The Perfect Season

he in sports this evening a titanic struggle if ever there was one at least on paper and before the game tonight the Miami Dolphins will try to unplug the refrigerator and shut down Walter Payton and thus robbed the Chicago Bears of their chance for an undefeated season how about them New York Giants the wildcard playoff team almost two touchdown underdogs going in managed to ruin the Patriots perfect season and so a big win for the Falcons Carolina losing for the first time this season had they won this game win next week and then go into the playoff with the pressure of being undefeated and trying to tie to Miami Dolphins record I know you wonder what it's like to lace up the shoes of a player stepping on the field without a thing to lose the bus is posing up the view on ESPN asking me that stupid question think they'll do it again once again I'm holding school about the thought of defeat I got no losses on my table so you can't take my seat my perfect history would tell you that the records complete stand up you Buster's playing if you tasted defeat every year they try to bust out trying to capture the crime I've been trying to tell you Buster's you can't play in our town and the answer to your question it's still the same you want to go undefeated you got to win every game I know you wonder there is no almost undefeated you either win them all the only thing important was when he was suitable and when he ran the table on a regular season no one thought anything about feeling undefeated he Platt suggested ah but we went caution that we can go back and win it again we got there and we won and that meant we won them all and nobody had done that in the forty years before nobody has done it in the courtesan your incense nobody knows what that's like in 1970 the Age of Aquarius was all the rage but while hippies hip huggers and flower power are relegated to history 1970 was a year of profound and enduring change for the Miami Dolphins for it was that year that Don Shula became head coach and the Dolphins joined the NFL new sheriff in town every minute of every day was planned everything was organized and when we finally came to camp I thought it would be pretty easy unbeknownst to us when he started reading the schedule of that Sunday night on how we were going to practice we were gonna be practice four times a day four day practices or practices a day and still have a curfew what the hell we have occur for you now and we did tired you know and we don't need the curfew go we were going right to bed on a hot day in 1969 to a training camp I will coach at the time George Wilson would say Oh what the hell go jump in the pool it was like boot camp for us with Shula we never had a drink of water in seven years so we understood the distinction between the seven and seven guy and the guy who came in and made us start practicing four times a day and all those seasons started and we won and then we played again in one and then players that started to buy into what I was selling hard work equals success so and they joined in and from there on it was just pretty much they accepted you know what what we're teaching and what we're coaching and now it's serious now it's real now here's a guy we just lost in the Superbowl two years before that and he's anxious to find a way to get himself back on the right track - and he transformed us through practice and through the psychology of how he made us look at the game that it wasn't about being great it was about doing your job so I was able to turn it around from 310 and 1/2 year before 210 and for my first year 69 were doormats 70 we're in the playoffs 71 were in a Super Bowl we had never tasted the Super Bowl before and I think there was a feeling of a lot of guys that are you happy to be there but my feeling were to go out there and win the football game and we got beat pretty bad so now I'm 0-2 of the Super Bowls and when you're 0 or 2 people say very unkind things about you like he can't win the big one so until you wouldn't a big one they're gonna keep saying those bad things when we came back in 72 Don had us watch the game as soon as we got back I mean he was acting like he was drilled and I say yeah you got to see you guys back all right hey America all right hey okay okay we're gonna break up into groups now you guys on offense you guys on defense go in there and we're gonna be here so turn the projector on and the first thing we do is we snow we're now getting criticized like the game was like two days ago and we're getting criticized saying look at this play right here they're gonna put seven months ago when I would hit it like it was two days ago and we did the same ream and so then when it when it's over he's done with this critique he turns off the projector desist now you see how sick you feel now you see how sick and sorry you feel now well just think of how sick and sorry you're gonna be if you don't go back and redeem yourselves for what you did last year we were called bombas all offseason because we lost this ooh the ball said we don't want to ever have that feeling again by giving to a Super Bowl and not winning it so we set out to a man that year that we would in practice provide the kind of product that we would set out on that field every Sunday we knew that we were good enough to win games we just had to win the big games we felt we would want to go back Kobe was still a young football team at the time too and we had a lot of talent on that football team I couldn't wait to have another opportunity and I and I was hoping that you know if and when we got the opportunity that the outcome would be different no one ever remembers who lost the Super Bowl the year before they don't even remember the winner well you know a year before that was going back a little we had a play the longest game in history against the Kansas City Chiefs on Christmas Day and we closed out the old Chiefs stadium by beating them on Christmas Day and going into the next season the other team that we were going to play first and be one of them beating them in Kansas City 125 degree weather and after let me just kept winning and this will be a 40-yarder tamanna stop firing kicker was down there was the name man it was passed away by my power to limp quarterback and shaken up on the play is greasy yeah it looks like his right ankle Rick it may be right here he may have to go out of ballgame greasy goes down in the fifth game and he's out we just found out that his right ankle was stepped on by a defensive lineman so Earl now is with us at a sideline I told Earl warm up I'm gonna put you in so he goes like this it moves his arm I said I'm warm I said don't you're gonna throw a few passes no I'm okay no he said the ball game we knew we had to play harder Earl then we had to play football