Don Shula, centre, coached the Miami Dolphins to the only undefeated season in NFL history, but the New England Patriots could equal that feat this Sunday. (Associated Press)

Watching the New England Patriots' inexorable march to an unbeaten season has made me nostalgic for another team of destiny whose pursuit of perfection 35 years ago was much less ballyhooed, let alone celebrated. In fact, I've been finding myself reminiscing over my first crush on the NFL.

It was the fall of 1972 in St. John's. I was heading into Grade 10 and I'd become a newly minted fan of the Kansas City Chiefs. How you might wonder would a 14-year-old Canadian teenager choose an obscure team from the American Midwest?

Well, it was because of a story I'd read that year in Newsweek magazine by its legendary sportswriter, Pete Axthelm. The piece was called "A Kick That Failed" and it told the tortured tale of Jan Stenerud, the Chiefs' superb kicker.

Pity for Stenerud

Stenerud was an integral part of Kansas City's Super Bowl victory over Minnesota in 1970, kicking three field goals including a 48-yarder that was a record for more than a decade. But on Christmas Day 1971, Stenerud was the goat as Miami beat Kansas City 27-24 in what was up to that time, the longest game in NFL history.

Stenerud missed two field goals in regulation time including one in the final minute that would've won the game. He had another blocked in overtime. The Dolphins' Garo Yepremian kicked the winner and sent Miami on to an eventual Super Bowl annihilation by Dallas. Stenerud was mortified and vilified.

I felt so sorry for the Chiefs' kicker and so angry with his critics that I decided the Chiefs would be my team. Soon my bedroom walls were decorated with posters of K.C.'s Len Dawson, their elegant but aging quarterback, and Otis Taylor – a big, hulking wide receiver who was the prototype for Terrell Owens, Randy Moss and others.

Kicker Jan Stenerud, right, was vilified for missed two field goals that would've beaten Miami on Christmas Day in 1971. (Associated Press)

Envious friends

That summer, a family friend who worked at CBC suggested we write all the NFL clubs asking for publicity material because the network carried a few regular-season and playoff games along with the Super Bowl. Yes, the CBC showed the big game back then.

It was a ruse but it worked. Within weeks, we were inundated with pennants, photos, postcards, stickers and a variety of other material from almost all 26 clubs. We practically wallpapered our basement in a vibrant football collage that was the envy of my pals.

My older brother, who'd been a Cowboys fan since the days of Don Meredith, was excited by my new passion for the NFL, and he created a poster with all six divisions and a week-by-week graph that we'd use to track how each club did every week.

Now, you have to remember, there was no cable TV in those days and we had no access to American television channels in the mouth of the North Atlantic. When CBC did start showing NFL games, it was only after the CFL season was done, so usually the final two weeks of the regular season.

But that didn't stop us from following the action. We'd listen to games on shortwave ..."This is the American Forces Radio and Television Service ... Lindsay Nelson and Tony Roberts from Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colorado ..." We'd tune in Monday Night games that way too. They'd start at 10:30, so I'd stay up for the first quarter then pack it in because it was a school night. The static was so familiar after awhile that I sort of missed it when my shortwave season was done.

We'd update our basement chart every week. Each team had 14 little squares representing every game of the regular season. A winning square would be coloured red, a loss in blue and a tie, green.

Dolphins efficient but boring

Miami had beaten my Chiefs, then lost to my brother's beloved Cowboys in the Super Bowl the previous season, so everyone knew they were good. As the weeks wore on and the leaves turned, the Dolphins had one red square after another. One of their closest games came early against the Minnesota Vikings and Fran Tarkenton. But Miami squeaked out a win. They beat Joe Namath and the New York Jets twice, though Broadway Joe was a handful.

Unlike Tom Brady's bunch in New England, the Dolphins were efficient but boring, rarely destroying teams. They were led by Earl Morrall, an Andy Griffith-type compared to Brady's Matt Dillon. And as great as Miami's defence was, something called "The No-Name Defence" isn't necessarily going to inspire T-shirt sales.

Perhaps that's why I do recall a lack of buzz about what the Dolphins were doing. One obvious reason is that the scale of media coverage of sports was minuscule compared to today. No ESPN, no FOX SPORTS, no sports talk radio. Baseball, not football, was America's favourite sport, and the Super Bowl itself was still relatively new and hadn't assumed its place in American popular culture.

The best example of the media's indifference to the Dolphins' chase was that Sports Illustrated didn't put them on the cover until they won the AFC Championship in January after they'd won 15 straight. This season, the Pats made the cover three times plus one with coach Bill Belichick and that was before the playoffs had started.

Football history

I listened to Miami's first playoff game against Cleveland on shortwave. I remember the Browns mostly because they had a wide receiver named Fair Hooker. It was not an overwhelming Dolphins win, but it kept them unbeaten and sent them into that AFC Championship game where they struggled and prevailed against the emerging Pittsburgh Steelers and Terry Bradshaw 35 years ago this month.

The rest as you know is pro football history ... Yepremian's botched field goal prevented Miami from shutting out Washington, but the team still captured the Super Bowl with a 14-7 win to finish a perfect 17-0. Were there massive headlines? Was there exhaustive coverage in the lead-up to the Super Bowl and after? Not that I recall. In fact, Sports Illustrated's highly regarded football writer Tex Maule, wrote one three-page piece on the game for the magazine.

When the Pats win, and I know this like I know it takes three cans of water to make orange juice, there will be 10 pages on the game and the achievement. There will be hours devoted to New England and their place in sports history in the days before and after kickoff.

And I'll be watching. Like I did in January 1973. So will Bob Griese and Morrall, Dick Anderson and Jake Scott, and the rest of that Dolphins team we tracked from a distant place so long ago.

I just wish we had kept that poster.