Super Bowl XLII: The Story of Perfection

Super Bowl XLII has more story lines than a daytime soap opera during sweeps week. Of course most of the story lines spawn from the New England Patriots being one big game away from completing the perfect championship season. There has only been one team to do it before. That team is the 72 Dolphins. With a record current record of 18-0, the patriots have already won more games than the 72 Dolphins.

For the Patriots to run the table they would have to surpass the Dolphins record of 17-0 (including the pre season record) with a record of 19-0. In 1972 the NFL regular season was 2 games shorter. With that said a loss in the Super Bowl would end the Patriots record at 18-1 and that is not perfect. Although a perfect regular season is as rare as an honest politician, it's club still isn't as exclusive as the undefeated championship season. If you were to ask any member of the Patriots they would tell you the perfect season and the 50+ individual and team records they broke are no more than empty achievements in the absence of a championship.

It has often been reported that the surviving members of the 72 Dolphins would gather to celebrate with champagne when the final undefeated team lost its first game, or that the team would send a case of champagne to the team that beat the final undefeated team. The head coach of the 1972 Dolphins, Don Shula, denied this in a 2007 interview with ESPN.