RIP Don Shula

Three horrific first-round defensive draft picks (Jackie Shipp, John Bosa, Eric Kumerow) in a four-year span in the mid-80s.

 

If you consider the pre-merger AFL and NFL title games as conference championships, is he the only Super Bowl-era coach to play in a conference championship game in four different decades? I'm guessing he and Landry might be the only ones to even do it in three.

 

I loved football -- watching it, even playing a little -- and I could throw a good spiral -- much better than I can now -- that always surprised the boys I played with on the playground as a young, sixth-grade girl.

I always liked sports, but most of my love of football came from watching Miami games, in particular, because, as luck would have it, the team was at its zenith of success when I first became a serious fan a couple of years earlier. Given that I'd never been to Florida at that time in my life, how did I become a Miami fan, you ask? Go ahead, ask...

I'm someone who always has liked animals, and yes, Miami first became my favorite team because I especially loved dolphins. I still do (see avatar). They've been a lifelong passion of mine, something I know a lot about, and they have made me passionate about animal and ocean conservation throughout my life.

To this day, I also remember thinking that Shula was a pretty good-looking guy, and I never minded seeing TV shots of him on the sidelines. (I know, go ahead and laugh!).

But Shula's success, and that of the Dolphins, just made me all the happier to root for them, and I did. Despite my laughable roots in the team, I became a serious, knowledgeable fan, and I followed them religiously until sometime after the Dan Marino years.

Even today, depending on whom they were playing against, I'd probably still root for them in most games. They were my team.

 

Yeah, yeah.

1) Morrall had been the MVP that season, rightly so.

2) Yes, he had thrown three picks in the first half. One was tipped up in the air after hitting the receiver in the hands, another came when the receiver broke the wrong way on his route. One INT was fully his fault.

3) Unitas was still hobbled with arm problems. In fact he never really returned to what he had been in his prime.

 

But he wouldn't have thrown the game.

 

Pretty damn good steakhouse owner.

/carnivore

 

The Bum Phillips quote about Shula comes to mind: "He can take his'n and beat your'n and take your'n and beat his'n."

My first nine years in South Florida were his last nine years as Dolphins coach, and I always thought he could have won another Super Bowl in his final years if he hadn't had offensive and defensive coordinators (Gary Stevens, Tom Olivadotti) who were clearly in over their heads.

 

Great coach, yet he also lost two title games as a massive favorite, the 1964 NFL championship to the Browns and SB III to the Jets. They were double-digit favorites both times. Goes to show anything can happen.

 

The A.J. Duhe game was the first of many kicks in the ding-ding in my Jets/Dolphins life.

 

He was straight out of central casting as the Football Coach, starting with that square jaw.

 

I would have to look this up but my memories of his Miami career were that his defenses were a lot better when Bills Arnsbarger was the coordinator and he struggled a bit when Arnsbarger was at the Giants or in the SEC.

I also think that David Shula or Gary Stevens were particularly good offensive coordinators.