Inhistoric.com: The Sports History Blog

When the game clock trickled down to zero, the Miami Dolphins had won Super Bowl VII. In the process of their 14-7 triumph over the Redskins, the Dolphins became the first team to win a Super Bowl without accumulating a single loss. They won all 14 regular season games, all three postseason games, and etched themselves as one of the greatest football teams of all time.

The win didn't come without incident however. One of the most comically boneheaded plays in NFL history almost put their win in jeopardy.

With a little over two minutes remaining, Dolphins kicker Garo Yepremian came on with his team leading 14-0. He was looking at a 42-yard field goal, and if he made it, the Dolphins' season would end in perfect symmetry: a 17-0 win to finish the season 17-0. But Yepremian's kick was low, as it had been all day, and it was blocked by Redskins' tackle Bill Brundige.

The ball bounced right in front of Garo, who picked it up with the 'Skins defense pounding on him. Rather than falling on the ball, Yepremian tried to salvage his mistake. He flanked to the right side of the field and tried to pass it to running back Larry Csonka, however his pass flew straight up in the air. Garo attempted to bat the ball out of bounds, but instead deflected it directly into the arms of Washington cornerback Mike Bass, who raced 49 yards for the touchdown.

"I wanted to strangle Garo," recalled coach Don Shula. Teammate Nick Buoniconti also threatened the placekicker if their season ended in misery. Fortunately for Yepremian, the Dolphins came out ahead. It's funny that the most memorable image from the '72 Dolphins' perfect season is the maybe the most imperfect play of all time. "This is the first time the goat of the game is in the winner's locker room," Yepremian said.

Though the Miami Dolphins finished with a perfect record, and though they won it the following year and had the greatest single season success of all time, they were not considered among the two or three greatest teams in NFL history. In the regular season, they played only two teams with winning records in one of the easiest schedules in league history; their opponents' winning percentage was .396%. In fact, they weren't even favored to beat the Redskins in the Super Bowl, which shows how respected they were in 1973.

For a while, the Dolphins were more recognized for their 14-0 regular season record than their 17-0 collective mark. But as newer teams threatened to win all their regular season games, even as the number of games increased to 16, members of the '72 Dolphins stressed totality in gauging their achievement. When the 2007 Patriots went 16-0, the old Miami players stated that until the Pats went through the Super Bowl unblemished, they weren't even in the same breathe as them.

Members of the '72 Dolphins have been quite resistant to pass the torch. It's well documented that whenever the last unbeaten team lost their first game of the season, the old Dolphins would gather at someone's house, usually Nick Buoniconti's, and they'd drink champagne -- a toast their old success. While most Dolphins said that this was a spontaneous commemoration to their old coaching staff, and not a bitter attempt to hang on to the past, some players were less clandestine. Running back Mercury Morris was so actively rooting for the '07 Patriots to lose that he appeared on ESPN and dissed them in the form of a rap.

"I'm not rooting against the Patriots. I'm rooting for the Giants," Dolphins running back Jim Kiick put it. "But obviously if I'm rooting for the Giants, I'm rooting against the Patriots."

The 2007 Patriots came into Super Bowl XLII undefeated, and with a better resume than the 1972 Dolphins. Unlike Miami, their schedule was not a cakewalk; they beat the best team in the NFC (the Cowboys) and the second-best team in the AFC (the Colts) on the road, while setting every offensive record in existence. But in the end, they lost to the Giants and finished the year 18-1. Perfectville's population remained one.

See also: 2/03/2008 - Giants end the Pats' perfection