{"id":87370,"date":"2020-05-04T12:08:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T16:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=87370"},"modified":"2020-05-04T12:08:15","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T16:08:15","slug":"don-shula-miami-dolphins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2020\/05\/04\/don-shula-miami-dolphins\/","title":{"rendered":"Don Shula Has Passed Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/dolphins\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Miami Dolphins<\/a> coach <strong>Don Shula<\/strong> passed away peacefully at his home Monday morning, according to a Dolphins statement.<\/p>\n<h2>Don Shula Has Passed Away<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;Don Shula was the patriarch of the Miami Dolphins for 50 years,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MiamiDolphins\/status\/1257313831849611264\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the statement said.<\/a> &#8220;He brought the winning edge to our franchise and put the Dolphins and the city of Miami in the national sports scene. Our deepest thoughts and prayers go out to Mary Anne along with his children Dave, Donna, Sharon, Anne, and Mike.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Shula, 90 years old, coached the Dolphins from 1970 to 1995. During that stretch, he was a four-time NFL coach of the year and won two Super Bowls. The 1972 Miami Dolphins went 14-0 and they are still the only team in NFL history to complete an undefeated season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was probably the most special moment in my coaching career because I was 0-2 in my previous Super Bowls and I didn\u2019t want to be 0-3,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/sports\/nfl\/miami-dolphins\/article242480281.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shula said to the Miami Herald<\/a>. \u201cPeople start to say bad things about you like you can\u2019t win the big game. And that\u2019s not a nice thing to have people say about you. So it was great. It took me off the hook.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before his tenure with the Dolphins, the legendary coach was the defensive coordinator for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/lions\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Detroit Lions<\/a> (1960-1962) and the head coach of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/colts\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Baltimore Colts<\/a> (1963-1969). Shula coached five different quarterbacks to Super Bowl appearances, including <strong>Johnny Unitas, Bob Griese, David Woolley, and Dan Marino.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Shula still holds the record for the most regular season (328) and career (348) wins as a head coach.<\/p>\n<p>As a player, Shula was a defensive back for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/browns\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cleveland Browns<\/a>, Baltimore Colts and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/redskins\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Washington Redskins<\/a>. He had 21 career interceptions during his time in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>Shula was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997. His legacy is forever enshrined in professional football and that will live on through his two sons, Mike and Dave. The former is the current quarterbacks coach for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/broncos\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Denver Broncos<\/a> while the latter served as the head coach of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/bengals\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> from 1992 to 1996.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"y6xUQvWHSGlWJlRXwJg6nQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/472760882\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'y6xUQvWHSGlWJlRXwJg6nQ',sig:'KXX_3ctKf2IXYh0_riMk0GXC-gPHIVOrq_iHEpPLsYA=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'472760882',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 90 years old, Don Shula peacefully passed away on Monday morning. He leaves behind a legacy as the winningest head coach in NFL history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2640,"featured_media":87375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"317","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,4],"tags":[4112,61,89,40],"class_list":["post-87370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-dolphins","tag-don-shula","tag-football","tag-miami-dolphins","tag-nfl"],"modified_by":"Justin Patrick, Site Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2640"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}