and we knew that we had to block a little arm for Earl because he was a little up in age more so than Bob was Earl was playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers back in 1957 when I was 10 he would then be the guy come trotting in the game when I'm 25 there were some guys who on the sidelines saying oh man we're done no we're finished because they didn't believe in Earl but we had to believe in him because he was our quarterback and he came in Holland he said he looked around chucks were like oh we're finished and he said don't worry about it we're gonna get it done we're gonna get it done and we got it done and in that particular game we were playing San Diego and I'd picked up a fumble and scored a touchdown with on the fumble and that got us going and we didn't let the loss of greasing it was a great quarterback the tourists from you know the goals that we had we had a lot of confidence in their land you would not have won that game and then we just kept winning Earl morale at 38 years old came in we won the next 11 games with Earl as a quarterback each week it was you know winding it out to make it happen I had the luxury of having running backs that had different skills Jim kick was a guy that was a never gonna fumble gonna catch the ball coming out of backfield on third down great receiver and down on a goal line he would get into the end zone Jaco was a short yardage and Gold Lion Runner and mercury was just what the name says mercury get to the outside the great moves and great ability speed quickness I call it situation substitution I want to kick in there in certain situations I wanted mercury in there in certain situations I wanted zotkin or all the time and so that worked for me when the defensive standpoint if the other team doesn't score you can't lose and so that was you know our philosophy we had 165 points scored against us is all in 1972 it was a very unselfish group of players it wasn't about me it was about us I didn't think about going undefeated I just the thing that I thought about was winning it being there at the end we will call it a very unemotional team because there was a lot of rah-rah in the locker room when I then did our job there wasn't any one person getting up like you see the day a guy get the guy that in the horrible four games I'll holler and he's screaming and all of that really we didn't have to do that we knew we were good and all by day and perform the no name defense got its name no name from Tom Landry down Landrieu's coaching the Cowboys they're getting ready to play the Dolphins and this press conference he was asked about our defense of the and Landry says well you know I looked at their defensive back to the I know a couple of them but the defensive line are a bunch of no names and the heart defensive lion you know read that and they'd like to take that name they call himself the no name defense and that's how that no hung on and became their trademark kind of individuals they were they didn't want individual glory they want a team glory a lot of people saying we didn't play against the team of the winning record but for what I mean they're pros just like we were I mean they had to go out there and win the title and also we didn't pick our schedule you went out and played the game every game that could be won win it I don't know about any other team but I know that the team I played on in 1972 was number one in offense number one in defense number one in special teams fewest giveaways most takeaways least penalized scored the most points give up the least ran seven out of every ten times in a league that ran three out of every five times broke the rushing record that year falling forty yards short of 3,000 yards rushing in a 14 game season and we had a game wrapped up we never padded the score not one time in the 13th game we were in New York City and the press is certainly bigger in New York City than anyplace else and that's the first time anybody thought about being undefeated because they mentioned it if you don't spend Sunday afternoon and Monday night watching professional football you might not know there's a phenomenon in the National Football League this year the Miami Dolphins have won 13 games and lost none and if they win next week they'll have the first undefeated season since the Chicago Bears had won in 1942 no one really cared we were defeated because our goal is to win the playoff games and then win the Superbowl and that was what was pounded into us one game at a time prepare execute when we go to the next week we really felt the pressure not doing the regular season born you feed it but but going to the playoffs we knew that if we lost one playoff game we'll be out there's no worse feeling than losing a playoff game if you're not going to be in the playoffs and you lose the last game you know it's the last game but if you lose a playoff game your life stops suddenly BAM thinking back I think it was a Pittsburgh game that we were struggling and and they the squirts have touchdowns and it's a pretty good talent on that team and a pretty good coach back then the team with the best record can have the home-field advantage and we had to go into Pittsburgh LASIK Pittsburgh Steelers although we were defeated at the time and use a lot of Pittsburgh you don't know what you're gonna hit weather wise where she had the fans that you gotta go up against and you know all of those things of being the visiting team and that made it that much more important for us to work hard and be prepared and and it helped us get ready because we knew how hard it was gonna be greasy and now practicing going full speed forests and her always struggling so now I had to make a decision you know whether or not I should take a guy out that has done nothing to win for me to put a guy in and had been injured and if I didn't know that he was completely healthy or not and so at halftime I made the change it was just unbelievable probably one of the toughest things I ever had to do because of my high regard for Earl and the human being that he was he was the backup quarterback for Bob Griese to start with greasy was ready to play in the next of the last game of the year against the Giants he didn't play greasy was ready to play against the Colts in the last game of the year he didn't play greasy was ready to play against Cleveland when they had us on the ropes for a little while and he didn't play only when Earl started to falter in the AFC Championship game in the first half did Shula say it's time to put Bob back in now because Bob's brain didn't play and bob was ready to play so you take the personality out of it you take the ego out of it and you got Earl doing a hell of a job filling in for Bob but now it's time for Bob to come back and the team never skipped a beat and that's