Mercury was ignorant and obnoxious. But he was right and I think he was upset not that another team would go undefeated but the media made it seem like it wasn't as hard as it really was. And that was a slap in the face to him, and their hard work.
Sure, but it wasn't the Dolphins fault they only had to play that many games. They could have won more. But when it was said and done they weren't chokers.
I personally never thought that the '72 Dolphins were ever considered the best team in history. I thought they were more of a footnote to history (e.g. you have all these great teams in NFL history, but oh yeah, the '72 Dolphins were the only ones to actually go undefeated). To be the best team in history, I'd figure the team should have some major superstars, and I never considered anybody on the '72 Dolphins to be a major superstar. Anyway, here's an interesting piece by ESPN's Page 2. Their staff sat down and ranked the best teams in history, and they decided the '85 Bears were #1 and the '72 Dolphins were #2. See http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/football/teams/greatest.html Then they counted all the letters (over 5,000) they got from readers in response to their ranking, and the readers agreed that the '85 Bears were #1 and the '72 Dolphins were #2. Finally, they did a little poll which got over 25,000 votes, and in that poll, the '85 Bears were #1, the '78-79 Steelers were #2, and the '72 Dolphins were #3. See http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/readers/greatestNFL.html Point is, I think most don't consider the '72 Dolphins to be the greatest in history.
Dolphins SOS was abyssmal in 72. So to say the Dolphins were the best team ever is a joke. They do hold the record and looks like they will hold it for quite some time now and maybe forever, however.
