No One Believed These Nick Buoniconti Stories! Until They Watched This!
Legends of the Game of Inches
976 views
No One Believed These Nick Buoniconti Stories! Until They Watched This!
Nick Buoniconti was too small for the NFL, anchored the only perfect season in history, then watched football destroy his son — and himself.
Every scout said the same thing — 5'11, 220 pounds, too small. The NFL passed entirely. The AFL took him in the 13th round. He became the brain of the Miami Dolphins' No-Name Defense, the heartbeat of the 1972 perfect season, and a two-time Super Bowl champion who intercepted Billy Kilmer to seal the greatest achievement in NFL history.
After football, he earned a law degree, represented athletes against George Steinbrenner, co-hosted HBO's Inside the NFL for 23 years, and became one of the most recognizable voices in the sport. Then, on October 26, 1985, his 19-year-old son Marc was paralyzed making a tackle in a college football game. Nick made a promise at his bedside — and spent the rest of his life keeping it.
Together, father and son co-founded the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and raised more than $550 million. At his 2001 Hall of Fame induction, Marc wheeled himself to the podium as Nick's presenter. Nick told the crowd: My son dreams that he walks, and as a father, I would like nothing more than to walk by his side.
But football had one final claim. Nick's brain, examined after his death in 2019, showed the most severe form of CTE. Six members of the 1972 Dolphins — the perfect team — were diagnosed with the same disease.
This is the story of the No-Name linebacker who became the biggest man on every field he ever walked.
What should the NFL owe men like Nick Buoniconti? Drop your answer in the comments.
Subscribe for more NFL legends the history books left behind.
CHAPTERS
0:00 The Promise in Canton
1:41 The Toughest Kid on Worthington Street
3:09 The Runt Who Captained the Irish
4:49 The Linebacker Who Passed the Bar
6:36 The Brain Behind the No-Name Defense
8:24 Seventeen Wins and Zero Losses
10:22 The Man Who Couldn't Stop Winning
12:16 The Sound a Father Never Forgets
14:10 Half a Billion Dollars and a Promise Kept
16:12 I'm Not Half the Man I Used to Be
18:24 The Cruelest Symmetry Football Ever Wrote
#NickBuoniconti #MiamiDolphins #1972PerfectSeason #NFLHistory #CTE
1 Comments
No One Believed These Nick Buoniconti Stories! Until They Watched This!
Legends of the Game of Inches
976 views
No One Believed These Nick Buoniconti Stories! Until They Watched This!
Nick Buoniconti was too small for the NFL, anchored the only perfect season in history, then watched football destroy his son — and himself.
Every scout said the same thing — 5'11, 220 pounds, too small. The NFL passed entirely. The AFL took him in the 13th round. He became the brain of the Miami Dolphins' No-Name Defense, the heartbeat of the 1972 perfect season, and a two-time Super Bowl champion who intercepted Billy Kilmer to seal the greatest achievement in NFL history.
After football, he earned a law degree, represented athletes against George Steinbrenner, co-hosted HBO's Inside the NFL for 23 years, and became one of the most recognizable voices in the sport. Then, on October 26, 1985, his 19-year-old son Marc was paralyzed making a tackle in a college football game. Nick made a promise at his bedside — and spent the rest of his life keeping it.
Together, father and son co-founded the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and raised more than $550 million. At his 2001 Hall of Fame induction, Marc wheeled himself to the podium as Nick's presenter. Nick told the crowd: My son dreams that he walks, and as a father, I would like nothing more than to walk by his side.
But football had one final claim. Nick's brain, examined after his death in 2019, showed the most severe form of CTE. Six members of the 1972 Dolphins — the perfect team — were diagnosed with the same disease.
This is the story of the No-Name linebacker who became the biggest man on every field he ever walked.
What should the NFL owe men like Nick Buoniconti? Drop your answer in the comments.
Subscribe for more NFL legends the history books left behind.
CHAPTERS
0:00 The Promise in Canton
1:41 The Toughest Kid on Worthington Street
3:09 The Runt Who Captained the Irish
4:49 The Linebacker Who Passed the Bar
6:36 The Brain Behind the No-Name Defense
8:24 Seventeen Wins and Zero Losses
10:22 The Man Who Couldn't Stop Winning
12:16 The Sound a Father Never Forgets
14:10 Half a Billion Dollars and a Promise Kept
16:12 I'm Not Half the Man I Used to Be
18:24 The Cruelest Symmetry Football Ever Wrote
#NickBuoniconti #MiamiDolphins #1972PerfectSeason #NFLHistory #CTE