How the 1972 Dolphins Really Won Super Bowl VII

It's January fourteenth, nineteen seventy three. At the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Ninety thousand fans packed height for the chance to witness football immortality with the Miami Dolphins on the brink of a perfect season facing offense the Washington Redskins. And despite all the praise we give to the offenses in football today, this defense, known as the known Name defense, puts together a game like no other and is the reason why they had a perfect season. Join us as we dive into this defense and what made them so special and led them to an NFL championship and being the last perfect team in NFL history. Today on Stanley Sports History, Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reee, your guy because I'm a no name host. You probably never heard of me before you started listening to this podcast. So the nineteen seventy two Dolphins the last perfect team. We've talked about the seven Patriots, and they had a perfect regular season. They actually won more games than the Miami Dolphins, but they didn't win the Super Bowl. And what was it that made this team so special? And it was known as the No Name defense. And this defense got its nickname actually from Tom Landry So not even their coach, not a reporter or anything like that. It was an opposing coach who said they lacked stars. They had nobody on their team that you would even bad an eye at, and only one first round pick. It was a team put together and played like a team now through the season. This team was dynamite, led on the ground by Mercury Morris and Larry Zanka, becoming the first team to have two one thousand rushers on their team. And the reason they focused on this the rushing attack was because they had a great quarterback in Bob Greasy for the first few games who got hurt and Earl Morrile a season, Vet took over and led them basically most of the season to undefeated season. So they relied heavily on running and they were good. Their offense was good, no doubt, but their defense is what won them the Super Bowl. So who were they? We're gonna walk through the players a little bit, give you a bit of a background on each one so you know where they're coming from. These are the starters for the Super Bowl. There were other players that came in here and there periodically due to injuries and just rest, but these were the main players. So at defensive end we had vern Dean Heater. He was a massive stending sixty six, two hundred and fifty pounds from the University Nebraska. He was an eighth round pick by Miami the year before, and he was developed and grew into a starter and was known for having a high motor who was great at collapsing the and staying in his zone for running the team guy. And there was Manny Fernandez who was their defensive tackle, standing sixty two to two hundred and fifty five pounds out of the University of Utah. He was undrafted in nineteen sixty eight, signed as a free agent with Miami and worked his way to earn a spot on the team and eventually become an anchor on their interior defensive line. And he was so good that many actually argue he should have been named Super Bowl MVP for Super Bowl seven. Beside him, we had Bob Hayes, another six six, two hundred and fifty pounder out of Pacific. He originally signed with the Dallas Cowboys and eventually joined Miami through the Expansion Draft and gave him depth up front, giving him size and lenked at the tackle position for their four to three front. Then there was Bill Stanfield, another sixty five, two hundred fifty pound guy on the right end. He was an All American out of Georgia. He was the first round pick in nineteen sixty nine for the Dolphins at the eleventh overall and so he was a Pro Bowl caliber player. Linebacker, we had Doug Swift, who was a prototypical size linebacker but came from a small college from Amherst and Whittner and signed with the Dolphins as a free agent. Was smart, tough under the radar, playing strongside linebacker. Middle linebacker. We had Nick Ponti, who was a smaller size linebacker but went to Notre Dame and was a star for the Boston Patriots in the nineteen sixties before joining Miami on the later side of his career. Was that stable, veteran force that really helped the team together in the mike linebacker spot, basically the captain of the defense, the glue guy, the football IQ guy, the guy that made the team role. And at weakside linebacker, we had Mike Colin coming from Auburn and was a second round pick in nineteen seventy. He was fast and physical and nicknamed Captain Crunch for the way he hit. And in the secondary, we had Tim Foley out of Purdue, a third round pick in nineteen seventy, who was a smart, technical receiver, good in man and zone, and played his role right at the other corner position. We had Curtis Johnson out of Toledo, a fourth round pick in nineteen seventy. Noticed nineteen seventy was a big season sixty nine to seventy. Building blocks of this team was a guy that could keep up with the deep speed receivers. And Dick Anderson was a third round pick out of Colorado playing strong safety and he would go on to become an All American in the nineteen seventy three Defensive Player of the Year. So they did have stars. They weren't a no name defense and free safety that We had Jake Scott out of Georgia who actually initially played with the CFL and then signed with Miami, which was a common occurrence back in the day. And he had great range and ball skills. So Don Shula one of the greatest coaches of all time, and the GM Joe Thomas really built this from the inside out. Get the offensive defensive line going and have the linebackers be smart so they knew exactly what to do. Everyone on this team was smart and sound. That is the biggest thing in defense. As a former college coach myself, I know if players are doing exactly what they want, it's much better than someone that is faster than everyone else or more physically gifted. If you can run the defensive play precisely and have much more of a chance to win. And that's exactly what this was. This was no divas on this one. Even though there's a couple All pros, a future Defensive Player of the Year, they were not divas. That was the main thing they played as a team, especially on defense. So they make it through the regular season, They make it through losing their starting quarterback, playing their backup, and then in the playoffs bringing back their starting quarterback over that backup. That led them to a perfect season. They had two running backs rushed for one thousand yards. Their offense was cooking and humming along. It was able to sustain everything mainly because they did not have to score a lot because that defense was as Jim rowans, it's a fifth phenomenal hit allowed just twelve points a game, a