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’72 Dolphins fin-icky about their legacy
By JOE POSNANSKIPHOENIX | The members of the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins would like to make it clear to everyone that, despite how it may seem, they’re not just grumpy old guys hanging on to past glory. Trouble is, even while explaining, they might sound a bit like grumpy old guys hanging on to past glory.
“My heart is dead set against it,” Dolphins guard Bob Kuechenberg says of the New England Patriots’ run to be undefeated. “The ’72 team is uniquely immortal in American sports, and I don’t want to lose that special place.”
“It doesn’t matter to me whether or not they win them all,” running back Mercury Morris says. “Because it doesn’t affect anything we’ve done. When all the dust clears, the best they can do is stand beside us, and in the end, that’s not a bad thing.”
“All we can do if they are undefeated through the season is congratulate them and say they are the second team to do it,” Dolphins safety Dick Anderson says.
It’s a strange thing: Thirty-five years after the Dolphins beat Washington 14-7 in the Super Bowl to complete the only undefeated season in NFL history, the players and coaches don’t appreciate the way they’ve been portrayed. Stories have been told that they clink champagne glasses every time the last undefeated NFL team goes down. Their quotes tend to come off like cranky grandfathers who want the kids to stay off the lawns. They don’t like that image at all. It makes them look like sore winners or something.
On the other hand, they really don’t want the Patriots to win Sunday.
“How elated will you be if the Giants do pull the upset?” someone asks the old Dolphins coach Don Shula.
“I’m going to be at the game,” Shula says. “I’ll be jumping up down.”
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There’s an unspoken rule in sports that says you are supposed to be magnanimous and look happy when your record gets broken. The correct phrase is, of course, “Records are made to be broken.” Then you’re supposed to smile, and shake the record-breaker’s hand and walk off the stage, like a president leaving office.
The question is: Why? I remember a few years ago, when an outfielder named Marquis Grissom came close to breaking the late, great Hank Bauer’s record for a World Series hitting streak. We called Hank at home about it, and he offered one of the most honest quotes I’ve ever heard about records, one that seems to me to cut much closer to the heart. He said: “If it’s a choice between keeping the record and giving it up, I’ll keep it.”
That seems a much more honest and real reaction than the plastered smile and bland clichés. Remember when the old Pittsburgh running back Franco Harris was closing in on Jim Brown’s all-time rushing record? Jim Brown was so livid about it he actually challenged Franco to a 40-yard dash, even though Brown was, at the time, closing in on 50. It turned out to be an embarrassing moment — Harris blistered him on the track, and Brown pulled up lame about halfway through. But again, that seems like the human response. You’re going to break my record? Oh yeah? Let’s race.
That’s why I find the 1972 Dolphins to be endearing. They try, but they really can’t hide how they feel. Of course they want the Patriots to lose to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl. Of course they don’t want anyone joining them on Undefeated Mountain. They like it up there all by themselves.
Their 1972 season was remarkable for so many reasons, including the almost miraculous fact that they did not play a single playoff team in the entire regular season. That makes them the only Super Bowl champ in NFL history to not play a single playoff team during the season. The teams they played had a combined record of 70-122-4.
The Patriots, if you are curious, played six playoff teams this year and faced teams with a combined 120-136 record, a record weighed down by their two games against, who else, the Miami Dolphins, who went 1-15.
Anyway, schedule or no, the Dolphins led the NFL in scoring and in scoring defense, a rare double. Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris both rushed for 1,000 yards — and this was in the day of the 14-game season, when a 1,000-yard rusher really meant something. The Dolphins ran the ball 43 times per game. Ancient warrior Earl Morrall started nine games at quarterback because of an injury to Bob Griese. Receiver Paul Warfield was selected for the Pro Bowl though he only caught 29 passes — barely more than two per game.
The best team the Dolphins played all year was probably the Kansas City Chiefs in week one — that was the first game at Arrowhead Stadium. It was just nine months after their titanic two-overtime Christmas Day game. This time the Chiefs could not stop Csonka and could not find a way to score against that No-Name Defense. The final score was 20-10, and the game really wasn’t that close. I asked Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson how that Dolphins team stacks up against this year’s Patriots.
“There’s no doubt, the Patriots would destroy that Dolphins team,” he said.
“Really?”
“Oh sure. I mean, Nick Buoniconti has had his hip replaced; Larry Csonka can’t run anymore.”
Two weeks after the Chiefs victory, the Dolphins came from behind and beat the Minnesota Vikings. Three weeks after that, they needed to hold on at the end to beat Buffalo 24-23 — that was in large part because Griese had been hurt the week before. Morrall took over, and he only threw 10 passes against Buffalo — one of them was returned for a touchdown — but Miami did just enough.
It was pretty easy the rest of the regular season. They did trail Joe Namath’s Jets in the fourth quarter but came back to win. They finished with a shutout of Baltimore in the last game that Johnny Unitas would play for the Colts.
Then, in the playoffs, the Dolphins barely held on and beat Cleveland 20-14 — Warfield was the key in that game. Because the system was illogical then, the Dolphins then had to go to Pittsburgh for the AFC championship game. They played a young and hungry Steelers team that had just beaten Oakland on the Immaculate Reception play. The Steelers were not quite ready for prime time, though, and Miami won 21-17.
Then, of course, the Dolphins played Washington in the Super Bowl, and dominated the game though most people tend to remember kicker Garo Yepremian’s famous attempt to throw the ball. He instead batted it in the air, Washington intercepted it and returned it for a touchdown that made the final score 14-7. If Yepremian had made that field goal, the final score would have been 17-0. Which, of course, was the Dolphins’ record.
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The great thing about that season, at least as far as those Dolphins players are concerned, is that it has only grown in legend. Every one of those Dolphins players will tell you that during the season they never really talked about being undefeated — they just wanted to win their first Super Bowl.
But as time has gone on — and great teams have come along like the Steel Curtain Steelers or the Joe Montana 49ers or the 1985 Chicago Bears or the 1990s Dallas Cowboys — that undefeated season has set the ’72 Dolphins apart. It’s more than that. Undefeated is their trump card. When NFL Films listed the greatest Super Bowl teams, they made the 1972 Dolphins No. 1. What choice did they have? Other teams can claim to be the best ever, but only one team won them all.
That is, until now.
“If they finish without a loss it will almost be a relief to me,” Dolphins defensive tackle Manny Fernandez says. “That way the media will start to call them the first eight or nine games each year whenever a team starts undefeated instead of calling us. That will give us a break.”
It will, indeed, give them a break. It will also take away something. If the Patriots go 19-0 to go along with all their records, the 1972 Dolphins will no longer be viewed quite the same way. That’s just how it goes in sports. New pushes out old. Athletes get bigger, faster, stronger. Records are made to be broken. Those Miami Dolphins say again and again that they’re not really cranky about it all. You couldn’t blame them if they were.
“If the Patriots win, I will welcome them to the neighborhood with my Mister Rogers sweater on,” Mercury Morris says. “But first they have to get to the neighborhood.”