A new Super Bowl champion will be crowned in a few weeks…but whoever it is, they won’t be able to make the same boast as the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who became the first and still only NFL team to finish a perfect season 42 years ago today, beating Washington 14-7 in Super Bowl VII in Los Angeles on January 14, 1973.

Even after rolling through a perfect 14-0 regular season and knocking out Cleveland and Pittsburgh in the AFC playoffs, the Dolphins still weren’t Super Bowl favorites. They were knocked for playing a soft regular season schedule, and were installed as 1-point underdogs for the championship. Just like they had all year, the Dolphins turned to their “No-Name Defense” in the Super Bowl, holding Washington scoreless until almost the final 2 minutes and winning what is still the lowest-scoring Super Bowl ever.

The ’72 Dolphins weren’t packed with all-stars, although players like Bob Griese and Larry Csonka got their share of praise on offense. On the other side of the ball, the team was led by the “No-Name Defense,” a collection of guys who quietly put together the league’s best stopping unit that year.

At least one team routinely get listed ahead of the ’72 Dolphins in discussions of the league’s all-time best teams: The 1985 Chicago Bears, who were far more dominant. The only problem? The Bears lost one game that year, a Monday night tilt against (naturally) the Dolphins. The 2007 New England Patriots came closest to matching the Dolphins’ feat, coming into the Super Bowl with an 18-0 record. But they were stopped one win shy of both history and a title in a massive upset loss to the New York Giants.

It’s become an urban legend that whenever the last unbeaten NFL team loses in a season, the ’72 Dolphins break open a champagne bottle. There’s some debate on how true this is, but Griese has claimed to share Diet Cokes with some of his old teammates, which seems fair enough. Because while there might have been better teams in history, there’s still never been one who defined consistency like the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

http://www.netbrawl.com/uploads/70d36011f81dc97b1e7553df603dac85.jpg