Don Shula took losing very personally, and he went into the 1972 NFL season haunted by some football demons he very much wanted to exorcise.
There was obviously the big one-not winning the big game after two Super Bowl losses, especially the one to the Jets while coaching the Baltimore Colts that remained a mark on him like a scarlet letter. More specific to the Dolphins, there was the beating they took from Dallas in Super Bowl Vi.
Shula was also working to exorcise some lesser, but still haunting, demons that season. He took care of one right out of the chute, winning his first season opener as Miami’s head coach with their convincing win at Kansas City. In Week 7 of the 1972 season, there came the opportunity to take out another one.
Since leaving Baltimore and taking the Miami job, Shula’s team had yet to win in Baltimore. His first try, in 1970, resulted in a 35-0 rout, the largest margin of defeat the Dolphins had suffered up to this point under Shula. It was an odd game in that Miami had actually outgained the Colts 383-239, but went -4 in turnovers and allowed touchdowns on an 80-yard punt return and a 99-yard kickoff return.
In 1971, Baltimore ground out a 14-3 victory in which neither team could gain 250 yards. This game, broadcast nationally on a December Saturday afternoon, is best known for Colts linebacker Mike Curtis famously clocking a fan who ran out on the field and tried to steal the football.
After their zany win over Buffalo the week before, Shula and the Dolphins arrived in Baltimore in no mood for another strange game.
When the schedule came out for the 1972 season, this was certainly a game that both teams had circled. Baltimore would have their own angle for revenge, having lost the 1971 AFC Championship game 21-0 in Miami. That game will always be remembered for the interception that the Dolphins’ Dick Anderson returned for an amazing touchdown assisted by six perfect blocks from his teammates. Watch the play-if you’ve never seen it, you’ll clearly see five of the blocks and be amazed at the precision the No Name Defense showed.
As I pointed out early in this series, Baltimore had more pre-season support amongst the NFL experts to win the AFC in 1972 than Miami did. Two things happened to cause those hopes and expectations to unravel.
First, the Colts were suddenly and somewhat bizarrely sold, and right in the middle of it was Joe Thomas. Yes, the same Joe Thomas who had been the player personnel director who had drafted many of the key players on the Dolphins, and before that, the Minnesota Vikings. For example, Thomas’ Miami draft picks included Bob Griese, Larry Csonka, Mercury Morris, Jake Scott, Dick Anderson, Jim Kiick, and others.
Thomas, though, felt he was destined for greater things, so he left the Dolphins in search of the opportunity to run a franchise. His opportunity came when Illinois businessman Bob Irsay was interested in owning an NFL team. Thomas facilitated the deal where Irsay bought the Los Angeles Rams and traded them to Baltimore owner Carroll Rosenblum, frustrated with the lack of a new football stadium, for the Colts. Irsay rewarded Thomas with the general manager position and control over all football operations.
This was different, however. Not only did Thomas have full control over player decisions, but he was taking over an established franchise, one of the pillars of the NFL, not an expansion team as the Dolphins and Vikings both were. He would be itching for the opportunity to remake it in his image.
He did not have to wait long.
The second contributing factor to the unraveling was that the team finally showed its age, which was considerable. The defense, although still solid, had taken a step back from 1971. The offense, however, led by 39-year-old quarterback legend Johnny Unitas, had become a major issue. Baltimore put up 34 points against the Jets in the famous shootout Unitas and Joe Namath engaged in, but only totaled 40 in the four other games at the start of the season. They were 1-3 in those games, two of the losses coming by only seven and three points respectively.
It was their Week 5 loss to Dallas that was the final straw. The Colts dropped that game 21-0, gaining a total of only 175 yards and committing three turnovers. At that point, Joe Thomas ordered coach Don McCafferty to bench Unitas and play his recent acquisition Marty Domres. McCaffertu refused and was fired. Thomas then called Unitas on a pay phone in the locker room to notify him of the benching.
Thomas had proven his ability to scout and draft talented players. He lacked much in the way of interpersonal skills, however, and the abrupt and brisque way he handled the Unitas benching and had begun the dismantling of the old Colts led to an uproar in the locker room and media. It would also eventually cause something not seen in Baltimore in many years-empty seats for Colts games.
This was the environment Miami arrived in for their first of two games with Baltimore. Shula was nonetheless bracing for a tough game. “I expect Baltimore to really come after us tough. The Colts certainly have to feel that way after being frustrated last week.” Indeed, the Colts had not given up-losing a 24-20 heartbreaker to the Jets in the first post-Unitas game, dropping their record to 1-5.
There was no drama once the game began, however. The Dolphins hammered out a convincing 23-0 win, which the Miami Herald’s Bill Braucher described as “a grim autopsy on (the) prostrate Colts.” Braucher added, “The victory amounted to an execution of the once-mighty Colts and was carried out amid glum silence from the mass of Memorial Stadium’s sellout house.”
Miami gashed the Baltimore defense for 286 yards rushing, distributed among their three-headed backfield of Csonka, Morris, and Kiick. On the other side, the Colts never got closer to the Dolphins’ endzone than the 28-yard line. “I don’t really remember when I’ve seen a more complete defensive effort,” linebacker Nick Buoniconti said after the game. Miami’s special teams also got into the act, blocking a punt and a field goal in the second quarter.
Miami set the tone from their first possession, climaxing an 80-yard, 10-play march with a two-yard touchdown run from Csonka. Earl Morral, who threw the final touchdown of the Colts 35-0 win two years earlier, threw for only 85 yards and attempted only four passes in the second half. The passing game was not needed on this day.
The Dolphins defense extended an impressive streak, now having not allowed a point to be scored against them by Baltimore in 10 straight quarters. This included the second half of Miami’s 14-3 loss late in the 1971 season, their 21-0 1971 AFC Championship win, and this game. It would be extended further later in the season.
A Baltimore reporter, possibly still having trouble adjusting to the demise of the Colts, asked Larry Csonka after the game, “Didn’t you feel a sort of compassion for the Colts out there when the score got to be 23-0?”
Csonka, to his credit, kept his poise but clearly made his point, “Have you ever been hit by Mike Curtis or Ted Hendricks (two All-Pro linebackers for Baltimore)? Did they show compassion for us in 1970 when it was 35-0?” He paused for a moment, then continued, “If those guys had been hit by a car and were lying on the street, sure I’d help them. I’d feel compassion for them. But there’s no way I’m going to feel it on a football field.”
I’m willing to bet that at least once that afternoon Curtis, Hendricks, or both encountered Csonka on the field and wondered if they had been hit by a car.
The Colts interim coach John Sandusky (no relation to the disgraced Penn State assistant coach) summed it up, “We got beat by a helluva football team, a great football team.” Joe Thomas added, “They put it to us. They just knocked us on our butts.”
For their efforts resulting in a shutout, the entire Miami defense was named AFC Defensive Player of the Week. Maybe they took the No-Name nickname too seriously and couldn’t name a player to give it to.
Miami was now halfway to posting a perfect regular season record. Certainly, that was on Don Shula’s mind, right? “We don’t even talk about that,” he said. “We still haven’t won anything. An undefeated (regular) season is meaningful only in a year that you win the Super Bowl.”
There were demons left to be exorcised.
Coming Next: Part 15 – Dolphins Rumble at the Rockpile
Miami again bottles up the NFL’s leading rusher, O. J. Simpson and control the Buffalo Bills with their own running game enroute to their eighth straight victory.
You can follow me on Twitter at @jimjfootball.
