Thirty years ago Dolphins ruined Bears' perfect season

[gafin]

On Sunday, the Carolina Panthers escaped New Orleans with a 41-38 win over the Saints, making them the ninth team in NFL history to start a season 12-0. Historically, teams have fared quite well after winning a dozen straight to begin the year, but anyone who's been a part of a team making a run at perfection will tell you that staying unbeaten only gets harder with each win.

That was the case in 1985 for the Chicago Bears, whose perfect season ended in Week 13 in a primetime beatdown at the hands of the Miami Dolphins, Chicago's only loss that year en route to the franchise's first -- and to this point only -- Super Bowl title.

Arguably the best defensive team of all time (and maybe one of the best teams, period) the Bears came into the Orange Bowl 12-0, their previous three wins by a combined score of 104-3. The Dolphins, AFC champs in two of the previous three years, were 8-4 and winners of three straight, but Miami still wasn't given much of a shot, a slight its players took personally.

"We were the best offense in football," former Dolphins receiver Nat Moore said. "It was the best offense going up against the best defense, and we're playing at home on a Monday night. So to think that you could come into Miami and play us and we don't have a chance was somewhat far-fetched. To be looked upon as a team that had no chance just didn't fly well with us."

http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/miami-dolphins-chicago-bears-1985-don-shula-nat-moore-120815

 

[Daytona Fin]

Mercury Morris, beloved by Dolphins fans and despised elsewhere as the cranky old man who won’t let the past go, isn’t ready to congratulate the 12-0 Carolina Panthers — and he probably won’t be too complementary if they finish undefeated.

“I have to take my hat off to them,” Morris told TMZ Sports. “It’s not easy to get 12 wins.”

But he added that “a ton of teams” have made it to 12-0 and lost the 13th game.

“The Broncos did it, Colts and the Saints a few years back,” he said. “Let them get past that jinx of the 13th game and then come ask me again if I think they will have a perfect season.”

“Go ask the Patriots how difficult it is to do it and how they feel about some little kid in Guatemala wearing those perfect 19-0 Super Bowl tees,” he said.

He was referring to the fact that the league donates championship shirts of the losing Super Bowl teams to impoverished countries.

But c’mon Merc, what happens if the Panthers actually go undefeated and win the Super Bowl?

“Do you know the second biggest canyon in the U.S.?” he said. “No, because everyone only knows about the Grand Canyon. No one cares about the second to do anything.”

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[truedolfan57]

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