Which Team Was Most Super? Shula's Crusty, Arrogant Dolphins

Don Shula’s logic is so perfect, just like his team was, that it’s an exercise in futility to argue against it, really.

“Until someone else goes through an entire schedule without losing a game,” Shula was saying on NFL Network the other night, his voice trailing off. No need for him to finish the sentence – I know where he was going with it. And he’s right.

There have been XL Super Bowl winners. There have been the Packers of Lombardi and Hornung and Starr. The Steelers of Noll and Bradshaw and Swann. The Cowboys of Landry and Staubach and then those of Johnson and Aikman and Smith. There have been the 49ers of Walsh and Montana, and Siefert and Young. The Broncos of Shanahan and Elway. The Redskins of Gibbs and company.

Terrific teams, all of them. Not only were they Super Bowl winners, they very often destroyed their outclassed opponents in the process. A fine argument could be made, in most cases, that each of them was the best team to play in a football game that had a roman numeral in its title.

“I’m biased, of course, but I kinda like what we did,” Shula said from Miami earlier this week, being interviewed by the eclectic mix of Rich Eisen, Marshall Faulk, and Steve Mariucci.

I kinda like it too, Don.

Shula was talking, of course, about the 1972 Dolphins. 17-0. No, that’s not a football score, that was their record. Nothing in the right hand column. A perfect 14-0 regular season, then a three-game sweep in the postseason.

Perfect.


(btw, the kid on the right is Shula's son David, who would become an NFL coach himself)

It’s not without some sourness that I swallow the fact that Shula’s ’72 Dolphins are the best Super Bowl team ever, because they haven’t handled success with the same class that is carried around by their head coach.

You know the history, most likely. An NFL team dares to go undefeated for a considerable length of time during any given season, and the comparisons to the 1972 Dolphins pop up, like acne before the prom. And former Dolphins are interviewed, and they snarl and harrumph at the undefeated team.

“We’re the best,” former Dolphin says. “You’ll see.”

Then undefeated team loses the inevitable game, and in an orchestrated move, the former Dolphins gather for a champagne party, toasting their continued supremacy.

It’s not, frankly, the best example of “how to be a good winner” that you’ll ever see. Yet Shula’s old players celebrate it shamelessly. No humility. No sportsmanship.

It’s unseemly, really. For when players close in on career records of their still-alive brethren, you’ll see nothing as remotely arrogant as what the 1972 Dolphins engage in. I’m not a big Joe DiMaggio fan, for various reasons, but I don’t think Joe D. popped champagne and stood on the mountain top proclaiming his brilliance, whenever a player’s long hitting streak was snapped. Yet this is exactly what those Dolphins do.

Oh well.

But the logic of their coach is irrefutable. How can you place anyone ahead of a perfect team?
The score of Super Bowl VII was 14-7, Dolphins over the Washington Redskins. But it wasn’t really that close. Kicker Garo Yepremian’s slapstick pass after a blocked field goal was returned for a touchdown by Michigan’s own Mike Bass. And Garo took some abuse for it, yes he did. From his teammates, who looked at him cross-eyed for putting the inferior Redskins within a touchdown of threatening their perfection.

The irony of the Dolphins’ post-1972 insolence is that, when they were on top of the football world, their defense was nicknamed “No Name.” The message was clear: even a group of players who aren’t led by big-name superstars can band together and get the job done. To perfection.

But the No Name Defense helped form the No Class Team. But, then again, it’s No Matter, because I’m waving the white flag: the ’72 Dolphins do indeed trump all.

In 1985, the only Chicago Bears team other than this year’s version to reach the Super Bowl got off to one of those starts that threatened perfection. They were 12-0 when they visited, of all teams, Miami, on a Monday night. The Dolphins were 8-4, led by the young QB stud Dan Marino. They had appeared in the previous year’s Super Bowl themselves, so they weren’t chopped liver. But they weren’t favored.

Marino shredded the Bears’ vaunted defense, and the Dolphins won, 38-24. Frequently, the ABC Monday Night Football cameras captured images of the ’72 squad on the sidelines, wearing jerseys and as fervent as any shapely cheerleader but far more dumpy, cheering openly for the Bears’ defeat.

The pride for accomplishing something that no one else has, I’m fine with. Good for them. But the Renfield laugh that accompanies every loss that ends a team’s perfect season since then? My face contorts the same way it does when I take a shot of NyQuil.

Regardless, I am here to tell you that when you watch the XLIst Super Bowl, you’ll be seeing two fine teams indeed. The Bears with their studly defense and their maligned quarterback, and the Colts with their studly quarterback and maligned defense. Each deserves to be playing for the NFL championship, for sure.

But if you’re wondering where the winner will reside on the list of Super winners in history, you can debate all you want. Place them anywhere you want. Except on the top.

Because until someone goes through an entire schedule undefeated …