For the past 53 years, legend has it that the surviving members of the 1972 Super Bowl Champion Miami Dolphins pop open a bottle of Champagne each year when the final NFL team loses its first game of the season. The 1972 Dolphins, of course, are the last team to make it through the entirety of an NFL season without a loss or tie. The bubbly flowed early this season following a pair of Week 5 upsets by the Denver Broncos (21-17 on the road over previously unbeaten Philadelphia) and the New England Patriots (23-20 on the road over the unbeaten Buffalo Bills).
Sadly, one of the members of the ’72 Dolphins not toasting their achievement is the the man who came off the bench and guided them to 11 of their 17 victories that season, Earl Morrall.
Morrall died in April 2014 and was later diagnosed as suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) which has been found in nearly 90% of the brains of former NFL players studied by Boston University. CTE’s symptoms include memory loss and depression. Per his family, Morrall struggled with Parkinson’s disease. A link between CTE and Parkinson’s has been identified by BU researchers (findings here).
Morrall was the second overall selection by the San Francisco 49ers out of Michigan State University in 1956 NFL Draft. Though he never quite caught on as an NFL starter (he started just 40% of his 255 career regular-season games), he became one of the game’s premiere backup QBs.
Four seasons before this photo of Morrall was captured during a playoff win against Cleveland, Morrall was in his first year as Johnny Unitas‘ understudy for the Baltimore Colts‘, Morrall came on after Unitas was injured in the opener and led the Don Shula-coached Colts to the Super Bowl where it lost to Joe Namath‘s New York Jets, 16-7.
The circumstances were eerily similar in 1972 when Morrall rejoined his former coach in Miami. Claimed by Miami off waivers for just $100, Shula was tickled to have someone like Morrall available when Dolphins’ starting quarterback, Bob Griese, went down in the fifth game of the season with a broken right fibula and dislocated right ankle. Enter Morrall, who despite being 38 at the time, started the final eight games of the regular season and each of the first two playoff games, before giving way to a now-healthy Griese for the Super Bowl matchup with the Washington Redskins, which Miami won, 14-7.
For his play that season, Morrall was named to the Associated Press’ All-NFL First Team and was the runner-up in both the MVP and Offensive Player of the Year awards (Washington’s Larry Brown claimed both).
Because the NFL doesn’t like to let us non-NFL rights paying folk embed their videos on our website, I invite you learn more about Morrall at this link.
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