The toasts have become a ritual. After the last undefeated team in the NFL loses a game each season, members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins have been known to raise a beverage to commemorate another year passing that they remain the lone unbeaten and untied team in NFL history.
Now, there's yet another team threatening to join the Dolphins at the top of Mount Perfect. Four years after New England faltered after getting to 18-0 and two years after Indianapolis stumbled following a 14-0 start and New Orleans after a 13-0 spurt, it's the Green Bay Packers. They're 9-0 and wiping foes out by an average of 14.9 points per game.
But, get this. If the Packers go undefeated, former Dolphins running back Mercury Morris is still planning to hoist a glass.
"If they do it, I will toast them," said Morris, whose 1972 outfit went 14-0 in the regular season before tacking on three playoff wins to finish 17-0.
Wait a minute. This is coming from Morris, who sounded off against the Patriots regularly in a 2007 season that saw them stumble at the finish line with a 17-14 Super Bowl XLII loss to the New York Giants. This is the same Morris who gained a measure of fame for continuously saying, "Don't call me when you're in my town, call me when you're on my block?"
Indeed it is.
"I like [the Packers]. If they get to 10-0, which they probably will, I'm going to send [quarterback] Aaron Rodgers one of my CDs," said Morris, a 1,000-yard rusher during the perfect season who has written a song about it he'll gladly sell you for $19.72. "I have nothing but good things to say about the Packers. If they [end up] in our neighborhood, they're a credit to the sport. They don't have a bunch of guys out there who view themselves as entertainers.
"I didn't like the way [the Patriots] came across [four years ago]. They thought it was just a formality [finishing 19-0] … They were too much in your face. They wanted you to bow down to them and kiss the king's ring."
But there would be no championship ring that season. Morris gleefully likened their final loss to the 1912 sinking of the Titanic.
Now, 100 years after that, the Packers will try to have made a safe sailing by February to 19-0. But not everybody off the 1972 Dolphins is being so gracious.
"I'd rather have us stay on the perch as the only one to do it," said defensive end Bill Stanfill, who admitted his Dolphins "got lucky" in Super Bowl XLII thanks to the Giants' improbable comeback.
"I hope our record stands," safety Dick Anderson said. "They say all records are made to be broken, but I wouldn't be a competitor if I said I hope they do it."
It was Anderson who started the toasting ritual in 1991, when Washington jumped out 11-0 before losing to Dallas. Anderson lived four doors down in Coral Gables, Fla., from former Dolphins linebacker Nick Buoniconti.
"I walked down the street to his house with a bottle of champagne," Anderson said.
Buoniconti since has moved, but Anderson said some years he'll have a toast at the golf course with whoever might be playing. He said he once sent a case of champagne to the San Diego Chargers after their first loss of the season, presumably when they stumbled in 1994 after a 6-0 start.
Of course, that was quite modest with the run the Patriots had four years ago.
"The most important thing that has ever happened in my life is us having the perfect season," said Bob Kuechenberg, then a Dolphins guard. "The second most important thing is what happened when the Patriots lost in the Super Bowl, preserving us as the only perfect season."
Kuechenberg, who watched that game alone in South Florida, toasted their loss with a beer. Stanfill, who watched in Georgia with buddies after a day of quail hunting, also hoisted a beer.
But here come the Packers, who are big favorites at home Sunday against Tampa Bay. Then they have tough games Nov. 24 (Thanksgiving) at Detroit and Dec. 4 at the New York Giants.
If they get past those two, the rest of the schedule is manageable, with three of their final four regular-season games at home and the road game at so-so Kansas City. But it remains to be seen what the Packers might do regarding resting players.
"I've been watching them, and they're a pretty special team," said Jim Kiick, a Dolphins running back in 1972. "I think Aaron Rodgers is by far the best quarterback in the NFL. … If it happens [that the Packers go undefeated], it happens. They still have a long ways to go. … If they go undefeated, we'll just put another chair at the top of the mountain."
Kiick has been watching the Packers regularly this season and plans to continue to do so. As for Manny Fernandez, a defensive tackle on the perfect team, he's not quite as up to speed.
"They're 9-0?" Fernandez said. "Last I heard they were 5-0. I've been deer hunting in Wyoming and now I'm out hunting in Missouri. I haven't seen a paper. But I'll be back home [in Ellaville, Ga.] by Thanksgiving."
If the Packers are still undefeated then, the media onslaught should really pick up. Count on plenty of hype heading into the game at New York.
The Giants are quite adept at stopping long winning streaks. Not only did they defeat the mighty Patriots, they beat Denver after the Broncos started 13-0 in 1998.
"It's fun and it's entertaining," Kuechenberg said of the media coverage whenever a team starts an NFL season with an impressive streak. "If [the Packers] get to 10 and 11 and 12 [wins], all you guys will be calling. They're a great team. They won the Super Bowl last year with seven or eight of their [top] players not healthy. … But at this point, it still will be unbelievably hard [to go undefeated]. They're mortal."
And the Dolphins weren't?
"Nobody could conceive an undefeated season would ever have been done by mortals," said Kuechenberg, whose ’72 Dolphins outscored foes by an average of 15.2 points. "Only Zeus, Greek gods and [coach] Don Shula have been able to do it."
From 1920-32, when there were no playoffs, four teams won championships without losing a game, but had at least one tie. That included the 1929 Packers, who finished 12-0-1 and claimed their first of 13 titles.
Since playoffs started in 1933, only the 1934 Chicago Bears (13-0), 1942 Bears (11-0), 1972 Dolphins and 2007 Patriots (16-0) have had spotless regular seasons. But all faltered in the title game except Miami, which beat the Redskins 14-7 in Super Bowl VII.
"Our record is 90 years old," Anderson said. "It's not 40 years old."
Anderson grudgingly admits the Packers have a "really good chance" and have "got all the parts" to make a run at also being undefeated. But he says it will be important to stay healthy.
If the wins continue, Morris will be watching with interest and apparently avoiding trash talking. But there's one thing he doesn't want to listen to if the Packers don't lose a game.
"I don't want to hear from the pundits that they're going to pass us," Morris said. "We were the first team to do it. They'd be the second team. They won't be better than us just because they won 19 games."
But they would not only be on Morris' block, they'd be in his living room.
Chris Tomasson can be reached at christomasson@hotmail.com
or on Twitter @christomasson
