Seventeen and oh.
It remains pro football’s gold standard 50 years later. The Miami Dolphins did the unthinkable in 1972, going undefeated and untied on the way to a victory in Super Bowl VII.
How difficult is perfect? The New England Patriots came within 35 seconds of finishing 19-0 before losing Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants in February 2008. No other teams have come that close to matching the 1972 Dolphins.
The story of the ’72 Dolphins is familiar and iconic, but Marshall Jon Fisher digs deep and adds his experiences from a childhood spent growing up in South Florida during that magical season.
Seventeen and Oh: Miami, 1972, and the NFL’s Only Perfect Season (Abrams Press; $28; hardback; 408 pages) mixes nostalgia with a blend of solid research and perspective from the players. It also is a story that resonates with me, so forgive me if I insert my own observations from that time. Like Fisher, I grew up in South Florida during the late 1960s and 1970s, although I am about six years older than him. Because of the NFL’s blackout rule at the time, home games from Miami were not televised, so we would listen on radio to WIOD play-by-play announcer Rick Weaver: “It’s the end of the first quarter, with the score, our Dolphins 7, the Patriots nothing.” Always, “our Dolphins.”
During halftime, my father, brother and I — like Fisher, his brother and father — would go outside and throw the ball and play games of touch football to blow off steam.
Memorably, we listened to the 1971 AFC Championship Game on the radio, and my father was giving me a haircut in the garage (pre-Flowbee). For about a week after that Jan. 2, 1972, game, the route Dick Anderson ran when he returned a third-quarter interception 62 yards for a touchdown was shaved into my head in a disturbing zigzag pattern. Christmas dinner at my aunt’s house in 1971 was delayed several hours until Miami defeated Kansas City in the NFL’s longest game. That was a prelude to 1972.
It remains pro football’s gold standard 50 years later. The Miami Dolphins did the unthinkable in 1972, going undefeated and untied on the way to a victory in Super Bowl VII.
How difficult is perfect? The New England Patriots came within 35 seconds of finishing 19-0 before losing Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants in February 2008. No other teams have come that close to matching the 1972 Dolphins.
The story of the ’72 Dolphins is familiar and iconic, but Marshall Jon Fisher digs deep and adds his experiences from a childhood spent growing up in South Florida during that magical season.
Seventeen and Oh: Miami, 1972, and the NFL’s Only Perfect Season (Abrams Press; $28; hardback; 408 pages) mixes nostalgia with a blend of solid research and perspective from the players. It also is a story that resonates with me, so forgive me if I insert my own observations from that time. Like Fisher, I grew up in South Florida during the late 1960s and 1970s, although I am about six years older than him. Because of the NFL’s blackout rule at the time, home games from Miami were not televised, so we would listen on radio to WIOD play-by-play announcer Rick Weaver: “It’s the end of the first quarter, with the score, our Dolphins 7, the Patriots nothing.” Always, “our Dolphins.”
During halftime, my father, brother and I — like Fisher, his brother and father — would go outside and throw the ball and play games of touch football to blow off steam.
Memorably, we listened to the 1971 AFC Championship Game on the radio, and my father was giving me a haircut in the garage (pre-Flowbee). For about a week after that Jan. 2, 1972, game, the route Dick Anderson ran when he returned a third-quarter interception 62 yards for a touchdown was shaved into my head in a disturbing zigzag pattern. Christmas dinner at my aunt’s house in 1971 was delayed several hours until Miami defeated Kansas City in the NFL’s longest game. That was a prelude to 1972.
Books about the undefeated Dolphins are not new. The last full examination came in 2012, the 40th anniversary of perfection. There was Bob Griese’s memoir with Dave Hyde, Perfection: The Inside Story of the 1972 Dolphins’ Perfect Season; and Undefeated: Inside the Miami Dolphins’ Perfect Season, by Mike Freeman.
But Fisher takes the well-known story of the Perfect Season and adds his own perspective. As I read Fisher’s narrative, it triggered many of the same memories. Fisher lived in suburban Miami, while I lived about an hour north in Boynton Beach. To attend the Orange Bowl was a huge treat.
