| | By John Clayton
ESPN.com
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A few green Dan Marino, No. 13 jerseys were spotted in the sun-scorched crowd baking in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando. A few Dol-fans wore Zach Thomas' No. 54.
Therein lies the difference in the Dolphins these days. Whose jersey do fans wear?
|  | | Damon Huard was a success as a fill-in for Dan Marino last season. Now he hopes to become Marino's replacement. |
The team once known for having a No-Name Defense doesn't have the household names of the past. And in the Marino days, he was like a rock star; young fans lined up wearing No. 13 and shouted for Dan. His presence was awe-inspiring.
His replacements -- Damon Huard and Jay Fiedler -- are barely known. Did you know that Huard wears No. 11 and Fiedler No. 9? Marino might, in fact, be replaced by a decendant of the former conductor of the Boston Pops, Arthur Fiedler.
Nevertheless, the Huard-Fiedler show is the best starting quarterback battle in football. The Dolphins' personnel office polled their scouts recently and the result was a deadlock. They are completely even.
"They are close," wide receiver Tony Martin said. "I would hate to be the coach right now. Both are looking real good. They are both smart. One time Damon makes a nice throw, Jay follows with a nice throw. It's like a 12-round heavyweight fight."
Missing is the fear factor. Huard and Fiedler are underdog quarterbacks who fans can embrace. Each, for example, spent a year out of football: Huard worked in Seattle on the campaign to build a new stadium for the Seahawks; Fiedler spent 1997 as a Hofstra assistant coach and developed Gio Carmazzi. These are good guys.
"If this were last year, the crowds for all four practices would be here to see Marino," Bucs defensive tackle Warren Sapp said. "The other two guys are capable of doing a good job for them. Dan would have us in this hot-ass stadium all day long throwing those passes."
Said Bucs defensive tackle Brad Culpepper: "They are going to miss that presence, no question about it. Whoever wins that job only has to be adequate as long as they run the ball and control it with dink and dunk passes. We'd make a great move on a blocker and feel good about things and then Dan would zip some completion downfield.
"You don't quite get that feel this year."
Midway through Friday's duel practices against the Bucs, the Dolphins looked sluggish. Martin lectured the offensive players about the importance of picking up the tempo. They responded and looked particularly sharp Saturday, led by the QBs.
Of the two quarterbacks, Huard has the stronger arm. "He has such a strong arm, he can throw a 15-yard out pattern from the opposite hash," Martin said of Huard. He's the first quarterback to take snaps, a right he earned from a 4-1 record that had veterans believing in him last year.
"I've got a good arm; I don't have a great arm," Huard said. "I like to think about myself as a great competitor who loves to win. I go out there and keep fighting."
While he might make a mistake or two, Huard bounces back nicely. Just when you think he hits a bad stretch of passes, he'll get hot.
Fiedler is the crafty one. He doesn't have an arm as strong as Huard, but his ability to anticipate things allows him to get passes to receivers in stride. As a kid, Fiedler gained his accuracy by throwing 200 footballs a day through a tire.
"I'd probably get 30 to 40 percent of them through," Fiedler said."I think I can anticipate and get the ball into spaces in time to get it there."
At Dartmouth, Fiedler was a quarterback and a decathlete.
The similarities between the two young quarterbacks are amazing: Each was undrafted. They have very few NFL throws -- Huard 225, Fiedler 101. Each has good feet.
"I've seen some good things and some bad things from their work against the Bucs," Dolphins offensive coordinator Chan Gailey said. "I would say there was more good than bad. I think we are probably no closer to settling anything today than we were a week ago."
Dolphins coach Dave Wannstedt wants to make a decision after two exhibition games. This one may go overtime.
John Clayton is ESPN.com's senior NFL writer.
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