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To date, the 1972 Miami Dolphins are the only team in NFL history to go undefeated through an entire season.
Their 17-0 season is famous across football, but a detail that tends to get lost is that they also went to the Super Bowl the year before — and the year after.
The Dolphins lost Super Bowl VI to the Dallas Cowboys after the 1971 season, but returned to win back-to-back titles in 1972 and 1973.
Over that three year span, Miami went 44-6-1.
Don Shula would eventually retire as the winningest coach in NFL history, with 347 victories across 33 seasons. He only had two losing seasons.
In his book Everyone's A Coach, Shula explains that he attributes his level of success to a belief that it was possible to win every single game. He writes: “In my work with the Miami Dolphins over the years, one single vision of perfection has motivated all of my coaching — that's winning every football game.”
The moonshot
“I believe that if you don't seek perfection, you can never reach excellence,” Shula says. “Maybe it was because I regarded an unbeaten NFL season as a possibility that the feat became a reality.”
He’s right. Much like landing on the moon (or Mars) or running a four-minute mile, it is the genuine belief that it’s possible that precedes its execution.
“I'd say that, in the long run, winning coaching has more to do with the coach's own beliefs,” Shula says. “If you're going to be a good coach, you may have to set aside temporarily the fascination with game science and look first at what's true to you.”
Most coaches — especially now — lead with method. The system. The process. The data. This is the game science he mentions. However, Shula is suggesting you lead through belief, and build a system behind it that supports that belief.
He's not soft on this point.
“Inadequate beliefs are setups for inadequate performance,” Shula argues.
“You won't be a successful leader if you don't have a clear idea of what you believe, where you're headed, and what you're willing to go to the mat for.”
I’ve seen this happen many times over — coaches stop coaching because they stop believing in what’s possible. They are so obsessed with their system that the only reasonable explanation for it not working is that the players are faulty. They start coaching to an imagined ceiling, instead of an imagined possibility.
But the job is to find a way.
Find a way to connect with that player.
Find a way to draw more potential out of them.
Find a way to drag the team over the wall.
Find a way to keep believing, even if it seems unreasonable right now.
The rocket
You can dream of the moon all you like, but you also need to build a rocket. This is the execution part that must match up with the belief.
More than just a starry-eyed belief, Don Shula supported his vision of perfection with a set of well-refined coaching principles that would play out over time.
These helped guide his behaviour, add perspective, and ensured he kept striving through the natural ups and downs of an NFL season.
"My coaching beliefs,” he says, “are these…”
Keep winning and losing in perspective
Lead by example
Go for respect over popularity
Value character as well as ability
Work hard but enjoy what you do
It’s here where you realize that the great craftsmen can hold two things to be true at the same time.
Don Shula both chased the perfect season, and had a first principle of keeping wins and losses in perspective. Those two ideas are often seen as competing with each other. Same with hard work and enjoyment. They’re seen as polar opposites, but Shula sees them as working in concert.
This is how you get a team to repeatedly go back to the Super Bowl, instead of falling off a cliff after delivering the perfect season.
And that’s the point here: the Dolphins went back to the Super Bowl again the season after going 17-0. They reached the moon, and went back for more!
Cody's Notes
I’ve knowingly written this post in this way this week. The launch of Artemis II, a mission around the moon, has captivated many, and reinvigorated a long lost sense of discovery that exists deep in humanity.
What’s fascinating about space exploration of this nature is it is (possibly) the most scientific endeavour we can undertake, and yet it pulls on the deepest elements of our collective souls. We admire the teamwork, the bravery, the possibility.
Artemis II comes at a time when sports is losing these same elements. Some sports don’t even believe teamwork exists, we discourage coaches from being brave, and we seem determined to exterminate dreams and possibility from sports because they upset the spreadsheets.
For me, NASA’s mission has reminded us that the best parts of science and humanity can, and should, co-exist.