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To: Alberta's Child
You do have an argument with them. If you expand the "team" to include coach, I think those bears beat the 1972 Fish 7/10 times. But you never know. In the Dolphins undefeated season, people forget that one of their closest games was a 14-7 victory over Dallas in Dallas . . . and that Roger had torn up his knee that year and we had Craig (ugh) Morton. A Staubach-led team would have won that game.

Much of the Bears' strength that year was NOT just their terrific defensive players, but a radical defensive scheme by Buddy Ryan that the league had not caught up to. If you notice, however, the league did catch up to it pretty quickly.

18 posted on 01/15/2007 2:09:00 PM PST by LS
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To: LS
The 46 Defense wasn't exactly a radical scheme in 1985. It was originally used by the Bears -- apparently without much success -- back in the late 1970s (the 46 was named after the number worn by defensive back Doug Plank).

The Bears switched to a traditional 4-3 defense immediately after their Super Bowl win in 1985-86, primarily because Buddy Ryan left the team to become the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. Defensively, the Eagles were never as dominant as the Bears had been -- mainly because they simply didn't have the same level of talent as Chicago.

Despite their perfect record, I wouldn't even include the 1972 Dolphins among the top ten teams of all time. They played a very weak schedule that year, and were so unimpressive in running the table that they were actually the underdog in the Super Bowl against Washington.

21 posted on 01/15/2007 2:22:30 PM PST by Alberta's Child (Can money pay for all the days I lived awake but half asleep?)
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