MIAMI (AP) – A return to Miami has Mark Duper in a chatty mood. He reminisces about his days with the Dolphins (great), assesses the current team’s playoff chances (not great) and discusses his new home-maintenance business: the Super Duper Co.

Then former teammate Mark Clayton interrupts.

“You’re running your mouth off a lot,” Clayton says. “Let me say something. Let me throw my one cent in there – not two, just one.”

Duper laughs. Like the Marx Brothers, the Marks Brothers enjoy yucking it up when they get together. Clayton and Duper – “C comes before D,” Clayton notes – were back in Miami for induction into the Dolphins’ Honor Roll at halftime of Monday night’s game against Philadelphia. They’re the 13th and 14th inductees, joining such former Dolphins as Dan Marino, who threw a third of his NFL-record 420 touchdown passes to the Marks Brothers. Clayton holds the team record for receptions with 550, and Duper holds the record for yards receiving with 8,869.

“As a quarterback, you had to feel pretty lucky to have two big-play guys, guys who were as good as it gets in the league, playing on either side of you for 10 years straight,” Marino says. “It was pretty special for me. We accomplished a lot of things together.”

Inseparable in the minds of fans, Clayton and Duper remain good friends. Clayton lives near Dallas, where he wants to pursue a career in coaching or broadcasting, and talks often by phone with Duper, whose business is in Jacksonville, Fla.

They and Marino were teammates from 1983-92, when Duper retired. Clayton called it quits a year later after spending his final season with Green Bay.

The Marks Brothers were small by today’s standards for receivers, but both possessed great hands.

Duper (who’s 5-foot-8) ranked with the fastest players in the game, while Clayton (5-9) relied on quickness more than straight-ahead speed.

“All I had to do was run down the field,” Duper says. “That was my job. I was too fragile to go across the middle. I didn’t like the middle.”

That’s where Clayton did his best work.

“I liked to fake those guys out and make them look silly,” he says. “I enjoyed that.”

Both complained often to Marino that he didn’t throw their way enough, and he was known to vent at them. One day in practice, shortly after Marino had signed a new contract, he chastised Duper for his reluctance to dive for passes.

“He got mad,” Duper recalls. “I said, ‘They pay you $6 million to hit me right in my chest.”‘

The trio’s most prolific season came in 1984, when Marino set NFL records that still stand by throwing for 5,084 yards and 48 touchdowns. Clayton and Duper both topped 1,300 yards and combined for 26 scores.

“We were pretty much unstoppable as far as the passing game,” Marino says.

The Dolphins lost to San Francisco in that season’s Super Bowl and haven’t been back since. For Miami fans, the frustration of recent seasons made Monday’s ceremony that much more special.

The Marks Brothers were always prickly personalities, so it’s no surprise that while they’re grateful for this honor, they wonder why it was so long in coming. And Clayton notes that Dan Marino Boulevard is the only street adjacent to Pro Player Stadium named for a former Dolphins player.

“We’re getting no street named after the Marks Brothers, or a statue, or one of those flags that says no one will wear our number again,” Clayton complains, partly in jest. “We just get one thing, but you can’t have everything. One out of four ain’t bad.”

Duper adds that the year after he retired, another player wore his No. 85.

“It was a big old tight end who couldn’t catch,” Duper says.

He and Clayton grin as they grouse, and they’re still smiling as they lobby for Canton consideration. They have yet to make the final 15 in annual deliberations for induction, but the case can be made – their totals exceed the Hall of Fame tandem of John Stallworth and Lynn Swann by 220 catches, 3,658 yards and 29 touchdowns.

So forgive the Marks Brothers for boasting about their abilities. Plus, cockiness comes with the position they played.

“We were always open,” Clayton says. “Just like the receivers now.”

AP-ES-12-15-03 1356EST