Phokus
Third String But Playing on Special Teams
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... so does that mean any success the dolphins had with Shula should carry an asterisk?
PFT had this great point:
SHULA GIVES PATS MORE MOTIVATION TO GO 19-0
In a recent Ten-Pack entry for SportingNews.com, yours truly suggested (with all due respect and discretion) that the 1972 Dolphins need to shut up.
As ESPN's Sal Paolantonio points out in compelling fashion in his new book, The Paolantonio Report, the '72 Fins are among the most overrated Super Bowl teams of all time. Yeah, they were 17-0. But their opponents were slightly above average at best, and the Miami victories provided scant evidence of dominance.
But their desire to be the only NFL team to ever make it through an entire season without a loss or a tie is obvious. It's so obvious that the coach of the team is already trying to lay the foundation for an argument that a 19-0 record for the 2007 Patriots shouldn't count.
"The Spygate thing has diminished what they've accomplished. You would hate to have that attached to your accomplishments. They've got it," Shula told the New York Daily News. "[Coach Bill] Belichick was fined $500,000, the team was fined $250,00 and they lost a first-round draft choice. That tells you the seriousness or significance of what they found."
As to his contention that an asterisk should be placed next to the Pats' perfect season (if/when it happens), Shula said, "I don't know how people can't agree with that."
We don't agree with it, Don. Though we believe that the evidence of videotaped defensive signals (and the widespread rumors it spawned regarding more nefarious forms of cheating) puts a cloud over the team's past accomplishments (including its three Super Bowl wins), any past cheating means nothing in 2007. The incriminating tape was confiscated at halftime of the first game of the season, against a team that knows that the Patriots were videotaping defensive signals. Surely, it wasn't a factor in Week One.
Nor should it be a factor in any of the other game played this year. Only a complete ignoramus (and Mike Tice no longer is an NFL head coach) would square off against the Pats in 2007 while using defensive signals or any other signals that might have been recorded by New England in the past.
So we think Shula is way off base on this one. And we also think that his decision to tee off on the team that presents the biggest threat to the feats of the '72 Fins will serve only to give the Patriots extra motivation to finish the job.
UPDATE: A reader points out that the Dolphins were nailed by the league for tampering in connection with the hiring of Shula to be their head coach in 1970. The penalty was a first-round draft pick. So if the head coach of the team that went 17-0 two years later was hired through improper means, shouldn't the team's accomplishments with said coach carry an asterisk, too?
PFT had this great point:
SHULA GIVES PATS MORE MOTIVATION TO GO 19-0
In a recent Ten-Pack entry for SportingNews.com, yours truly suggested (with all due respect and discretion) that the 1972 Dolphins need to shut up.
As ESPN's Sal Paolantonio points out in compelling fashion in his new book, The Paolantonio Report, the '72 Fins are among the most overrated Super Bowl teams of all time. Yeah, they were 17-0. But their opponents were slightly above average at best, and the Miami victories provided scant evidence of dominance.
But their desire to be the only NFL team to ever make it through an entire season without a loss or a tie is obvious. It's so obvious that the coach of the team is already trying to lay the foundation for an argument that a 19-0 record for the 2007 Patriots shouldn't count.
"The Spygate thing has diminished what they've accomplished. You would hate to have that attached to your accomplishments. They've got it," Shula told the New York Daily News. "[Coach Bill] Belichick was fined $500,000, the team was fined $250,00 and they lost a first-round draft choice. That tells you the seriousness or significance of what they found."
As to his contention that an asterisk should be placed next to the Pats' perfect season (if/when it happens), Shula said, "I don't know how people can't agree with that."
We don't agree with it, Don. Though we believe that the evidence of videotaped defensive signals (and the widespread rumors it spawned regarding more nefarious forms of cheating) puts a cloud over the team's past accomplishments (including its three Super Bowl wins), any past cheating means nothing in 2007. The incriminating tape was confiscated at halftime of the first game of the season, against a team that knows that the Patriots were videotaping defensive signals. Surely, it wasn't a factor in Week One.
Nor should it be a factor in any of the other game played this year. Only a complete ignoramus (and Mike Tice no longer is an NFL head coach) would square off against the Pats in 2007 while using defensive signals or any other signals that might have been recorded by New England in the past.
So we think Shula is way off base on this one. And we also think that his decision to tee off on the team that presents the biggest threat to the feats of the '72 Fins will serve only to give the Patriots extra motivation to finish the job.
UPDATE: A reader points out that the Dolphins were nailed by the league for tampering in connection with the hiring of Shula to be their head coach in 1970. The penalty was a first-round draft pick. So if the head coach of the team that went 17-0 two years later was hired through improper means, shouldn't the team's accomplishments with said coach carry an asterisk, too?
