“Perfection is perfection. Close, get a cigar. There’s only one team that drinks the champagne.”
Larry Csonka’s words exude pride, and why shouldn’t they. As the NFL’s only undefeated Super Bowl champions, the 1972 Miami Dolphins are in a league of their own — and the NFL officially agrees. To celebrate the 100th year of NFL football, the league has been doing a bunch of top 100 series to commemorate the rich history of a century of the game. Yesterday was the culmination of the league’s series honoring the 100 best individual teams in NFL history.
The 1972 Miami Dolphins were ranked as the best team in NFL history.
The only undefeated team in @NFL history.
The 1972 Miami Dolphins have been named the greatest team by the @NFL! #NFL100 #FinsUP pic.twitter.com/XMmwd6y1w0
— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) November 16, 2019
The videos of Lombardi trophy glory and playoff wins are a far cry from the Miami Dolphins fans of younger generations have come to know — but regardless of if one were alive to see the perfect season or only has read the news clippings and watched the highlights, Dolphins fans have a unique source of pride that ultimately no other team does: perfection. And as Larry Csonka points out during the video honoring the 1972 Dolphins, there have been no shortage of great teams to pass through the NFL over the years — they’ve all just lost a football game along the way.
Seeing a young coach embolden young talent the way we’ve seen Brian Flores do in recent weeks is a fitting tribute to the rich history of the Dolphins at the end of the NFL’s 100th season. Once upon a time, before Don Shula, the Dolphins were a miserable expansion franchise who lacked direction. Shula came in, coached and developed the team and the rest is history. Hopefully Flores is the man to return the Dolphins to that level of glory — there’s inspiration all around him in South Florida.
Because no one is forgetting the greatest team in NFL history.