Still the standard: on the 30th anniversary of Miami's perfect season in 1972, we revisit a feat that may never be duplicated - 2002 Postseason Preview

Football Digest, Feb, 2003 by Chuck O'Donnell

EVERY TIME A TEAM GETS OFF to a 5-0 or. 6-0 start, the phone in Larry Csonka's house starts ringing. The same goes for Mary Fleming and Manny Fernandez and several other players from the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

Every time a team even begins to dream of a perfect season, reporters from coast to coast blitz Miami's Class of `72 with the same question: "Can anyone match your feat?" Based on what's happened the past 30 seasons, the answer is: "Not a chance."

The players from the `72 Dolphins, the only team in NFL history to go through the regular season and postseason without losing, have a well-documented tradition: When the last undefeated team bites the dust each year, they pop a bottle of champagne.

"When the phone starts ringing and teams start getting 9-0 or 10-0, that's when we start getting nervous," says safety Dick Anderson, a safety on that Miami team. "The term `undefeated team' is that sort of tagline that they put under your name if you were on that team. It's what you'll be remembered for forever."

Indeed, three decades after the fact, the Dolphins of `72 still take tremendous pride in what they accomplished.

"I don't want anyone else to go undefeated, including the Dolphins," says Hall of Fame guard Larry tittle. Adds running back Larry Csonka, another Hall-of-Famer from the team: We're sitting at the top of the mountain, and everyone else is one step down. I've had these discussions with Steelers fans who say that if you go position by position, the [Steelers of the `70s] had better players. Well yeah, but they weren't perfect. We've got the only [Super Bowl] ring with the word `perfect' on it."

The `85 Chicago Bears and the `98 Denver Broncos and every other team that's come within a light year of perfection might be amused to know this: No Miami player or coach ever said anything about going undefeated--it never was one of the team's goals. The word "perfection" wasn't scrawled on a chalkboard or chanted in a locker room or repeated in a huddle. It just sort of happened.

"Actually," remembers defensive end Bill Stanfill, "we had made it to the Super Bowl the year before, and Dallas just thoroughly whipped our butts. That was a painful feeling after that game. I think the whole team just dedicated itself to making it back to the Super Bowl and winning it. There was never any talk of, `Well, we're going to go undefeated.' The goal was to win the Super Bowl."

Getting there was difficult, even though Stanfill and company have heard a thousand times since then how easy their schedule was and how they got all the breaks. "We don't get the respect we deserved," says Little.

The Dolphins opened the season with a 20-10 win over the Chiefs in Kansas City. The game ball went to the offensive line, which punched holes in the Chiefs' tough defense, allowing Csonka to rush for 118 yards on 21 carries. The offensive line was put together Oakland Raiders-style, with five guys who had been salvaged from the scrap heap. "Our whole offensive line came off waivers, except for myself and Norm Evans," says Little. "Norm came in the expansion draft from Houston, and I was traded from San Diego in what my coach in San Diego called a nothing-for-nothing deal. So a lot of us had that inside motivation to be great because we had been let go by other teams."

From left to right, Wayne Moore, Bob Kuechenberg, Jim Langer, Little, and Evans became brothers in arms. But it didn't happen in One practice, one game, or even one season.

"It took time for us to grow," says Little. "I'll never forget our first regular-season game under Don Shula [in 1970] up in Boston, against the Patriots. We gave up eight sacks that game. Monte Clark had just come in to coach the offensive line. He had coached in Cleveland the year before. After that game, Monte almost died. He was laying on a table, and they were taking his blood pressure. He was saying, `What in the world do I have here?'"

By 1972, though, the line was a well-oiled machine. Csonka and fellow running backs Mercury Morris and Jim Kiick began to pile up the yards, and the Dolphins began to pile up the wins. In fact, the Dolphins of `72 became the first team to have two 1,000-yard rushers (Csonka with 1,117 and Morris with 1,000).

The O-line may have been the back bone of the operation, but quarterback Bob Griese was the brains, orchestrating almost every move the Dolphins made. (He paid so much attention to detail that in the next season in Super Bowl 8 against Minnesota, he was calling audibles at the line based on where Vikings defensive lineman Alan Page placed his feet.)

In Week 5 against the San Diego Chargers, however, Griese made a call he wished he hadn't. As he searched for receivers, the Chargers' Ron East and Deacon Jones charged in and decked him. Jones hit him high, East hit him low. After suffering a sprained right ankle and fractured right fibula, Griese was scooped off the field on a stretcher.

You couldn't blame anyone for wondering if Earl Morrall had enough left in the tank to keep the Dolphins going. He was 38 and had sat silently on the sideline all season, like a wallflower at the prom. Now he was being asked to jump in and cut a rug.