‘72 Dolphins need a fourth-quarter comeback to edge Vikings in closest call of the season
DOLPHINS 16, OILERS 14 (Oct. 1, 1972)
They were only 2-0 so nobody was thinking about any kind of a Perfect Season yet when the Dolphins traveled to Minnesota to take on a powerful Vikings team at Metropolitan Stadium.
But when it was all over four months later, this was easily the closest the Dolphins came to losing a game. Only once all season did Miami trail in a game with less than four minutes left and this was the one.
But, with just 2:11 left, the ball at his 41 and his team trailing 14-9 against one of the best defenses in the league, Bob Griese put together one of the more clutch drives of the season as marched the Dolphins 59 yards in six plays to find the end zone.
A perfectly executed fake handoff to Larry Csonka by Griese that froze Viking linebackers left tight end Jim Mandich alone in the back of the end zone for a 3-yard score with 1:28 left that proved to be the game winner.
Two big passes to Howard Twilley of 8 and 17 yards preceded the score before Lloyd Mumphord picked off a Hail Mary pass from Fran Tarkenton on the game’s final play to seal the win.
“When we had to have great defense, we had it, when we had to have a score, we got it and when we had to have 10 points, we scored 10 points,” coach Don Shula said after the game.
“You can talk until you’re blue in the face about performance under pressure and coming from behind but until you do it and succeed, it doesn’t mean anything.”
The 10 points Shula referred to was the fact that the Dolphins trailed 14-6 when they took over at their own 20 with 9:35 left in the game and still needed two scores (remember, there was no two-point conversion back then) to take the lead..
On third-and-25 from their 34, the Dolphins hit for a 22-yard gain to the Viking 44 leaving them with a fourth-and-three. In a one possession game, Shula probably goes for it but needing a field goal anyway, he sent Garo Yepremian out for a long 51-yard attempt (it wasn’t until 1974 that the goal posts were moved to the back of the end zone) and he nailed what would turn out to be his longest field goal of the season making it 14-9 with 4:15 left.
The defense then came through with a three-and-out setting the stage for the winning drive.
This story was originally published September 28, 2022 at 8:15 AM.