Somewhere, maybe stuffed at the bottom of a dresser drawer, there is an aqua-colored T-shirt. The football helmet design is encircled by four words:

Miami Dolphins

World Champions

Now it's hopelessly too small - and out of place. But it sure was the perfect fit for a sports-crazed 13-year-old boy.

Until this week, those memories seemed like another lifetime ago. Now they are real again. The New England Patriots completed a 16-0 regular season on Saturday night by defeating the New York Giants.

So here come the 1972 Miami Dolphins — the Perfect Dolphins — back in the news. And as usual, they are being portrayed as a group of bitter old men, clinging to the past, probably sticking pins in a Bill Belichick voodoo doll while the champagne chills on ice.

Hey, if the Patriots can actually do this, more power to them. It's a remarkable accomplishment, although it's hardly a feel-good story.

After all, the team was, um, caught cheating, fined an unprecedented $750,000 and stripped of next season's first-round draft pick. Oh, that.

And let's not crown them as the ultimate squad just yet. Let's see how the Patriots perform under playoff pressure.

The other day, somebody said the 2007 Patriots would annihilate the 1972 Dolphins. I say, who cares? Play it on the computer if you must. But the eras are completely different.

It's just another example of how the Perfect Dolphins have become the most disrespected great team in NFL history.

Winning With Execution
There's something special about your childhood team winning a championship, especially when the loyalties began in the AFL era on a 3-10-1 season. When times turned prosperous, there was ownership. And by putting those guys on a pedestal - in my case, it was a Bob Griese poster taped to the closet door - there was the feeling of somehow being part of it all.

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That sensation started drifting away when three Dolphins jumped to the World Football League. Now it's gone completely. The modern-day Dolphins have no meaning for me. In a way, it's kind of like the day you stop believing in Santa Claus. Grown-ups realize these are just ordinary people with extraordinary athletic skills.

But as a kid, the 1972 Dolphins could do no wrong.

What were they like? You might call them an NFL antique.

They were known for clinical 14-play, 80-yard drives, maybe mixing in a pass or two, maybe not, sometimes offering the marquee value of a Belichick news conference.

Larry Csonka, the bullish runner, once picked up a personal-foul penalty while carrying the football as he slammed his forearm into a would-be tackler.

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Paul Warfield was the team's leading receiver — with 29 catches (a month's work for today's elite look-at-me receivers).

The Steel Curtain? The Purple People Eaters? No, the Miami defense had a different nickname, entirely appropriate. The No-Name Defense.

The Dolphins, with Coach Don Shula in charge, won with execution and precision. They didn't make mental errors. The players rarely drew attention to themselves.

Even after all of that - even after 38-year-old Earl Morrall stepped in for the injured Griese at quarterback in Week 5 and kept things rolling - the unbeaten Dolphins were installed as three-point underdogs against Washington in Super Bowl VII.

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"If going unbeaten was that easy, wouldn't a lot of other teams have done it by now?" former Dolphins guard Larry Little said. "We're the only ones."

For now.

Team From A Different Era
The 1972 Dolphins were criticized for playing a light schedule. But remember that essentially the same team returned the following season, went 12-2 against a schedule with five of the other seven playoff teams and repeated as Super Bowl champions.

Remember that they did it with relatively simple formations, some misdirection plays mixed in and a stop-us-if-you-can mentality.

Remember the names: Vern Den Herder. Doug Swift. Jim Kiick. Marlin Briscoe. Mercury Morris. Bill Stanfill.

A different era, indeed.

There was no fantasy football, no 24/7 dissection of NFL games. I remember going to the out-of-town newsstand and poring over days-old game accounts from The Miami Herald. A lot was just left to the imagination.

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Now all things Patriots are just, well, in your face. Except, of course, when it matters the most.

Saturday night's game, a historic occasion for the league, will be carried on the NFL Network, available in about one-third of all U.S. households. That is an insult to the millions of fans who helped popularize the sport. The NFL has gone the way of pay-per-view professional boxing.

I know what the 13-year-old in me is saying — Go, Giants!

The grown-up version: Any NFL team that goes 16-0 deserves deep respect. That accomplishment will last forever. And it won't diminish what happened in 1972.

The Dolphins were the first. In some hearts, they will always be the best.

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