Coach Don Shula after the Dolphins finished the 1972 season undefeated.

Journal Files

“They have 10 more icebergs to go through in this Titanic trip that they’re talking about. So far, nobody has made it across except us. So we’re over, docked here, waiting on you. I respect the Patriots if they do that. But don’t call me when you’re in my town, call me when you’re on my block and I see you next door moving your furniture in.”

— Mercury Morris, Nov. 15

The moving trucks are turning the corner, Mercury. Better start shopping for a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift.

Last month, when the New England Patriots were just 9-0 and headed into Buffalo, Morris stepped back into the spotlight, thanks to the above quote provided for the television cameras as he came off a golf course.

But as New England prepares to face the Miami Dolphins this afternoon, they are 14-0, and the possibility of them going undefeated, at least in the regular season, seems much more possible than it did five weeks ago.

For 35 years, the 1972 Miami Dolphins have been the proud owners of the first undefeated season in National Football League history. Every season, when the final team in the league takes its first loss, thus preserving their unique distinction, members of that ’72 team get together and toast themselves.

But this season, their bubbly is still on ice.

And clearly, it’s not easy letting go of something you’ve held onto for so long.

“The saying is, ‘Any given Sunday.’ Ours is, ‘Every given Sunday. And Monday,’ ” Morris said Friday night from his Miami-area home. “If they pull up to our bumper, they can have the same bumper sticker. “Notice I said, ‘pull up to our bumper.’ ”

Once college football’s all-time leading rusher while at West Texas A&M, Morris was one of two 1,000-yard rushers on the 1972 Dolphins, along with Larry Csonka. The 5-foot-10 scatback had a team-high 12 touchdowns that season, and went to three Pro Bowls in an eight-year career.

Now 60, Morris has seemingly relished his opportunity to be the spokesman for his legendary team, and admits that he likes to rib the 2007 Pats.

He does acknowledge, however, that they are the class of the NFL right now.

Yet he is fiercely protective of his team’s accomplishment.

“You can only get your first home run once,” Morris said. “Prior to 1972, the term ‘perfect season’ did not exist. …The perfect season didn’t exist then. That didn’t exist then. We invented the perfect season, and that’s not an Al Gore deal.”

While Morris enjoys poking fun at these Patriots, he does not envy the circumstances under which they are pursuing their undefeated season. No one expected the Dolphins to go without a loss in 1972, and in fact, they were not favored in Super Bowl VII against the Redskins. Dozens of media outlets are chronicling New England, whether in print, on television, or online, and the team has been the popular choice as best in the NFL since March.

While the Patriots should beat the Dolphins today and the Giants on Saturday in the regular-season finale, Morris cautions that getting the final two wins will not be as easy as it seems, as Miami and New York will be playing for the fame of being the team to end the Pats’ pursuit.

“The media has it as a cakewalk, but this is a gauntlet,” he said. “They have a tough road to go.”

When Miami assembled at the start of the 1972 season, Morris said, it had but one goal: redemption. The team had played in Super Bowl VI, but lost, 24-3, to Roger Staubach and the Cowboys, and their quest was to go back to the championship game and win.

That they didn’t lose a game along the way was happenstance.

Though, like these Patriots, the Dolphins dominated statistically, there was some luck involved, too. in Week Three, they had a come-from-behind win over Minnesota, 16-14, and in Week Six, they squeaked by Buffalo, thanks to nose tackle Manny Fernandez.

“Manny broke through as the quarterback handed the ball to Juice (O.J. Simpson), and it looked like he handed the ball right to Manny,” Morris recalled. “If that doesn’t happen, we’re not talking right now. By the same token, if that guy (Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan) doesn’t call that timeout in Baltimore, we’re not talking right now.”

Ryan’s timeout in the closing minutes four weeks ago negated a fourth-down stop by the Ravens’ defense and New England went on to score the winning touchdown.

To Morris, though, all of the Patriots’ wins in the regular season will be for naught if they don’t win the Super Bowl.

“Please — it makes it all for nothing,” he said. “That’s the paramount question. Our motivation was not to go undefeated, it was to redeem ourselves from getting our butts handed to us in Super Bowl VI. We just happened to go undefeated.

“The 16 straight in ’72 was just to play in one, and if we don’t play in that game, our season means nothing.”

Though Morris and other members of the ’72 Dolphins seem loathe to share their mantle of undefeatedness, there would be something positive to come out of it, Morris notes.

“Right now, we’re Tom Hanks, stranded on that island,” he said. “If they come to the island so we’re both marooned on this undefeated island, it won’t be so bad because at least we’ll have someone to talk to.”Patriots vs. Dolphins

• TIME: 4:15 p.m.

• SITE: Gillette Stadium.

• TV: CBS (over-the-air Channel 12, Cox Channel 12, Cox HD Channel 701).

• ANNOUNCERS: Jim Nantz and Phil Simms.

• TEAM RECORDS: Patriots 14-0, Dolphins 1-13.

• THE LINE: Pats by 22.

smanza@projo.com