“I don’t enjoy games that get out of control. It infuriates you. It doesn’t make any sense.”
That quote sure sounds like something Dolphins Head Coach Don Shula would say, but it came from their middle linebacker Nick Buoniconti. Miami’s 24-23 win over the visiting Buffalo Bills was universally considered a strange, and at times a zany game that didn’t make a lot of sense.
Guard Bob Kuechenberg called it “bizarre.” Losing Head Coach Lou Saban (perhaps a second cousin to Alabama coach Nick Saban) said it was “the strangest game I’ve seen in all my years.”
Miami Herald columnist Edwin Pope’s Monday morning column after the game was titled, “Officially, Was It Really Pro Football?” In the body of his column, he added, “It was portions Marx Brothers and a demolition derby.”
Was it really that crazy of a game? In the context of the NFL in 1972, it surely was.
After the Dolphins opened the game with a routine 12-play, 80-yard touchdown drive that took 7:28 off the clock, the rest of the contest was everything but routine.
On Miami’s next possession, looking to take a two-touchdown lead, they moved the ball down to the Bills’ two-yard line facing a 3rd-and-goal. Jim Kiick slammed against the line, appeared to cross the plane of the goal line, but was ruled short. Buffalo was called for a penalty, moving the ball to the one. Kiick slammed up against the line again and was clearly short. On fourth down, Kiick got his third crack at the score but was again ruled to have come up short despite loud protests from quarterback Earl Morrall and others on the offense. Why didn’t Larry Csonka get at least one shot at scoring in this situation? It was just that kind of day, I suppose.
Miami ended the first quarter at their own 28-yard line after punter Spike Jones launched a 62-yard punt. Kiick opened the second quarter by fumbling the ball back to Buffalo. The Dolphins defense held the Bills to a field goal, keeping Miami ahead 7-3. The lead would not last long.
After picking up a first down at their own 35-yard line, Miami went on the move…backwards. Kiick busted loose for an 11-yard run that was called back with a holding penalty on Csonka, the first of his career because, well, why not? On 1st-and-23, Morral hit Howard Twilley with a pass over the middle that Twilley extended into a 48-yard gain. All-Pro guard Larry Little had been flagged for holding, however, moving the ball back to the Dolphins’ 11-yard line, where they stood 1st-and-34.
After Mercury Morris, playing with a bad ankle, was stopped for a two-yard loss, Morrall called a swing pass to him on 2nd-and-36. The pass bounced off Morris’ hands into the waiting arms of Buffalo linebacker Ken Lee, who trotted into the end zone untouched for a 16-yard touchdown return. The Bills, still without a first down, led 10-7.
Kiick lost a fumble again on the Dolphins’ next possession, but the defense held once more and forced a Buffalo punt. Miami quickly picked up two first downs and appeared to be rolling. Morrall then attempted another swing pass to Morris, which was tipped and appeared relatively harmless. The whistle never blew, however, and Bills defensive tackle Don Croft picked it up and advanced to the Dolphins’ 36-yard line.
No one on the officiating crew had noticed the pass had been tipped by a defender, which is what changed the trajectory backwards. This was later confirmed on video replays, but replay review was still years away for the NFL. There was no manner of appealing the ruling that the pass was backwards, considered a lateral, and therefore a live ball that could be recovered by the defense.
Don Shula tried a bit too hard to appeal the decision, grabbing one of the officials trying to get his attention. That was an automatic 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Shula said after the game, “In my eagerness, I pulled him toward me. I had no right to do it. The official had every right to penalize me.” No surprise that Shula respected order even amid chaotic disorder.
The Orange Bowl crowd of over 80,000 was less respectful, however. When the Buffalo offense, gifted with the ball at the Miami 21-yard line, came onto the field, boos fell upon them in waves, making them unable to hear the quarterback calling signals. At that time, the home crowd was expected to quiet down enough to make that possible, so quarterback Dennis Shaw pulled his team back into a huddle six different times before they would quiet down.
