from the playoffs.
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