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17 stories from 'Undefeated: Inside the 1972 Miami Dolphins’ Perfect Season’

No team has ever done what the Miami Dolphins did 40 years ago in the Super Bowl – namely complete the only perfect season in the National Football League’s long history. Every other team has stubbed its toe at least once along the way, and that’s no different this time. In fact, entering Super Bowl XLVII, the 13-4-1 San Francisco 49ers completed the regular season without winning more than two games in a row, and the 13-6 Baltimore Ravens lost four of their last five regular season games.  Here are 17 nuggets mined from Mike Freeman’s retelling of how the Dolphins went 17-0.

Writer Mike Freeman explores the Miami Dolphins' perfect year in 'Undefeated.'

1. Postperfection

Miami Dolphins player Bob Griese AP

  • By Ross Atkin Staff Writer

There are some people, including Dolphin players, who think the 1973 team was actually better than the perfect-record ’72 squad. While it lost two games during the regular season, the ’73 Dolphins won the Super Bowl impressively, beating Minnesota, 24-7. A few more championships appeared possible, but a league-wide player strike in 1974 disrupted the momentum established with back-to-back Super Bowl wins.

Worse yet, the World Football League came into existence and started signing some of Miami’s star players, including Csonka, Warfield, and Jim Kiick, to more lucrative “future contracts.” This meant they would remain with the Dolphins for one more year, but their pending departures did nothing for team cohesion. Even so, Miami reached the playoffs, but lost in the first game to Oakland, and didn’t reach the playoffs the next year.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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