Dan Marino and Joe Montana brush aside the questions about facing each other as if they are pieces of lint attached to a pants leg by static-just an annoyance.

Marino says that facing Montana won't be any big deal, only minutes after Montana has given the same answer, almost verbatim. They refuse to compare one another, avoiding any hint of controversy.

But here it is, a decade since they last played each other, the chance to watch them both perform on the same field. Two masters of the game playing on the same stage, with the hope of a title shot resting on their performances as the Dolphins host the Kansas City Chiefs at 3 p.m. Saturday.

Perhaps the best Super Bowl quarterback of all time (Montana) against the best statistical quarterback of all time (Marino), facing each other in the playoffs.

And you believe them when they say they won't be just a tad more jacked up? You buy into this as just an important game? Yeah, right.

"You're talking about two people who are both instinctive players," said Bill Walsh, who coached Montana to three of his four Super Bowl titles. "They were both great playground athletes in the 3rd grade. They have a genetic trait of being so competitive."

This is the point at which you understand what Marino, 33, and Montana, 38, are really going through.

They're not playing against each other so much as they're each playing against time. They both can see the end coming. It's like being on the blacktop at dusk. You milk those last bits of daylight before grudgingly going home.

Before this season, Montana's wife, Jennifer, told friends in their Atherton, Calif., neighborhood that they'd be moving back for good after the season.

Maybe Montana will follow through on his wife's wish.

Hamstring, knee, foot and head injuries have limited him the past two seasons. An elbow injury kept him out for almost two years before that. The concussion he suffered last season in the AFC Championship game in Buffalo almost made him quit. He has played in the NFL for 16 years and has always been too light (his 205-pound listing is generous).

You can describe it with a lot of fancy explanations, but there is a simple bottom line in football terms.

"I don't think he's a guy who wants to scramble," Dolphins defensive end Jeff Cross said. "I don't think any guy his age is a guy who wants to scramble. He'll move around, but he wants to stay in the pocket and throw the ball downfield."

True, Montana admits. The Kansas City coaches have encouraged him to get rid of the ball faster.

But that's not Montana's game and he knows it. He was always best on the move, making plays from nothing. His signature throw, the toss to Dwight Clark for the "the Catch" in the 1981 playoffs, was on the run.

For his part, Marino has never been a runner. But his footwork was the key for him as well.

To become the quarterback that he was before his 1993 Achilles' tendon injury, Marino had to regain his footspeed, his ability to step up or sidestep in the pocket and then that quick shuffle that helps the ball rocket from his arm. The Dolphins worked on it constantly in training camp.

Ten years ago, Marino didn't have to worry about such drudgery. He was basking in the glory of his second season, when he threw a still-mind-boggling 48 touchdown passes and 5,084 yards. The Dolphins were in northern California to prepare for the Super Bowl against the 49ers. He was playing against Montana, but there was almost no one who dared say that Montana was better.

Forty-eight touchdowns and 5,000 yards? Marino was Babe Ruth, Wilt Chamberlain and Wayne Gretzky combined. Montana? He was the guy with the nice arm and one ring.

Marino also transcended sport.

Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray, the dean of American sportswriters, wrote a column about Marino under the headline: "And at QB . . . Warren Beatty."

"I mean, we're talking matinee-idol looks. Cupid's bow mouth. Just for one night, you'd like to look like that," Murray wrote. "To look like that and be the best football player on the planet is overkill. It's unfair. It's like a Rockefeller finding gold, Liz Taylor having brains."

Yes, Marino had it all and he thought it was always going to be that way.

"I thought I'd definitely be back to the Super Bowl before, ah, ... " Marino said this week, searching for the proper time perspective. "Before, ah, well, I haven't been back ... Before this question."

Marino laughed at his answer, a bittersweet chuckle.

But it has been a frustrating career, watching so many other quarterbacks without his ability win titles. If Walsh is right, however, the time might not only have to be now, but it might be best now.

"In Dan's case, if he were to see the tape of Super Bowl XIX, he wouldn't believe it," Walsh said. "He's so much better now than he was then, because he's so much wiser.

". . .He's the consummate quarterback. He's better in every facet of the game, except for maybe running 50 yards. He has become an absolute master at running a game and a team."

The statistics bear out Walsh's point. With 30 touchdown passes and 4,453 yards, Marino has had his best season since 1986. His 62.6 percent completion rate is the second best of his career. That's despite having to battle his injury-gnarled legs and the accumulated pain of his 12-year career.

There it is, there is no reason for Marino and Montana to worry about each other. They're too busy stretching time.

"More so now than then, I'm trying to make it last," Montana said. "Back then, you're young and just getting started in the league, hoping it would last. Now you want to make it last and enjoy it.

"When it's over, it's not something I can come back to."