Don Shula and Big Games

To become a legendary coach, you have to have your team in the position to play in some important games. Don Shula did this not with just one team, but had two different franchises in the Super Bowl. We take a look at these and more big games that Don Shula coached in.

Don Shula is one of the most iconic coaching legends of all time. The man simply knew how to collect talented players and staff and then could formulate schemes and strategies to put them in the best position to win football games.

Let's start our dicussion of the Big games of Shula with the November 14, 1993 game of the Dolphins against the Philadelphia Eagles. Don Shula, then with the Miami Dolphins, earned his 325th win in his 31st year as a head coach. In doing so, he passed George Halas, who won 324 games in 40 years as the Chicago Bears' coach. Shula ended his coaching woth 328 "W's." Think about that for a second. According to Guiding Metrics.com, 

"The average tenure for an NFL coach is approximately just 3.2 years."

To put that into context, the two winningest active head coaches -- Bill Belichick has won 321 games and Andy Reid with 233 victories as of the end of the 2021 season -- are respectively 7 and 95 regular-season wins behind Shula. Coach Belichick may catch Shula very soon but let's focus on the Big Games that the Colts and Dolphins headman was involved in.

Among all of those great victories, Shula was on the wrong side of one of the greatest upsets in league history, as his heavily favored Colts were upset by the Jets in Super Bowl III. He had  plenty of memorable ones too.

• The December 29, 1968 NFL Championship game in Cleveland. The Browns were a team that Shula and the Colts had to contend with many times. Balltimore was pretty good in 1968, haiving a regular season record of 13-1 and a margin of victory of 18 points. The Colts' only loss was a loss to the Cleveland Browns in Week 6. However, Baltimore got revenge in the NFL Championship Game with a 34-0 beatdown of Cleveland earning them the right to play the New York Jets in Super Bowl III.
• In just Shula's second season of the Baltimore Colts, he led them to a 12-2 record in 1964. Baltimore clinched the Western Conference with a 24-7 win over the Los Angeles Rams. It has to be remembered that at that time there was only one playoff game and then the two conference champions playing for the NFL title. The Colts would be knocked off by the Cleveland Browns 24-0 in the NFL Championship Game, but they were an up and coming team with a new coach.
• He aided in a quick turn around in South Florida too.  A game January 2, 1972 at the Orange Bowl had the Dolphins defeat Shula's former team the Colts 21-0 to punch their ticket to play in Super Bowl VI. It was a big victory because remember just a few seasons earlier the Miami Dolphins had gone 3-10-1 in 1969 an when Shula took over as head coach in 1970 they went 10-4.  He turned the team around and put them in the Super Bowl in his second season but the Dolphins lost to the Dallas Cowboys 24-3 in Super Bowl VI.
• Super Bowl VII was a Miami 14-7 triumph over Washington on January 14, 1973. This was the game that would end the famous 1972 Undefeated Season of the Miami Dolphins and garner them gridiron immortality as they survived the late heroics of Washington in a 14-7 final score.
• Super Bowl VIII played on January 13, 1974 at the Houston Astrodome was pretty memorable. Miami coasted to a 24-7 victory as Larry Csonka ran for 145 yards and the Dolphins No-Name Defense held the Minnesota Vikings to a mere 238 yards. The win marked Miami's second straight Super Bowl victory.
• In 1983 he tok a team that had second year QB in Dan Marino and led them to the Super Bowl XIX against the San Francosco 49ers coached by Bill Walsh and had Joe Montana in his prime as the signal caller. The Niners won that game 38-16.
• Preserving the prominance of the '72 team by knocking off the Bears on Dec. 2, 1985 in Miami. Those 1985 Chicago Bears were a very good football team with a staunch defense and Walter Payton hauling the rock. They would have gone undefeated too on their Super Bowl run had it not been for the Dolphins. The Bears entered the Orange Bowl Stadium for a "Monday Night Football" showdown having blanketed the Dallas Cowboys 44-0 and the Atlanta Falcons 36-0 in the previous two weeks. Looking on to help spur the 1983 Phins were players from the 1972 Dolphins who stood on the sidelines as Dan Marino threw three touchdown passes in a 38-24 upset of Chicago.

In his record-setting career, Shula's teams had regular-season wins over nine Hall of Fame coaches, including Halas, Vince Lombardi, Tom Landry, Chuck Noll and Bill Walsh. Shula's teams were 40-21 against those nine coaches.

The picture in the banner above is from the Wikipedia Commons photo collection of the Public Domain of a football card from the 1986 Jeno's Pizza NFL football card stickers set of Miami Dolphins running back Jim Kiick rushing the ball against the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII. The card is numbered #33 in the set.
The back of the card reads: IT WAS THE END OF A PERFECT SEASON

Miami running back Jim Kiick follows guard Bob Kuechenberg (67) through a big hole, as the Dolphins beat Washington in Super Bowl VII. Miami's 14-7 victory over the Redskins completed the only perfect-record season in NFL history. Don Shula's team finished 17-0.

Special thanks to Athlon Sports, Pro-Football-Reference.com, and Miami Dolphins.com