the moral story I put Gracie in and he'd immediately took us down the field and let us do some touchdowns and we won the game and now we're getting ready for the big game and I got to make a decision who do I started a big game do I go to Earl who had done such a magnificent job or do I go to Gracie who looks like he's now approaching being back to what he was before the injury a Willard's is empty but a little shop across the street the locker room is thronged the present is there the crowd is buying souvenirs not of Lincoln's first inaugural and not of Nixon's second inaugural which lies in the foggy future eight days from now they are buying Redskins souvenirs passionately convinced that two days from now there will be inaugurated a new and glorious era of World Championship we were underdogs and underdog and undefeated us you know pretty hard to figure out we felt the pressure going in but we still thought that we could win from oppression but we felt confident that could win the fact that we're underdogs made be thinking everybody else knew how tough it was gonna be also that really helped us that are in our preparation the motivating factor that season was the fact we lost the Super Bowl of year before and he never let us forget it so children never let us forget that so what was hanging over our head was not greatness but the completion of the redemption and the atonement for what had occurred the year before I gave it a lot of thought and I decided that I was gonna go to Bob because he had been our number one quarterback before the injury and he was gonna be our quarterback of the future thankfully teams get that Club on the board and making a new ballgame just as we were raving about a victory here with two minutes and seven seconds to go is moving now the clock is moving they're not going to go to playoffs five seconds four seconds three seconds the Dolphins at one Super Bowl children have completed the greatest season in NFL history and that is going to be the end of the ballgame as the Dolphins have won it by a score of 14 to 7 Sheila put it on the level of a sin what had occurred in Super Bowl six come for redemption and and he made us with that psychological F in our pockets the whole year so when the guy asked Larry Csonka after we win a Super Bowl seven and he says well how you guys feel great that you guys went undefeated how does it feel and Saul says hey I'm just glad to get the old man off our backs and and and that's what it was after being zero until it's Super Bowls it just it was so importantly you know for me and our team to win the game and for me personally then to get that monkey off my back and just not be the coach that couldn't win the big one you were now the coach that won the big one and that changed everything in my coaching career our 72 team was just the comprised of guys that took a lot of pride in their work we're very intelligent I think the important thing is is the job that the coaches did in the camaraderie that we had as as players a little greater honor for me to play your level little guy of the Hall of Fame with other than myself watching the great Paul Warfield when I was a younger guy and then ended up playing with Larry Csonka and Mercury Mars Jim kicked our offensive line which he had a lot of private felt we were the best offensive line out there and if I steal from you the best offensive line in history our team we were so good at what we did because we practiced in a certain way that took ego out of it they just believed in each other you know forty-eight years later we're still very close friends we get together every three to five years we formed a company that sell memorabilia that everybody is a member of and so I can tell you where everybody lives and what they're doing and how they're doing and you know that very seldom happens and you know we have reunions every now and then and and just recently here at the house we had a reunion and and the players all came and and they stood around to telling a bunch of lies about me things that I don't ever remember yelling or saying to him but you know they had to bike so what could I do I had a listen tool and when I get the mic they all left here you get hold her you know it becomes probably more important because no one no one has done it since we did in 1972 and the interesting other interesting fact is no one thought much about it until the Chicago Bears came into an Monday Night Football game in Miami in 1985 and they were undefeated coach Shula asked a lot of the players on the 72 team to come to a sideline we beat Chicago that day they went on to win the Super Bowl and had one loss and was against Miami and that's the first time that we really thought much about being undefeated with cities you know it's 13 years then someone came up and said well it never had been done or it's a great feeling to know that we're still expected we're going undefeated nick bannin Connie and I live in Bob Griese all lived within in four doors of each other in Coral Gables and one year when the last team lost I grabbed the bottle of champagne and went down the next house and we celebrated and it were too cheap to invite us to the party I think records are made to be broken and one day someone will go undefeated in and another steyr record I don't say that but you know right now it's so hard to go into feeding know the competition in the National Football League is what makes a league special what it is and the fans and on every team every city just they go to a game you know with the idea that their team can win and they're gonna see a good game and I think that's what Bert Bell wanted to happen in a National Football League he wanted the fans to see and to think that there are going to be witnessing a very competitive game where both teams had talent and the game would go back and forth and there'd be a winner but I don't think that he ever envisioned you know winning them all wouldn't all of the games the perfect season I'm coach Don Shula and I approve this message way back in the day

Channel: Breanna Browning

Views: 120,080

Rating: 4.9176154 out of 5

Keywords: yt:quality=high, The Perfect Season, Dolphins, Miami Dolphins, Football, NFL, Film, Mercury Morris, Larry Little, Don Shula, Dick Anderson, Bob Griese, Earl Morrall, Sports

Id: EBB5RGhRCz8

Length: 25min 30sec (1530 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 24 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Clapped]

This is a fantastic video, I recommend watching the whole thing if you haven't seen it.

But for anyone who isn't interested in watching the whole thing, my main motivation to post it was right at 14:35 when they are talking about controversy between injured starting QB and backup QB. Just an interesting thing to compare to our current situation.