total of one hundred and seventeen through the whole fourteen game season. The most points they allowed in a single game was twenty four. In the playoffs, they would allow a total throughout three games, the Divisional Game, the AFC Championship, and the Super Bowl, a total thirty eight points. Having two shutouts. They were in the number one defense again, gave up the fewest yards in the league. So if a team is not giving up twelve points, that means you only to have scored two touchdowns. Again, your offense does not need to be great. It helped that they had great offensive things going on, but when your defense is playing like that, it doesn't matter. So it's January fourteenth at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, the seventh Super Bowl, and they're facing offense to Washington Redskins, who were a good team twelve and three coming into the game. There was over ninety thousand people in attendance and it was an exciting time as they were about to witness possibly an undefeated season. But the Redskins wanted to play spoilers. Now. The Dolphins chose to receive the kickoff, and sadly, they went three and out, giving the ball right back to the Redskins, where their quarterback Bill Klamar and running back Larry Brown, who was the leading rusher that year in the league, went up against this no name defense and in four plays they netted fifteen yards, giving the ball back to the Dolphins, so they ended up This first quarter was a defensive stand nobody scored, but in the second quarter the offense picked up. Bob Greasy led a nine play seventy three yard drive, giving the ball to Larry Zanka on the goal line who ran for five yards for touchdown, giving them the lead seven to zero and their defense that would be all they would need. So the Redskins get the ball back and what they do is they turn the ball over. Climber lofts a pass where Jake Scott gets his first interception of the game and returned to fifty five yards, flipping the field position, giving them great chance to score again, which they do. The Dolphins drive seven plays as Bob Greasey goes six for six, ending with one yard run, giving them the lead fourteen to zero heading into half. By this time, the Dolphins have controlled the time and possession, having the ball nearly twenty minutes in the first half and Bob Greasey's playing a great game. Dolphins is humming, so is the defense. They come out in the third quarter and the Dolphins are conservative. They have a fourteen point lead, the best defense in the league. Why rock the boat? So they ended up going five plays out. The Redskins have their best drive of the game, going twelve plays seventy nine yards, but on second in goal nine yards from the end zone, Climber tries to throw it deep into the end zone and Jake Scott intercepts it in the end zone. It turned to four yards, stopping a possible touchdown, keeping the shutout alive. But the Dolphins stall out and end up giving the ball right back. So it's the fourth quarter. Washington is driving and they get to the Miami twenty five and they stall out on fourth down on an incomplete pass. They go for a fourth down, so they the Dolphins get the ball right at the twenty five, perfect position for them to even kick a field goal at that point into forty two yard field goal, they just try to run the ball out and try to kick a field goal. Garro Yeperman, their kicker, goes to kick a forty two yard field goal, and the snap is good, the hold is good, but Washington's Tim Bratton was able to get through and block the kick. But Guero is able to grab the ball and tries to pass this. Now, this is the one player you've probably seen from this game, because it's a football folly that we love to see. He goes and the ball slips right through his hands as he tries to pass it for an impromptu fake field goal. The ball pops up in the air and cornerback Mike Bass intercepts it and returns it forty nine yards for a touchdown. This is the only touchdowns the Redskins will score. It is not on the defense. It is on the special teams. If they don't try to kick this field goal, they just go four downs out. It would have been a shutout, and that everyone would have known how good this defense really was. Now they do know it was a good defense. But you see that score, you think, oh, they gave up a touchdown to the Redskins. So about one minute left, Greasy hands the ball off to Zanka. The Dolphins burn out the clock. They punt the ball with twenty two seconds left and climber throws, three incomplete passes under pressure, not even close the clockhak zero and they win fourteen to seven. It's not a blowout, it's not anything crazy. The defense was playing that great. They had one drive that they got into the goal line and they were able to stop it with a turnover. And that's what made him so great. Because the two interceptions, Jake Scott is named MVP now. Larry Zonka is the only one that on the offense that probably could have got consideration as he ran for over one hundred and seventeen yards and a touchdown. Murky Morris had thirty eight in kick at thirty eight. Bob Greasy was a good player, but having two interceptions in a game like this was all that was needed, and by the same player. I love when a defensive player wins these MVPs because it means so much and it shows you how well defense can really do this. This is why the adage is defense wins championships because without this seventy two team would have been forgotten. With this defense, the way they played together, the way they shut down the Redskins in the Super Bowl is why we remember them, why they're so good. But you never heard from anyone on the defense. Most likely, if you weren't alive at the time, you didn't know anyone that was on that defense. They were truly a no name defense, but they were a great defense. This shows what teamwork really means. A team is better than a player. The question is do you think we can have another undefeated team. I don't think it can happen, not with seventeen games in the salary cap the way it is. I want to thank you for listening to Daily Sports History. If you want to let me know what you think, please contact us on our social media's. They're in the description Daily Sports History on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you like to socialize. We're also doing this thing where I'm doing a lot of short videos where I talk about a random guy that has a sports record. It's a lot of fun, so check those out on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube. All those links are in the description Follow me there, subscribe there. It means a lot that you guys are listening and look forward to continuously growing this community and having you guys have even more input. So reach out. I want to hear from you, and I'll see you on the next one.