Champagne bottles still corked for '72 Dolphins American football team

Champagne bottles still corked for '72 Dolphins American football team

MIAMI (AFP) - Players from the 1972 Miami Dolphins have gathered annually to drink a champagne toast to their undefeated National Football League season once the last undefeated team in a season has lost.

But those champagne bottles remain corked this time after the New England Patriots completed a perfect 16-0 run through the NFL season on Saturday by edging the New York Giants 38-35 for the first unbeaten season since 1972.

The Dolphins went 14-0 in the regular season in 1972, six years before the NFL added two games per team to the schedule, then won two playoff games and the Super Bowl to complete the only undefeated championship run in NFL history.

To match that feat, the Patriots will need to win two home playoff games and the Super Bowl on February 5.

"They've done a heck of a job thus far but now the exhibition season is over and the real season begins," 1972 Dolphins guard Bob Kuechenberg said.

"Obviously, if they can win their first playoff game, beat an even more dangerous Colts team, and then (Green Bay's) Brett Favre or the Dallas Cowboys in the Super Bowl, I will be the first to take my hat off to them."

The defending champion Indianapolis Colts went 14-2, losing a November showdown to the Patriots, and could face New England again in the American Conference final. Dallas or Green Bay could meet the Pats in the Super Bowl.

"If they can pull it off, they will have earned it, but my heart is set against it," Kuechenberg said. "The '72 team in uniquely immortal in American sports, and I don't want us to lose that special place."

No one knows wears that badge of honor with more pride than former Dolphins running back Mercury Morris.

"It doesn't matter to me whether or not they win them all because it doesn't affect anything we've done," Morris said. "It's not the number in the front that matters, it's the 0 that's behind it.

"When all the dust clears, the best they can do is to stand beside us and in the end, that's not a bad thing," Morris said. "I will welcome them to the mountain but first they have to join us on top of the mountain."

Kuchenberg figures that even with the greater number of games and teams in the NFL compared to 35 years ago, the Dolphins' feat will remain the milestone because it came first.

"We will forever be immortal and if they win every game in front of them, then they will join us among those ranks. They will have deserved it and I will congratulate them," Kuechenberg said.

"But something in my heart makes me feel that we accomplished something so special that it forever sets the standard of excellence in sports. Imperfect is mortal, perfect is immortal."

reference: "eurosport"