These AFL
Team pages were salvaged from the defunct site
aflfootball.tripod.com,
which inspired my AFL pages. They are dedicated to that
site's creator, Robert Phillips, who has re-created his site at
afl-football.50.webs.com.
No pro football club in history ever
advanced more quickly from the first-year dregs every
expansion team faces to the ultimate achievement in its
sport than the Miami Dolphins did in the six-year period
between 1966 and 1972. In 1966, they began their pro
football life as the ninth member of the American Football
League. Six years later, Miami would become the only NFL
team ever to record a perfect season. The 1972 Miami
Dolphins would win the AFC Eastern division and AFC
championships and then defeat the Washington Redskins 14-7
in Super Bowl VII to complete an unblemished 17-0-0 record.
The Dolphins, who were founded by Joseph Robbie, also got
off to a perfect start in the first game of their first AFL
season when running back Joe Auer returned the opening
kickoff for a 95-yard touchdown against the Oakland Raiders.
But the Miami team returned to reality even before the end
of its first game. Oakland rallied to win and the Dolphins
finished their first season with a 4-10 record.
George Wilson was the Dolphins' first coach. He finished
his four-year AFL tenure after the 1969 season with a
15-39-2 record. But those were not wasted years for the
Dolphins because they were steadily adding new talent
quarterback Bob Griese in 1967, running back Larry Csonka in
1968 and guard Larry Little in 1969 that would eventually
turn them into winners.
Franchise Granted:
August 16, 1965
First Season:
1966
Stadium:
Orange Bowl
Head Coach:
George Wilson
AFL Championships:
None
AFL Division Championships:
None
All-Time AFL Record:
15- 39-2
Retired Uniform Numbers:
#12 Bob Griese
Dolphins' Historical Performance
REGULAR SEASON
YEAR
GP
W
L
T
PF
PA
PCT.
HEAD COACH
1966
14
3
11
0
213
362
0.214
George Wilson
1967
14
4
10
0
219
407
0.286
George Wilson
1968
14
5
8
1
276
355
0.393
George Wilson
1969
14
3
10
1
233
332
0.250
George Wilson
Dolphins
Totals
56
15
39
2
941
1456
0.286
POSTSEASON
NEVER MADE AFL POSTSEASON.
Firsts, Records, and Odds and Ends
First Draft Choice:
Jim Grabowski, RB, Illinois, 1966.
First Regular-Season Game:
A 23-14 loss to the Oakland Raiders, 9/2/66.
First Regular-Season Win:
A 24-7 victory over the Denver Broncos, 10/16/66.
First Regular-Season Points:
Joe Auer returned the opening kickoff of the Dolphins'
first regular-season game 95 yards for a touchdown.
First to Rush 100 Yards in a Game:
Abner Haynes, 151 yards vs. the Denver Broncos, 9/17/67.
First 1,000-Yard Rusher:
Larry Csonka, 1,051 yards (1971).
Most Yards Rushing, Career:
Larry Csonka, 6,737 yards (1968-74, 1979).
Copyright 1997-2004 Robert Phillips. All rights reserved.
As
coach
of
the
Baltimore
Colts,
Don
Shula
lost
Super
Bowl
III
to
the
AFL's
New
York
Jets.
In
1970
he
switched
to
AFL
veteran
Miami
and
led
the
Dolphins
to a
win
in
Super
Bowl
VII.
ABOUT
THE
AFL
SERIES
USA TODAY will
celebrate
the
American
Football
League's
50th
anniversary
this
summer
with
a
series
of
retrospectives.
Second in a series
exploring the histories of
all 10 AFL franchises as the
NFL celebrates the league's
50th anniversary.
Don Shula
and the American Football
League. When the link between
them is mentioned, there is
something of a love-hate
relationship between the NFL's
winningest coach and the league
that spawned the franchise for
which he earned most of those
wins, the Miami Dolphins.
Before
Shula led Miami to its
unprecedented 17-0 season in
1972 — a feat that further
blurred any perceived disparity
between teams with roots in the
upstart AFL and those from the
buttoned-down, established NFL —
he was on the losing end of
another football milestone.
That
would be Super Bowl III.
Joe
Namath, the cocksure quarterback
of the AFL's New York Jets, was
the game's MVP. He guaranteed a
victory before the game, even
though the AFL had been drummed
the previous two seasons in the
new world championship forum.
And
Namath made his bold declaration
against none other than the
heavily favored Baltimore Colts,
a team coming off a 13-1 season.
Led by quarterback Earl Morrall,
the 1968 NFL MVP, the Colts were
being mentioned as possibly the
greatest team of all time before
the game.
But the
Jets won 16-7.
Shula was
the Colts' coach, the first of
his NFL brethren to lose a Super
Bowl at the hands of the rival
league, which had been dismissed
as inferior to that point in
time.
Shula
isn't real crazy about talking
about it. "Well, I mean, we were
the first team to lose it," he
says. "Green Bay took care of
business in the first two, but
we didn't.
"But
you've got to give the Jets
credit," Shula says. "That was a
great, great win for them and a
great win for the other league."
Yet
Shula's arrival in Miami served
as a final chance for the AFL to
tweak its older rival. Dolphins
owner Joe Robbie signed Shula
away from the Colts after the
1969 season … just before the
leagues officially merged in
1970. The NFL charged the
Dolphins with tampering, and
Miami had to surrender a
first-round draft pick to
Baltimore as compensation.
But the
Dolphins, who went 15-39-2 in
their fours years as an AFL
franchise, got their man.
Miami had
a talented roster — featuring
future Hall of Famers in
linebacker Nick Buoniconti,
fullback Larry Csonka,
quarterback Bob Griese and guard
Larry Little — but it took Shula
to mold it into a winner.
"Yeah,
they were 3-10-1 and they took
their knocks," Shula says of the
1969 club, which struggled in
the AFL's final season. "And
then we were able to turn things
around."
Indeed
they did, going 10-4 and
reaching the playoffs in 1970.
During the next two seasons, the
Dolphins notched playoff wins
vs. the three NFL teams that had
been folded into the AFC —
Baltimore, the Cleveland Browns
and the Pittsburgh Steelers —
before topping the favored
Washington Redskins 14-7 in
Super Bowl VII, completing a
perfect 1972 season. Shula and
Co. won another Super Bowl after
the 1973 campaign.
Shula's
new team whitewashed his old
one, the Colts, 21-0 in the 1971
AFC Championship Game to reach
its first Super Bowl (a 24-3
loss to the Dallas Cowboys).
This
time, he was the relative
renegade competing against
supposed old-school might.
Vindication for 1968?
"No, no,
no, and I'll always have a soft
spot for the horseshoe on the
helmet," Shula says of the
Colts. "Vindication certainly
wasn't on my mind. All I wanted
to do was give the Dolphins the
best shot I could for anybody we
lined up against."
And his
Dolphins went on to become one
of the NFL's most successful
franchises. During his 26 years
in Miami, Shula amassed 274 of
his record 347 NFL coaching
victories.
And he
stopped obsessing about Super
Bowl III … for the most part.
"You
never forget," Shula says. "We
were representing the NFL and,
you know, we lost."
The article doesn't note that the American Football League's first
expansion team was slated for Atlanta. But the Atlanta owner,
Rankin Smith, was lured away by the promise of an NFL franchise.
Instead, Joe Robbie and Danny Thomas received an AFL franchise in
Miami. Now wouldn't the Falcons' fans like to trade their
record over the past forty years for that of the Dolphins?
~ REMEMBER
the
AFL
