RIP Don Shula

[micropolitan guy]

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.

 

[DanielSimpsonDay]

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

 

[da man]

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!).

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

 

[LanceyHoward]

An all-time great run there in the early 1970s. Apparently not a jerk and pretty friendly to people.

As someone who watched a LOT of NFL from about 1981 on, I am, thus, surprised his teams didn’t win more that decade. The epic in Miami. That Patriots loss in 1985. (No blame on the 49ers SB - that team was an all-timer). By 1987 or so, always felt that the Dolphins were going to always be 11-5 and get knocked out a round too early.

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.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

I remember Hank Goldberg destroying Gene Atkins when Shula retired.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

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

Yeah. My memory is hazy, but didn't the field turn to mud because the Dolphins "forgot" to put the tarp on the field, or something like that?

 

[DanielSimpsonDay]

Baumhower
Betters
Bokamper
Bowser
Brudzinski
Blackwood
Blackwood

 

[DanielSimpsonDay]

Yeah. My memory is hazy, but didn't the field turn to mud because the Dolphins "forgot" to put the tarp on the field, or something like that?

NO EXCUSE FOR MISSING TARPAULIN

Too soon

 

[Baron Scicluna]

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.

George Halas kinda did. His Bears won a title in 1921, but I don't think they had conference title games back then. He coached title teams in the 30s, 40s and 60s. The one Bears team to make a title game in the 1950s was in 1956, during one of Halas' coaching hiatuses, and Paddy Driscoll was the coach that year.

Halas did coach until 1967, so he was in the Super Bowl era.

 

[garrow]

Only coach to defeat the vaunted '85 Bears.

 

[da man]

George Halas kinda did. His Bears won a title in 1921, but I don't think they had conference title games back then. He coached title teams in the 30s, 40s and 60s. The one Bears team to make a title game in the 1950s was in 1956, during one of Halas' coaching hiatuses, and Paddy Driscoll was the coach that year.

Halas did coach until 1967, so he was in the Super Bowl era.

The first NFL championship game was in 1933.

 

[mateen]

There were times I swore it was a league rule that all broadcasts had to mention that the Dolphins had a huge, perhaps unfair advantage because Shula was on the competition committee, and that this was why they were always among the least penalized teams (it apparently being beyond the abilities of players and coaches on other teams to, you know, read the rule book).

Two sub-.500 seasons in 33 years is really remarkable, even if you factor in that it was much easier to stay good once you got good in the pre-free agency NFL.

 

[Jake from State Farm]

Shula and Chuck Knox were on the same staff in Detroit

 

[cyclingwriter2]

If csonka, kiick and warfield don’t jump to the WFL, do the dolphins of the 1970s pick up another title or two?

 

[da man]

Shula and Chuck Knox were on the same staff in Detroit

Still way behind the '50s Giants, with Vince Lombardi running the offense and Tom Landry running the defense.

 

[Starman]

Shula and Chuck Knox were on the same staff in Detroit

Yeah, some of the real old-timers said the Lions first started really going to **** when they let Shula get away to the Colts in 1963 IIRC.

 

[Elliotte Friedman]

Yeah. My memory is hazy, but didn't the field turn to mud because the Dolphins "forgot" to put the tarp on the field, or something like that?

It's funny, I can remember it like yesterday. I loved it. Me and my buddies would play mud football and imagine being in that game.

When Duhe picked that one off for a TD, I was saying, "Don't throw it, Richard!" knowing it was going to be intercepted.



There was an SI piece about Todd, with a photo of a bottle of champagne someone gifted to him. It said he wouldn't open it until the Jets won the Super Bowl. A couple weeks later, someone wrote a letter to the editor saying he'd never get to open it. Good times.

 

[mpcincal]

It's funny, I can remember it like yesterday. I loved it. Me and my buddies would play mud football and imagine being in that game.

When Duhe picked that one off for a TD, I was saying, "Don't throw it, Richard!" knowing it was going to be intercepted.



There was an SI piece about Todd, with a photo of a bottle of champagne someone gifted to him. It said he wouldn't open it until the Jets won the Super Bowl. A couple weeks later, someone wrote a letter to the editor saying he'd never get to open it. Good times.

You would frequently find some great stuff on the SI letters page. A few years earlier, pre-1982, the magazine had a feature story on Joe Theismann and it had a snippet on a space on his shelf he had reserved for a Super Bowl. A couple weeks later, a letter writer said the only way he would get a SB ring was if he broke into Redskins' backup QB (and former Steeler) Mike Kruczek's locker and stole his ring.

Theismann got the last laugh on that one.

 

[Bronco77]

If csonka, kiick and warfield don’t jump to the WFL, do the dolphins of the 1970s pick up another title or two?

I've always considered that a really good question. That team still was in its prime and remained a contender even without those three. But in the then-dominant AFC, the Steelers were on the verge of a dynasty, and the Raiders were up there as well. The Dolphins of the mid-'70s also had a lot of injuries on defense that basically ended the careers of some of the "No-Name" mainstays. Put it this way: a playoff game in '74 between the Csonka-Kiick-Warfield Dolphins and the rising Steelers undoubtedly would have been a classic.

 

[cyclingwriter2]

I've always considered that a really good question. That team still was in its prime and remained a contender even without those three. But in the then-dominant AFC, the Steelers were on the verge of a dynasty, and the Raiders were up there as well. The Dolphins of the mid-'70s also had a lot of injuries on defense that basically ended the careers of some of the "No-Name" mainstays. Put it this way: a playoff game in '74 between the Csonka-Kiick-Warfield Dolphins and the rising Steelers undoubtedly would have been a classic.

It’s a great what if. I still think the Steelers won multiple, but likely not all four.