Today (1972): The Miami Dolphins are NFL's First Undefeated Team

December 16, 1972

On this day, the Miami Dolphins beat the Baltimore Colts to become the NFL’s first undefeated team through the regular season.  Of course, they only played 14 games in the regular season back “then”, so this record…mixed with the whole 2007 undefeated (but not really) New England Patriots…mixed with the current day Colts/Saints 13-0 records really confuses the bejesus out of me.

I suppose we should break it down, right?

The ‘72 Dolphins average score: 27.5 – 12.2

The ‘07 Patriots average score: 36.8 – 17.1

The ‘09 Colts average score: 27.6 – 16.6

The ‘09 Saints average score: 35.8 – 21.1

What can we take from this?  Well, really nothing…since scoring numbers are largely dependent upon the respective competition throughout the league at the given time and it’s difficult to normalize scoring averages across decades of football – especially given the presence of rules changes and performance-enhancing steroids in the current….well, nevermind.

Photo of the ‘72 Dolphins hoisting up Don Shula…and Tom Brady hoisting up a farm animal?

Sure.

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