Classic Comeback - 1971 Dolphins vs. Steelers | Page 2 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Classic Comeback - 1971 Dolphins vs. Steelers

dirwuf said:
Um...Csonka, Kiick and Warfield were still there in '74. And my point about Moore, Nottingham, etc, isn't really about whether those players were as good, but that the Dolphins offense still excelled after the defections, but it was the defense which faltered....
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You are right - my mind is going..,
 
dirwuf said:
Um...Csonka, Kiick and Warfield were still there in '74. And my point about Moore, Nottingham, etc, isn't really about whether those players were as good, but that the Dolphins offense still excelled after the defections, but it was the defense which faltered....
Click to expand...

It does remind me of what Mike Ditka said, though. He was asked what happened to the Bears and why they went from a championship team
dirwuf said:
Um...Csonka, Kiick and Warfield were still there in '74. And my point about Moore, Nottingham, etc, isn't really about whether those players were as good, but that the Dolphins offense still excelled after the defections, but it was the defense which faltered....
Click to expand...

This kind of reminds me of what Mike Ditka said about the Bears in the late 1980's. He was asked why the Bears couldn't repeat and then went downhill pretty quickly. Ditka said something to the effect that the team replaced great players with good players.

That's kind of what happened with the losses of Csonka, Warfield and Kiick. To your point (and an excellent one), the defense was really the main issue. Still, when you have great players on offense it helps the defense as well. Those were significant losses and took Miami down enough for other teams to overtake them.
 
Those players also would have brought intangibles that may have helped win an extra game here or there. As was previously pointed out we had 2, 10-4 seasons and didn't make the playoffs and '77 we were really good / probably better than Denver and could have went to the SB.
 
This game also showed the brilliance of Paul Warfield. He was targeted three times and had three touchdown catches. Got open so easily which was much harder to do in the 1970's NFL. Just smooth, fast, terrific and mostly a decoy to set-up the running game.

I can only imagine the type of numbers he would have in today's NFL. There was one season where he caught something like 33 passes and 11 of those went for touchdowns. Amari Cooper of the Raiders reminds me of a young Warfield with how smooth he is in and out of his routes.

Also showed that Bob Griese had a pretty nice deep arm. Agree with royalshank that Griese has become so underrated. Lots of those quarterback from that era have in all honesty. People look at the numbers and they just don't compare with the NFL quarterbacks from today because of rule changes mostly.

Griese was my favorite player growing up, although there were so many to like and admire. I absolutely love hearing Larry Csonka speak and his ability as a story teller.
 
The career-ending injury epidemic of 1974-76 was as damaging as the WFL. But even without all that, the stealers and raiders had gotten a step ahead of us and I just am not sure we would have been able to handle those teams at their prime. 1977 would have been a window of opportunity but we had to deal with bert jones and the Colts. At our best we would have demolished the Red Miller/Craig Morton Denver AFC champions and Staubach might not have enjoyed seeing us in a second SB matchup in New Orleans.
 
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