The Dolphins’ defense held yet again and forced a field goal, pushing Buffalo’s halftime lead out to 13-7. The Miami No-Name Defense had held the Bills to a single first down and 30 total yards in the first half, but four Dolphin turnovers had either set up or directly led to all the Buffalo points.
Someone needed to make a play and turn the momentum back toward Miami. That play came from, under the circumstances, the most unlikely source.
Dolphins defensive tackle Manny Fernandez had spent most of the week leading up to this game in the hospital fighting lung congestion that was trying to turn into pneumonia. He checked himself out, still running a fever, to play against the Bills, and it was his amazing play that enabled Miami to take the lead for good.
On their second play from scrimmage after receiving the second-half kickoff, Buffalo quarterback Shaw called a running play to fullback Jim Braxton. The handoff found the charging Fernandez, who had penetrated the line untouched and wrested the ball away from Shaw, returning it to the Bills’ 10-yard line.
In keeping with the tone of this game, Fernandez later said he had blown the defense on this play, “It turned out to be a perfect move for misplaying the play. I was anticipating pass. I saw the guard in front of me pull. Instead of moving with him, I just blew right in through the hole.” Years later, referring to his 20-200 eyesight, Fernandez said he probably could have scored on the return but was too concerned about running into the goal post. Too bad, this would have been the perfect day to do that.
Larry Csonka scored on a sweep the following play to put Miami ahead 14-13. On the Bills’ next series, they picked up two first downs before Shaw, under constant pressure all day, threw a pass to his wide-open…right tackle. Forced to punt after the penalty for illegal touching (hate when that happens), Lloyd Mumphord broke through the line to block it. The Dolphins turned that into a career-long 54-yard field goal from Garo Yepremian.
At that point Lou Saban had seen enough of Shaw, who completed only 3 of 6 passes for 29 yards with an interception. He inserted veteran Mike Taliaferro (pronounced Tolifer, I don’t know why). Interestingly, Shaw, in only his third season in the NFL, would never start another game after the 1972 season. Taliaferro would be out of the league at the end of the season, taking a career 43.4 completion percentage with him.
Following a Buffalo field goal, the Dolphins had one of their long ball-control touchdown drives, with all three running backs contributing. Morris scored from the one to cap an 11-play, 80-yard drive that took 5:42 off the clock.
The Bills did move down for a touchdown with 1:07 left, but despite being down to only one time-out, Saban decided to forgo an onside kick attempt and kick away. This allowed Miami to easily run out the clock, perhaps the only thing that had come easy in this game.
Despite the four turnovers (one with a BIG asterisk) and 91 yards in penalties (unusual for that time, highly so for a Shula-coached team), the Dolphins ultimately won the way they did most of this season-with defense and a punishing ground game. The No-Names allowed a paltry 177 total yards, while Miami ground out 230 rushing yards on 52 attempts, led by Csonka’s 107 on 18 carries. No, I didn’t forget about O. J. Simpson, but the Bills star, who would lead the league in rushing in 1972, had a very forgettable game, typical for his output against the Dolphins. The Juice carried the ball 16 times for only 57 yards and caught a pass for one yard.
Regarding that asterisk, referring to the lateral-that-really-wasn’t, the original play-by-play report, available at Dolphins.com, had that play entered as an incomplete pass, then amended to show it was called a lateral. This was done on a typewriter, probably using carbon paper (kids, ask your parents) so there was no erasing or white-out possible. There was so much going on with that play, including Shula’s penalty, that they had to handwrite notes to capture it all.
While the team celebrated the victory, Manny Fernandez planned his return to Mercy Hospital, where he would stay until the following Wednesday. Fortunately, there is no record of anyone on the team catching his infection.
His spirit, however, was quite contagious.
Coming Next Week: Part 14 – Exorcising Demons
Don Shula had yet to win in Baltimore since becoming coach of the Dolphins. In his season of exorcising demons, that would get decisively checked off the list in Week 7.
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