You are mistaken. The tournament is about single season teams. The 1972 Dolphins are one of the teams as opposed to the 1970-82 Dolphins or the 1972-1985 Dolphins or the 1984-1989 Bears.
This will always be a controversial subject as it should be. There are so many factors that you could throw into the equation, many of which have been pointed out by you guys. Maybe I should have defined what we're judging the best team ever on so that we're all looking through the same window. This was probably a mistake. I tend to agree with cakes last paragraph here. My opinion is that because there are so many different variables between the different era's, you have to put a case around the individual season and compare how teams played against the competition within that season. This is obviously not a flawless way of comparing teams as the level of competition is another variable that is difficult to compare. This is however; the only real competition we have to go by. The 1972 Dolphins never played against the 1979 Steelers, we can only look at how well the 72 Dolphins played against their opponents and compare it to how well the 79 Steelers played against theirs. I don't stop my evaluation there, but for me that's a large part of the equation. I ask myself questions like how clutch was the QB on this team, RB, WR's, lines, how good was there pass D, run D ... but try to keep the same case around these comparisons. How good/dominant were they against there competition? It's impossible to look at the individual players without considering there entire career as well though. There will never be a consensus on this topic and that's why it makes for great discussion and debate.
They weren't a great team the 73 team was better. In that era the 68 Jets, 69 Chiefs, 65, 66 and 67 Packers, the 67 Cowboys, the 78 and 79 Steelers and the 78 Cowboys all were better. I would take all the SB winners in the 75 through 89 period over that 72 Dolphin team. I thought the Bills team that lost to the Giants in 1990 was a better team that got out coached, I didn't think that was a great Giants team at all, but the 91 through 95 winners I thought were all top notch as was the Denver teams with TD on it. I would also put the Pats 2 and 3rd winning teams along with the Rams and Colts over the 72 Dolphin team. The Pittsburgh team wasn't yet a great team Bradshaw was still a young QB and didn't have the weapons at WR in 72. The Raiders probably had the best team in the AFC that year but they waited to long to pull the trigger on Lamonica, had they given the ball to Stabler that year they probably go to the SB. The Dolphins played 2 teams with winning records that year and both were mediocre none playoff 8 & 6 teams. The playoff wins that year were against decent not great teams.
I've said repeatedly why I don't think they were elite. You yourself have said that the 73 team was probably better, and those HoFers were on that team as well. They played an easy schedule and didn't dominate, and won three playoff games (include the Super Bowl) by small margins (I never remotely suggested that they had "the easiest schedule of the decade," which has nothing to do with whether they were an elite team). And one other point - I was there at the time, and no one thought they were a dominant team until they got through the season undefeated (unlike the Patriots this year, the 49ers of the 80s, and so on, which everyone said were great while the season was going on).
Larry Little and Mercury Morris have stated the 1973 team was better. I think they are very close and there are arguments to be made on both sides. I am still not seeing why the 1972 team is not top 25 material. All I'm seeing in this thread is the schedule issue.
No, actually you are the one who is mistaken. The title of the thread that started the tournament is "NFL's Greatest Team Ever - Tournament". Each of the polls asks the question "Who would win between these teams?". Neither of those statements is remotely the same as "Which team had the best season ever?". If that is what he meant, the polls should not say "Who would win between these teams?". Your comment about "the 1970-82 Dolphins or the 1972-1985 Dolphins or the 1984-1989 Bears" is so completely irrelevant to what I said that I cannot imagine why you said it.
You write that, yet your biggest knock on the team was their schedule. That doesn't add up. I also am aware you did not write "easiest schedule of the decade". You wrote "favorable schedule." Still, I felt it was necessary to point out that they did not have the easiest schedule of the decade.
If any of us took the title to mean what you believe it means, then, hell, why would anyone in their right mind vote for any team but the more recent one? Heck, if the 2007 Jets played the 1972 Dolphins, the 2007 Jets would win due to player size, roster size, year-round training, etc. The whole point of this tournament was to determine who was the best team of all-time, I thought. Maybe I'm nuts.
I really cannot figure out what you are talking about. If you think "favorable schedule" is even remotely connected to "easiest schedule of the decade," there's really nothing more to say. You continue to ignore what I'm saying in my posts. The dolphins did NOT dominate during the 1972 season. They beat a 7-7 Vikings team 16-14. They beat a 4-9-1 Bills team 24-23. They beat a 7-7 Jets team 28-24. They beat a Browns team in the playoffs that scored an average of only 1.4 points per game more than they gave up 20-14. No one at the time thought that they were a cinch to win the Super Bowl until they actually did it. Did they have a great season? Of course. Were they a great team? No, and the only argument anyone ever gives that they were is that they were undefeated, and I already told you why that is a ridiculous basis on which to decide the quality of a football team.
It is quite easy, really. You continue to mention the schedule. We all know about it. My comment was an aside. We all know it was not difficult. I simply wanted to note that as easy as it may have been, it still wasn't even the easiest of its era. That's all. It was an aside.
If they lost one game in the regular season, they are still going to be mentioned as a top 20 team. The fact that they went 14-0 as opposed to 13-1 is why experts ranked them at #1.