Miami was known as the Magic City in the 1960s. But Miami Beach had the glamour. That was where “The Jackie Gleason Show” was taped every week. The Beatles appeared live from the Napoleon Ballroom of the Deauville Beach Resort for one of their three appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February 1964. That same month, Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) would defeat Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight boxing championship at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
Miami? To my knowledge, it was the only place in the U.S. where there was a traffic light on an interstate highway. I’m not talking about on-ramp lights. I mean, an honest-to-goodness, stop-and-go traffic light. There it was, on Ives Dairy Road north of the city near the line that separated Dade and Broward counties. The light would turn red on I-95 and traffic would cross. The explanation given at the time was that stretch of road was not I-95, but State Road 9. People strange to the area had to slow down in a hurry. It was a bottleneck then and remains one today, even after an overpass was built during the 1970s.
But Fisher takes the well-known story of the Perfect Season and adds his own perspective. As I read Fisher’s narrative, it triggered many of the same memories. Fisher lived in suburban Miami, while I lived about an hour north in Boynton Beach. To attend the Orange Bowl was a huge treat.
Miami was known as the Magic City in the 1960s. But Miami Beach had the glamour. That was where “The Jackie Gleason Show” was taped every week. The Beatles appeared live from the Napoleon Ballroom of the Deauville Beach Resort for one of their three appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in February 1964. That same month, Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) would defeat Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight boxing championship at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
Miami? To my knowledge, it was the only place in the U.S. where there was a traffic light on an interstate highway. I’m not talking about on-ramp lights. I mean, an honest-to-goodness, stop-and-go traffic light. There it was, on Ives Dairy Road north of the city near the line that separated Dade and Broward counties. The light would turn red on I-95 and traffic would cross. The explanation given at the time was that stretch of road was not I-95, but State Road 9. People strange to the area had to slow down in a hurry. It was a bottleneck then and remains one today, even after an overpass was built during the 1970s.
The first Dolphins game I ever saw in person was a preseason game on Aug. 16, 1969, when Miami lost 14-10 to the Philadelphia Eagles at the Orange Bowl. It was the weekend of Woodstock — “Rock fans just give peace a chance,” the Miami Herald’s headline noted — and dangerous Hurricane Camille was taking aim at the Mississippi coast, where it would make landfall the next night as a Category 5 storm. Rick Norton had a lousy game at quarterback, and Larry Seiple faked a punt and ran for a first down — a play that would loom larger during the 1972 playoffs.
My father was able to get tickets each year through a fellow member of the Lions Club. The seats were on the south sideline of the Orange Bowl, about 15 rows up on the 50-yard line. “Seats” is a charitable term. They were actually aluminum benches that stretched through the stadium and could be hot to uncovered legs. Tickets were $8 apiece in 1972, which left my father enough cash to buy us food and drinks from the Zum vendors. We would see three games that year — against the Bills, Patriots and Jets.
I would cover the Dolphins as a sportswriter for The Stuart News from 1980 to 1983, and my perspective certainly changed because the fan had to disappear once I entered the press box. But the memories from 1972 linger. The white handkerchiefs. The lyrics of Lee Ofman’s “Miami Dolphins No. 1” blaring through the loudspeakers after every touchdown.
Seventeen and Oh is well researched and is broken down into game-by-game chapters. Fisher gives the reader the details on the game, but also adds vignettes about many of the key players. He also attempts to weave in the politics of the time, mostly President Richard Nixon’s efforts to bring a halt to the war in Vietnam, his concerns about his campaign for re-election, the atmosphere surrounding both the Democratic and Republican conventions (both held a month apart in Miami Beach) and a simmering scandal after a break-in at the Watergate complex that would boil over in 1973.
It is unlikely that laser-focused coach Don Shula read the news headlines during the football season, and his players were probably too tired from training camp and subsequent practices to care. But Fisher does put politics into context with the times, writing about a nation “deeply divided by the war and by social and economic crevasses.”
For his football narrative, Fisher draws from many sources, with 42 total pages of end notes. That includes Bill Braucher’s seminal 1972 book, Promises to Keep: The Miami Dolphin Story, which chronicled the Dolphins from their difficult beginnings as an expansion franchise in 1966 until Miami was humbled by Dallas 24-3 in Super Bowl VI. Newspaper clippings from the two Miami newspapers were also helpful.
