Seventeen and zero. The 1972 Dolphins are the only team in the history of the sport to finish a season without losing a single game, and they capped it by winning Super Bowl VII 14-7 over Washington. The old Dolphins still pop champagne when the last unbeaten team each season finally loses. People call it arrogant. I call it earned. No one else has ever done it. No one.

Five trips, two trophies, and one quarterback who deserved more

Miami won back-to-back titles in Super Bowls VII and VIII in the early seventies, the perfect-season team and its follow-up. The losses came in VI to Dallas, in XVII to Washington, and in XIX, which is the one that haunts the franchise. That was Dan Marino’s only Super Bowl, his second year, a 38-16 loss to the 49ers. Everyone assumed he would be back. He never was.

The Marino of it

One of the greatest arms the game ever saw, one Super Bowl, and a loss. Dolphins fans, you have the only perfect season ever and the ache of a legend who got one shot at the trophy and missed. That is a strange, rich history. The perfect season is the kind of thing my team would have traded a finger for.