You seem determined to misstate everything I say, so I think it's time for me to stop. Your comment above is not even remotely close to what I said, or relevant to any point that I have made. I will finish up by merely repeating once more what I actually have said: (1) An undefeated season (compared to, for example, a one-loss season) is of very little importance in deciding how good a team is compared to its peers. This is a demonstrable statistical fact, period. (2) Comparing the actual performance of the 72 Dolphins relative to its peers to that of many other teams (such as the 85 Bears, 80s 49ers, etc.) relative to their peers makes it blindingly obvious that they were not a dominant team. If they had gone 13-1 instead of 14-0, no one would even remotely consider them one of the best teams of all time, and, given point (1) above, that is already enough to know that they are not in the argument as best team of all time.
Here am I thinking you've done the same. I still don't understand what you wrote in post 26 (which was based on stuff written in posts 21, 19, and 18).
The Dolphins may have been the best team ever? I look at football as a game of attrition. When I look at what makes a great team it's surviving against other great teams. Going through a guntlet of mediocrity isn't the same as going through 2 or 3 great teams. The 72 season happened to be a down year there really wasn't a great team or 2 or 3 great teams to measure against. When I look at that Dolphin team I also don't see a great team. Very good yes but 1 great WR and one great running back along with some very good but not dominate all time greats on D and O along with Earl Morral a nice backup doesn't exactly may me think all time great. In comparrison this years Pats have a guy at WR who is in the all time greatest argument along with a QB who is in the argument for top 5 to 10 all time. What player on that Dolphin team is even in that argument? At the time Warfield was in that argument but that's it. Earl Morral isn't in the top 200 argument at the most important position on the field. The argument you can make is this Pats team in the old era would have a much tougher time and that Dolphin team in this era would be in trouble. The Pats O would have been nutrilized by the none extension rule for the OL the holding of the WR and the things like the horse collar tackle, leading with the head. hands to the head by the DL all would put tremendous pressure on the Pats to get out of their spread formations. On the other side the Dolphins facing 3/4 with huge NT and inside LB would have not been able to beat teams without a serious passing game which they lacked completely in 72. In my mind the Great Steeler teams and the 49ers had the kind of balance on both sides of the ball along with a few of the great Dallas teams to be considered better than either the Dolphins or the Pats of this year. I'm not so sure this Pats team is better than their 2nd SB team which had a better D and nice balance on O.
I suspect this question is no more answerable than whether Peyton Manning or Tom Brady is the better QB. Still, I'll throw out two cents. I believe the combined record of the 72 Dolphins' regular season opponents was .333. Not impressive. The 85 Bears were very dominant, but that was also the year that Buddy Ryan introduced the 46 defense. This is a very high risk high rewards system, flawed, but that first year the opponents hadn't found the flaws. Early on the following year, one team figured out how to attack it, other teams copied their approach, and the totally awesome Bear defense of the year before was suddenly very very ordinary. I'll give some real credit to Ryan and the Bears for trying something risky and new, but you have to remember that the 46 defense is flawed, obsolete and seldom seen anymore when one throws the 85 Bears into the all time greatest discussion. From there, things get mighty subjective. Does one look only at Ws and Ls, or does the score count. Is the number of blowouts more important, or is it the number of close loses that one or two bounces of the ball might have taken the game the other way? I really don't know. Yes, there were some mighty good teams that let a game or to slip through their fingers. But should the Patriots win one more, their name will keep coming up with the issue comes up. Depending on the criteria used, they might not be decisively the best, but you just know that whichever criteria is used, you'd have to apply it to this year's Patriots.
It was not quite that low. It was .396 (not counting games against the Dolphins, which is the only way to compute the numbers properly). This is incorrect. The 46 defense was not new in 1985. The defense got its name due to the jersey number of Doug Plank. Plank was a safety with the Bears from 1975-82. In the 46 defense Plank played middle linebacker.
When you're talking about "which team is the greatest ever" you really can only look at how that team did relative to everyone around it then. Of course if the '07 Patriots lined up today against the '72 Dolphins the Dolphins would loose by 100 points. There was a topic discussing an issue almost exactly like this one on a Pats forum and someone brought up a good point, which is that todays players train harder, train during the off season, and are faster than ever before. The 49ers from this year would probably destroy the '72 Dolphins, even with the old rules because of the physical shape the players are in today and because of the medical advances (cough cough steroids) that have been made. So as Cakes mentioned, you gotta go by stats and analyze depth compared to the rest of the league for the respective season because trying to do an x's and o's matchup game will always give the modern team the edge. I would say if the Pats win 19-0 is more impressive than the Dolphins 17-0 simply b/c of the 2 extra games and a more impressive strength of schedule, but I'd certainly include the Dolphins in a top 25 list of great teams. Maybe a better way to arrange the "great teams" lists is to go by eras to avoid the time-machine factor. For the Super Bowl classify all Super Bowl winners into in groups of 1966-1980, 1980-1993 and then 1994 up. If someone really wants to do a "which team would beat which" discussion that is really accurate then that will be way more interesting, since if you say "who will win, the 1967 Packers or X Team that Won SB (15 or higher)" the modern team will always win.
I am going to assume that if the Patriots beat the Giants, all of us will say that the 2007 Patriots were better than the 1972 Dolphins. At least we can all agree on that.
You have a good memory because that was probably a year or two ago when I wrote that. I have since swung back around to thinking the '72 team was better. In my initial post in this thread I had the 1972 Dolphins in my top ten and I think you saw as much before the edit.
