The 1980 Miami Dolphins season was the 15th year of existence for the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

franchise. Quarterback Bob Griese retired after the season, following a 14-year career with the Dolphins. However, in Griese's final season the Dolphins would only play mediocre football finishing in third place with an 8-8 record. This was also the first season since

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

that the Dolphins lost to the Buffalo Bills. For the season, the Dolphins switched the color of the facemasks on their helmets from gray to teal. No Dolphins made it to the Pro Bowl for the second consecutive season.

Offseason

NFL draft

Personnel

Staff

Roster

Regular season

The 1980 NFL season would see the Dolphins drop to an 8–8 record, from their AFC East division winning 10–6 showing the previous year. Quarterback Bob Griese, who struggled with leg problems during 1979, lost the starting job to longtime backup

Don Strock Donald Joseph Strock (born November 27, 1950) is a former American football player and coach. He played professionally as a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) with the Miami Dolphins (1973–1987), Cleveland Browns (1988), and Ind ...

, but he did poorly in two games, leading the Dolphins to return to Griese for Week 3. In Week 5, however, Griese suffered a career-ending shoulder injury against the Baltimore Colts and was succeeded by

David Woodley David Eugene Woodley (October 25, 1958 – May 4, 2003) was an American football player, a quarterback in the National Football League for the Miami Dolphins (1980–1983), and the Pittsburgh Steelers (1984–1985). He played college football ...

, a rookie fresh from

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

. Their week 1 loss to the Buffalo Bills was the Dolphins' first loss to that team since 1969, snapping a 20 game winning streak for Miami in the Bills-Dolphins rivalry. After the win, Bills fans rushed the field and tore down the goalposts. This was also Don Shula's first loss to Buffalo in 21 career games against them. The final game of the season was played against the New York Jets on December 20.

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

tried a novel experiment by broadcasting the game with no commentators, and with none of the players or staff wearing microphones. The effect was to give television viewers the feel of actually being in the stadium. To date, this was the only NFL game ever aired on TV without commentaries. The Jets won by a score of 24–17, though both teams had already been eliminated from playoff contention. It was during the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

broadcast of the ''

Monday Night Football ''ESPN Monday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''MNF'' and also known as ''ESPN Monday Night Football on ABC'' for simulcasts) is an American live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games currently airing on ESPN, A ...

'' game on December 8, 1980, against the Patriots that

Howard Cosell Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also probabl ...

announced that

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...

had been shot and killed.

Schedule

Note: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.

Game summaries

Week 1 at Bills

Week 7 vs Bills

Week 14: vs. New England Patriots

* Source:''
Pro-Football-Reference.com
The Dolphins got revenge from their 34-0 shellacking in Foxborough back in October. The Patriots clawed to a 13–6 lead in the fourth quarter, then the Dolphins forced overtime with a

throw to

Nat Moore Nat or NAT may refer to: Computing * Network address translation (NAT), in computer networking Organizations * National Actors Theatre, New York City, U.S. * National AIDS trust, a British charity * National Archives of Thailand * National A ...

in the fourth. John Smith attempted to kick the game-winning field goal, but had the kick blocked, then

Uwe von Schamann Uwe Detlef Walter von Schamann (born April 23, 1956) is a former professional American football placekicker. He played for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League, from 1979 to 1984. Early life Von Schamann was born in Berlin, West ...

of the Dolphins won it with a 23-yard field goal in the extra quarter. The game, though, became overshadowed by

's announcement that

had been shot and killed.

Standings

References

External links

1980 Miami Dolphins
at Pro-Football-Reference.com

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

Miami Dolphins seasons

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