What the 2022 49ers Have in Common with the Undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins

Behold the blueprint for the 2022 49ers.

Grant Cohn | Sep 3, 2022

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San Francisco 49ers

50 years ago, the Miami Dolphins accomplished the only undefeated season in NFL history, as they went 17-0 and won the Super Bowl. The 49ers happen to have a direct connection to that team.

Brian Griese, the 49ers quarterbacks coach, is the son of Bob Griese, the starting quarterback for the 1972 Dolphins. And while Bob Griese was the Super Bowl winning quarterback that season, he broke his ankle Week 5, and Earl Morrall replaced him for the rest of the regular season and part of the playoffs. Which means the 1972 Dolphins had two starting quarterbacks, kind of like the 2022 49ers, who have Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo.

But Griese and Morrall were not the engine of the Miami offense. In 14 regular season games that year, the Dolphins passed the ball just 259 times, or 18.5 times per game. Meanwhile, they ran the ball a whopping 613 times, or 43.8 times per game. And in the Super Bowl that season, Griese attempted just 11 passes and completed 8 of them, and the Dolphins won 14-7.

Is that not 49ers football, or what?

The 49ers goal the past few seasons has been to run the ball 40 times per game. This season, they actually could accomplish that goal, because they have four good running backs, a quarterback who can run and a wide receiver who can run as well.

The 1972 Dolphins had two 1,000-yard rushers -- Larry Czonka and Mercury Morris. Why can't the 49ers have two 1,000-yard rushers? Why can't the 49ers rush for 3,000 yards in 17 regular season games? The 1972 Dolphins ran for 2,960 in 14 games. Why can't the 49ers win the Super Bowl playing a throwback style of football and emulating arguably the greatest NFL team of all time?

The 1972 Dolphins should be the 2022 49ers blueprint -- run the ball as much as possible.

Most critics of the 2022 49ers focus on their passing game -- is Lance a good enough thrower? Will the offensive line protect him? But that's not the issue. The 2022 49ers will go as far as their running game takes them, and they just might have the best run game in the league.

That doesn't mean the 49ers will be the first undefeated team since the 1972 Dolphins. It does mean the 49ers have a great chance to win a Super Bowl.

Published Sep 3, 2022

GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.