My father was able to get tickets each year through a fellow member of the Lions Club. The seats were on the south sideline of the Orange Bowl, about 15 rows up on the 50-yard line. “Seats” is a charitable term. They were actually aluminum benches that stretched through the stadium and could be hot to uncovered legs. Tickets were $8 apiece in 1972, which left my father enough cash to buy us food and drinks from the Zum vendors. We would see three games that year — against the Bills, Patriots and Jets.
I would cover the Dolphins as a sportswriter for The Stuart News from 1980 to 1983, and my perspective certainly changed because the fan had to disappear once I entered the press box. But the memories from 1972 linger. The white handkerchiefs. The lyrics of Lee Ofman’s “Miami Dolphins No. 1” blaring through the loudspeakers after every touchdown.
Seventeen and Oh is well researched and is broken down into game-by-game chapters. Fisher gives the reader the details on the game, but also adds vignettes about many of the key players. He also attempts to weave in the politics of the time, mostly President Richard Nixon’s efforts to bring a halt to the war in Vietnam, his concerns about his campaign for re-election, the atmosphere surrounding both the Democratic and Republican conventions (both held a month apart in Miami Beach) and a simmering scandal after a break-in at the Watergate complex that would boil over in 1973.
It is unlikely that laser-focused coach Don Shula read the news headlines during the football season, and his players were probably too tired from training camp and subsequent practices to care. But Fisher does put politics into context with the times, writing about a nation “deeply divided by the war and by social and economic crevasses.”
For his football narrative, Fisher draws from many sources, with 42 total pages of end notes. That includes Bill Braucher’s seminal 1972 book, Promises to Keep: The Miami Dolphin Story, which chronicled the Dolphins from their difficult beginnings as an expansion franchise in 1966 until Miami was humbled by Dallas 24-3 in Super Bowl VI. Newspaper clippings from the two Miami newspapers were also helpful.
That loss was the fuel that drove Miami’s ’72 squad. While the players probably never envisioned a perfect season, they did want to return to the big game and win it. Shula, on the other hand, hated to lose, so a perfect season was certainly something he wanted to achieve — even if he did not admit it publicly.
On the first day of training camp in 1972, Shula showed films of the Super Bowl VI loss. “He repeated his mantra of taking the games one at a time … and winning each one,” Fisher writes.
Running back Jim Kiick turned to fullback Larry Csonka and, knowing how tough the previous two training camps were under Shula’s direction, said, “Oh, this is going to be a beauty.”
Fisher’s prose is sharp and his observations are keen. Csonka ran up the middle “like a hussar on a rampage,” a nod to Zonk’s Hungarian heritage. Earl Morrall, who stepped in at quarterback when Griese broke his ankle in the season’s fifth game, “looked like Spiro Agnew at a rock concert.” Receiver Howard Twilley “had the hands of a pickpocket and a workingman’s attitude.” Linebacker Doug Swift, who had long hair, wore beach shoes and wore “granny glasses,” looked “as if he’d be more comfortable at an antiwar demonstration.”
In retrospect, some critics have tried to minimize Miami’s perfect season by claiming the Dolphins had an easy schedule. But before the season began, Kansas City and Minnesota were considered Super Bowl contenders, and Baltimore and the New York Jets were touted as contenders. But the Chiefs finished at 8-6, the Jets and Vikings wound up 7-7, and the Colts had an abysmal 5-9 record two years removed from a Super Bowl title.
You play the schedule presented. But in 1972, “on any given Sunday” did not apply in Miami.
The Dolphins’ lone appearance on “Monday Night Football” in ’72 was at home against the St. Louis Cardinals in Week 11. The game was blacked out, but my father took me to meet up with some of his Lions Club colleagues at a motel in Fort Lauderdale. The motel’s antenna was pointed toward Fort Myers, where the ABC affiliate was broadcasting the game. Fun times.
But here is where Fisher’s ability to analyze a seemingly mundane play comes to the fore. In the game against St. Louis, a 51-yard field goal attempt by Garo Yepremian was blocked and he picked up the football.
“He should have just fallen down on it, but instead he picked it up and made a mysterious attempt to propel the ball with his right arm,” Fisher writes.
Sound familiar? Super Bowl VII would have a similar play.
