Pope: Del Gaizo gets last laugh on Patriots as Shula wins 100th in a 1972 Dolphins cakewalk | Opinion
Don Shula wasn’t thinking about his 100th pro football victory when he coached his first with the Baltimore Colts in 1963.
But Jim Del Gaizo was thinking about quarterbacking the Boston Patriots. He was 16 years old and playing high school ball in suburban Revere, Mass., when Shula began his historic record.
Sunday, it was a tossup (the only one besides the coin-toss in Miami’s 52-0 skunking of New England) as to whether Shula was happier to win No. 100 or Del Gaizo to finally score in the National Football League, and against the idols of his youth at that.
“I used to go to all the Patriots games,” the 25 year-old Del Gaizo said after the Dolphins’ ninth straight triumph. “Then after I got out of the University of Tampa in 1970, I wasn’t drafted, and I begged the Patriots for a chance. I phoned them. I had my Tampa coach [Fran Curci] call them. I even had my high school coach call them. They said, no, I was left-handed, and besides I wasn’t a pro prospect.”
The Patriots didn’t look like pro prospects Sunday in the Orange Bowl. Del Gaizo did. He “got his feet wet,” as Shula put it, by winging touchdown passes of 51 yards to Marlin Briscoe and 39 to Jim Mandich after Earl Morrall had retired to the bench with a 38-0 cushion.
Del Gaizo was holding delighted court for newsmen afterward when Bob Griese limped by.
“Hey, Big Time!” the injured Griese shouted at Del Gaizo.
“Yeah,” Del Gaizo beamed. “Ain’t this a gas?”
Del Gaizo said, “My touchdowns didn’t really mean anything in the game. But they meant a lot to me. I needed the experience. I knew I’d get to play sooner or later this season after Griese got hurt. However, I figured it would be after we’d clinched a place in the playoffs, that Shula would use me for Morrall just for safety’s sake.”
Someone asked Del Gaizo if he felt handicapped by having to work with reserve receivers.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “Otto Stowe, Marlin Briscoe and Jim Mandich... they’d be regulars on most other teams in the NFL. Besides, I’m more comfortable throwing to them than I would be to Paul Warfield and Howard Twilley because I’ve worked more with the backup guys.”
The Dolphins handed Shula the game ball. He was properly grateful but carefully returned to his theme that “the game ball I really want is at the end of the season.”
Meaning Super Bowl VII.
Shula bent over in his dressing cubicle to peel a wad of tape from his shoe. That was his toughest job all day. Mainly he made sure he cleared the bench against the Patriots, the saddest sacks seen on such a site in seasons and seasons.
“I’m proud of my 100th, and I’m grateful to great staffs and players I’ve had at Baltimore and Miami,” Shula said. “But it won’t be nearly as meaningful if it doesn’t fit into a world championship.”
And the pressure” of the nine-game streak?
“No pressure on that,” he said. “The pressure is to win the championship.”
Mercury Morris came out of the laugher with his seventh and eighth and ninth touchdowns. The total is almost double his count for his first three seasons with the Dolphins.
“Sure I know that,” Morris said. “I keep count.
“I’m thinking touchdown all the time. I don’t know if I really can explain why we do so well running to our left at the goal. Maybe it’s because going to the left you have a better chance to either sprint out or cut back. If you’re running to the right, the defense has men out wide to make you cut back, because they know most offenses are right-handed.
“But if you run to the left, you often have a little better shot to go wide. On my first touchdown, I knew I’d score the minute I touched the ball.”
A group of cynical New England visitors had drawn up a $1-apiece pool on how long it would take the Dolphins to score against the Patriots’ tissue defense. Every man in the pool picked the first quarter. The one who specified four minutes came closest.
Safety Dick Anderson’s interception and 22-yard return to the 4-yard-line set up Morris’ first touchdown after only 1:58.
Anderson’s wife, Lois, had missed his earlier big play of the year. When he scored against San Diego on a 35-yard run with a fumble, the missus had been out of her seat, telephoning home to check on the condition of a slightly ill child.
“I assume she saw this one,” Anderson said.
And what, Anderson was asked, does a defense think about when it has the other team down 31-0 at half?
“Not letting them get 32 in the second half,” Anderson smiled.
Everybody smiles when they’re on the heavy end of 52-zip.