17-0: The Dolphins Finish Football's Only Perfect Season

On January 14, 1973, in front of 90,182 fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Miami Dolphins did something no football team had ever done — and no team has done since. They beat the Washington Redskins 14–7 in Super Bowl VII to complete a perfect 17–0 season.

The 1972 Dolphins had already gone 14–0 through the regular season, then won playoff games against the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers. But an undefeated regular season means little without a championship, and the Redskins — George Allen’s veteran “Over the Hill Gang” — came in as slight favorites. Coach Don Shula’s Dolphins answered with their famous “No-Name Defense,” which held Washington scoreless for three quarters and allowed them across midfield only a handful of times all day.

Miami built a 14–0 lead and seemed to have the game locked away when the afternoon took its famous strange turn. With just over two minutes left, Dolphins kicker Garo Yepremian lined up for a 42-yard field goal that would have iced it. The kick was blocked. Yepremian scooped up the loose ball and, in a moment of inspired panic, tried to throw it. The ball slipped from his hands and floated into the arms of Redskins cornerback Mike Bass, who ran it back 49 yards for a touchdown — the first defensive score in Super Bowl history.

Suddenly it was 14–7 with 2:07 to play, and perfection hung in the balance. But Miami’s defense held, and when the final gun sounded, the Dolphins had their first Super Bowl title — and the only perfect season in NFL history. Safety Jake Scott, whose two interceptions swung the game, was named the game’s most valuable player.

The achievement has only grown in stature with time. Every season since, the surviving members of the ’72 Dolphins have watched each new would-be unbeaten team fall — most famously when New England’s 2007 perfect regular season ended in a Super Bowl upset. In 2013 the team was honored at the White House by President Barack Obama on the season’s 40th anniversary.

Perfection in football is almost mathematically impossible: 17 games, 17 wins, no bad bounces, no off weeks, no excuses. The 1972 Dolphins remain the only team to thread that needle — champions of a standard every team chases and none has reached since.

Photo: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons). Illustrative rather than contemporaneous: a modern view of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where Super Bowl VII was played.