Dan Marino was a superstar quarterback with high-profile weapons around him, but none were better than Mark Clayton.

Clayton came out of Louisville as an eighth-round pick in 1983, and no one projected a star career. He made the team and spent most of his rookie year returning punts. That changed in year two.

1984 was Marino’s MVP season, and Clayton exploded for a career-best 1,389 receiving yards and 18 touchdowns, which led the NFL. The Dolphins reached the Super Bowl that year (they lost), but the Marino-Clayton connection became one of the most productive pairings of the 1980s. Clayton made five Pro Bowls overall, put up four more 1,000-yard seasons, and led the league in receiving touchdowns again in 1988 with 14. Alongside Mark Duper, he formed the “Marks Brothers,” and the two of them gave Marino vertical threats who could stretch the field and finish in the end zone.

What made Clayton special in his peak was the combination of speed and route-running precision. At 5-foot-9, he wasn’t the biggest receiver, but he got separation quickly, tracked the deep ball, and turned short catches into big gains. In 1984, he and Marino were nearly unstoppable, and even as defenses adjusted, Clayton kept producing for most of a decade. He was the kind of receiver who made a great quarterback look even better.

Clayton stayed with Miami through 1992, then signed with the Green Bay Packers for one final season in 1993 before retiring. With the Dolphins, Clayton had 550 receptions for 8,643 yards and 81 touchdowns. The Dolphins added him to their Honor Roll in 2003.