“One would think that Shula, with his overwhelming attention to detail, would have Yepremian practicing falling on the ball for the next week or more,” Fisher writes.
On the first day of training camp in 1972, Shula showed films of the Super Bowl VI loss. “He repeated his mantra of taking the games one at a time … and winning each one,” Fisher writes.
Running back Jim Kiick turned to fullback Larry Csonka and, knowing how tough the previous two training camps were under Shula’s direction, said, “Oh, this is going to be a beauty.”
Fisher’s prose is sharp and his observations are keen. Csonka ran up the middle “like a hussar on a rampage,” a nod to Zonk’s Hungarian heritage. Earl Morrall, who stepped in at quarterback when Griese broke his ankle in the season’s fifth game, “looked like Spiro Agnew at a rock concert.” Receiver Howard Twilley “had the hands of a pickpocket and a workingman’s attitude.” Linebacker Doug Swift, who had long hair, wore beach shoes and wore “granny glasses,” looked “as if he’d be more comfortable at an antiwar demonstration.”
In retrospect, some critics have tried to minimize Miami’s perfect season by claiming the Dolphins had an easy schedule. But before the season began, Kansas City and Minnesota were considered Super Bowl contenders, and Baltimore and the New York Jets were touted as contenders. But the Chiefs finished at 8-6, the Jets and Vikings wound up 7-7, and the Colts had an abysmal 5-9 record two years removed from a Super Bowl title.
You play the schedule presented. But in 1972, “on any given Sunday” did not apply in Miami.
The Dolphins’ lone appearance on “Monday Night Football” in ’72 was at home against the St. Louis Cardinals in Week 11. The game was blacked out, but my father took me to meet up with some of his Lions Club colleagues at a motel in Fort Lauderdale. The motel’s antenna was pointed toward Fort Myers, where the ABC affiliate was broadcasting the game. Fun times.
But here is where Fisher’s ability to analyze a seemingly mundane play comes to the fore. In the game against St. Louis, a 51-yard field goal attempt by Garo Yepremian was blocked and he picked up the football.
“He should have just fallen down on it, but instead he picked it up and made a mysterious attempt to propel the ball with his right arm,” Fisher writes.
Sound familiar? Super Bowl VII would have a similar play.
“One would think that Shula, with his overwhelming attention to detail, would have Yepremian practicing falling on the ball for the next week or more,” Fisher writes.
He didn’t. And that almost came back to haunt him.
In 1972, Miami led the NFL in points scored with 385 and allowed the fewest points in the league with 171.
Certainly, the Dolphins had some close calls — they had to score 10 points in the fourth quarter to defeat the Vikings in Week 3 and held off Buffalo 24-23 in Week 8 after defensive tackle Manny Fernandez stole a Dennis Shaw handoff intended for Jim Braxton and helped erase a 13-7 deficit.
Miami would win a 28-24 shootout against the Jets two weeks later, highlighted by Morrall’s improbable 31-yard run for a touchdown — including a nifty fake against the Jets’ cornerback — that gave the Dolphins a 21-17 lead.
“It was the longest touchdown run for the Dolphins all year, in distance and in time elapsed,” Fisher writes.
Both playoff games were closely contested, with Seiple’s fake punt (remember 1969) and 37-yard run the key play in a 21-17 AFC title victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
On the fake punt, the Steelers’ defenders turned and ran back to set up their return coverage. Seiple “ran down the other side of the field as free as a jogger on the beach,” Fisher writes.
The one fact that surprised me was Fernandez’s anguish prior to the AFC title game. He had just gotten married the previous week and his new wife, Marcia, was a stewardess for Eastern Air Lines. She was supposed to be working on a flight from New York to Miami, but she switched with a colleague when she got married and was on a different flight. Her original plane crashed in the Everglades, killing 80 people.
In 1972, Miami led the NFL in points scored with 385 and allowed the fewest points in the league with 171.
Certainly, the Dolphins had some close calls — they had to score 10 points in the fourth quarter to defeat the Vikings in Week 3 and held off Buffalo 24-23 in Week 8 after defensive tackle Manny Fernandez stole a Dennis Shaw handoff intended for Jim Braxton and helped erase a 13-7 deficit.
