FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — If all goes well for the New England Patriots, they will earn the distinction of becoming the Buzz Aldrin of the National Football League.
Buzz Aldrin? Contemporary football fans may not remember the one time they were told Aldrin was the second man on the moon.
If it’s not inaccurate to suggest the Patriots are on the verge of making history, it at least omits a greater truth. The Pats would become only the second team. The 1972 Miami Dolphins were the first team to win every game it played in a season.
And between the two — era to era, mano a mano, numbers to numbers — the 2007 Patriots would have no chance.
“If you want to make yourself equal to us,” said Eugene “Mercury” Morris, the electric running back on that historic Dolphins team, “you have to take Tom Brady out of the equation.”
Imagine if Brady suffered an injury in the season’s fifth game, and didn’t return until the AFC championship game. Absolutely no way the Pats are repeating this march at historical perfection.
The ’72 Dolphins were so unbeatable, they won 11 games without their Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese, who was replaced by backup quarterback Earl Morrall. Any historians out there believe the Pats would be 16-0 going into their AFC playoff game Saturday with Matt Cassel starting the bulk of their games?
Look, what the Patriots have accomplished to this point is phenomenal. Bill Belichick is the NFL’s best coach. Randy Moss is the best receiver. And I’ll give you Brady over Griese.
But there’s no reason for Norm! to stand up from his bar stool. The point is, before people get carried away calling the Pats the best team in history, they should know a little more about the game’s history. Granted, Morris and his fellow ’72 Dolphins do not offer an unbiased perspective. But just because they have a legacy to protect doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
“They may not like the delivery,” Morris said, “but respect the message.”
Let’s begin with a peeve. For whatever reason, NFL historians largely ignore everything that happened before Super Bowl I. For instance, it is widely known John Elway is the only quarterback to have started five Super Bowls. No one has won more than the four by Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana.
Great achievements, no doubt. But Bart Starr played in six “world” championships and won five. By any measure, Starr was the greatest big-game quarterback of all time. Yet his rightful claim is usually given to Montana or Brady. It’s like recording the history of the New York Yankees without Babe Ruth.
The NFL also has a palpable historical bias against anything accomplished during the 14-game era. The only logical explanation for the Hall of Fame lacking the bust of Broncos running back Floyd Little is that voters are unable to convert his impressive numbers from the 14-game era to what the modern running back is compiling in a 16-game season.
The Patriots are benefactors of contemporary perspective. Yes, they set all the offensive records this year. But you want dominance? The ’72 Dolphins ranked No. 1 in total offense, No. 1 in total defense, No. 1 in kickoff returns. They scored the most points, gave up the fewest, and, according to Morris, were the least penalized and had the best turnover ratio.
“And when we had the game wrapped up, we came out of the game,” Morris said.
Zingers aside, the Pats, by any stat, have the league’s fourth-best defense. A fourth- ranked defense along with a record-setting offense is real good, even fabulous. But it’s not ’72 Dolphins dominant.
The fact the ’72 Dolphins played two less regular-season games should not be relevant, not when they ranked No. 1 in every meaningful team stat. They still had to win them all in the regular season, and three more in the postseason. To date, the Pats have only taken care of the regular season.
If they win three more, the ’07 Patriots will go down as the Buzz Aldrin of NFL teams. But the ’72 Dolphins will always be Neil Armstrong. For all the Buzz about these Pats, what they’re doing has already been done.