Miami would win a 28-24 shootout against the Jets two weeks later, highlighted by Morrall’s improbable 31-yard run for a touchdown — including a nifty fake against the Jets’ cornerback — that gave the Dolphins a 21-17 lead.
“It was the longest touchdown run for the Dolphins all year, in distance and in time elapsed,” Fisher writes.
Both playoff games were closely contested, with Seiple’s fake punt (remember 1969) and 37-yard run the key play in a 21-17 AFC title victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
On the fake punt, the Steelers’ defenders turned and ran back to set up their return coverage. Seiple “ran down the other side of the field as free as a jogger on the beach,” Fisher writes.
The one fact that surprised me was Fernandez’s anguish prior to the AFC title game. He had just gotten married the previous week and his new wife, Marcia, was a stewardess for Eastern Air Lines. She was supposed to be working on a flight from New York to Miami, but she switched with a colleague when she got married and was on a different flight. Her original plane crashed in the Everglades, killing 80 people.
Miami dominated Super Bowl VII and would have tossed a shutout except for Yepremian’s ill-advised attempted pass after a blocked field goal with two minutes to play. That made the final score of 14-7 closer than it appeared, but Miami had one touchdown pass to Paul Warfield called back by a penalty and Griese was intercepted in the end zone.
Miami won the Super Bowl “with a defense that may have been No Names, but had plenty of adjectives,” Tex Maule wrote in Sports Illustrated. “Try tough, tight, dashing and daring for starters.”
Many fans who did not recall Yepremian’s “throw” against St. Louis remembered Super Bowl VII, when he picked up another blocked kick, which he batted skyward after the ball slipped out of his hands in an apparent passing attempt. Washington’s Mike Bass plucked the ball out of the air and ran it back for a touchdown, making the play a staple of NFL blooper films.
NFL Films had the classic reaction from Al Jenkins, who yelled "Damn!" from the sidelines.
“My God, can you imagine what life with Shula would be like if he lost another Super Bowl?” tight end Jim Mandich said.
Fortunately for Miami — and Yepremian — they never had to find out.
I interviewed Yepremian in 1980 during a minicamp for the New Orleans in Vero Beach, Florida. Wrapping up, I said to him, “You know, I have to ask you about that pass in the Super Bowl.”
“I’d be insulted if you didn’t,” Yepremian said, adding that he noticed that Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw had copied some of his passing techniques.
It was easy to laugh then.
Some of the players have since died, along with Shula. Others have suffered in later life from brain injuries incurred from the pounding they took. But the memories linger.
Seventeen and Oh, Fisher writes, was not just about the perfect record.
“It was the assembling of a disparate bunch of players and coaches into a unit of cohesive excellence that felt as though it couldn’t lose,” he writes.
He’s right. Get out the white hankies.
Miami won the Super Bowl “with a defense that may have been No Names, but had plenty of adjectives,” Tex Maule wrote in Sports Illustrated. “Try tough, tight, dashing and daring for starters.”
Many fans who did not recall Yepremian’s “throw” against St. Louis remembered Super Bowl VII, when he picked up another blocked kick, which he batted skyward after the ball slipped out of his hands in an apparent passing attempt. Washington’s Mike Bass plucked the ball out of the air and ran it back for a touchdown, making the play a staple of NFL blooper films.
NFL Films had the classic reaction from Al Jenkins, who yelled "Damn!" from the sidelines.
“My God, can you imagine what life with Shula would be like if he lost another Super Bowl?” tight end Jim Mandich said.
Fortunately for Miami — and Yepremian — they never had to find out.
I interviewed Yepremian in 1980 during a minicamp for the New Orleans in Vero Beach, Florida. Wrapping up, I said to him, “You know, I have to ask you about that pass in the Super Bowl.”
“I’d be insulted if you didn’t,” Yepremian said, adding that he noticed that Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw had copied some of his passing techniques.
It was easy to laugh then.
Some of the players have since died, along with Shula. Others have suffered in later life from brain injuries incurred from the pounding they took. But the memories linger.
Seventeen and Oh, Fisher writes, was not just about the perfect record.
“It was the assembling of a disparate bunch of players and coaches into a unit of cohesive excellence that felt as though it couldn’t lose,” he writes.
He’s right. Get out the white hankies.
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