Squish the Fish: Part 1
Revisiting the 1985 AFC Championship Game, 40 Years Later
January 12 is the 40th Anniversary of the New England Patriots victory over the Miami Dolphins in the 1985 AFC Championship Game. This is the first of a three-part series.
Forty years ago this week, all of New England shared a common distaste for seafood.
The slogan “Squish the Fish” was ubiquitous. It was printed on t-shirts featuring Pat Patriot stomping on a cartoon dolphin, and inspired hastily-written songs of questionable musical value. “Squish the Fish” signs appeared everywhere; our local supermarket hung one behind the deli counter (or maybe it was their seafood counter?), and at Logan Airport, a simple version scrawled with a black marker on a piece of tan cardboard adorned the right side of the stairs leading to the Eastern Airlines jet that took the New England Patriots down to Florida to play the Miami Dolphins in the 1985 AFC Championship Game.1
In hindsight, the game would be overshadowed by a lopsided loss in the Super Bowl two weeks later, and the continuing saga of Billy Sullivan and his family, whose ill-fated ownership of the Patriots has (unfairly at times) made them an object of ridicule; without Sullivan’s leadership, there would be no New England Patriots football team today.
The 1985 AFC Championship Game was a mismatch from an historical point-of-view.
Founded as the Boston Patriots in 1959 when Sullivan pooled together the AFL’s $25,000 entrance fee from multiple investors along with $8,300 of his own money, the team had struggled both financially and on the field.2 The Patriots had played just five playoff games through the 1984 season and had lost four in a row since winning their postseason debut in Buffalo on December 28, 1963 (26-8).
The Miami Dolphins, who had joined the AFL as an expansion team in 1966, were the defending AFC Champions. They had played in five Super Bowls and won two under head coach Don Shula. The Dolphins’ 24-year-old quarterback Dan Marino was already a superstar after throwing 48 touchdown passes in 1984 to shatter the NFL record. Shula was 5-0 in AFC Championship games, and the Patriots had not won in Miami’s Orange Bowl since 1966, a streak of 18 straight losses.3
But the 1985 Patriots had already outplayed their lowly pedigree.
Their journey to the AFC Championship Game had started in October 1984 when head coach Ron Meyer was fired and replaced with Raymond Berry.
Berry had been a star receiver for the Baltimore Colts from 1955 through 1967, catching passes from fellow hall of famer Johnny Unitas; Shula had been their teammate, and later, their head coach. After his retirement, Berry served as a receiver coach for several pro and college teams, and joined the Patriots staff in 1978. When head coach Ron Erhardt and his entire staff was fired after a 2-14 season in 1981, Berry decided to leave the game.4 His sons were in high school in Medfield, Massachusetts, and his wife liked the area. Berry was working for his brother-in-law when Patriots general manager Patrick Sullivan offered him the head job.
Three years had passed, but Berry still had some connections with the team. Linebacker Steve Nelson and his wife regularly hired Berry’s daughter as a baby sitter; four days before Berry was hired as head coach, he sat in the stands at Sullivan Stadium - in “terrific seats” - using tickets given to his family by Nelson, as the Patriots lost to the Dolphins, 44-24.5
The soft-spoken and religious Berry made an impact immediately on a team who had tuned out the abrasive Meyer. “When I first met Ron [Meyer] I really thought he’d be a hell of a man, a hell of a coach,” running back Tony Collins said on the day Berry was hired. “I don’t know what happened. But Raymond Berry earned more respect in one day than Ron Meyer earned in three years.”6 The Patriots, 5-3 when Berry took over, finished 9-7 and missed the playoffs, but a corner had been turned.
Berry spent part of the offseason on the road, visiting his players. “I’m a great believer in the individual styles of people,” Berry said, “and this way I could learn about their children, their wives, their homes and their situations. It probably did me more good than them.”7
The Patriots started the 1985 season 2-3, but a six-game winning streak put them back in the playoff picture. Despite shuffling between Tony Eason and Steve Grogan at quarterback due to injuries, New England was 10-4 when they headed to the Orange Bowl for a Monday Night clash with the Dolphins. The Patriots trailed for most of the game, but returned a fumbled kickoff for a tying touchdown midway through the fourth quarter. Marino led the Dolphins to a go-ahead field goal before Eason was intercepted with about a minute left; the Patriots lost 30-27. New England would qualify for the playoffs as a wild card by defeating the Cincinnati Bengals in the final game of the regular season.
In the playoffs, the Patriots defeated the New York Jets and Los Angeles Raiders on the road, using their running game (a combined 255 yards on a whopping 88 carries) and an astonishing 10 to 2 turnover advantage - including two fumble returns for touchdowns - to offset an anemic passing offense behind Eason. For the season, the Patriots’ special teams unit, coached by Dante Scarnecchia, had returned five blocked or fumbled kicks for touchdowns.8
Now the Patriots were heading to the AFC Championship Game, and it all seemed too good to be true.
The sign is visible in television footage shown during a preview special on Boston’s Channel 5 the night before the game. The video is available on YouTube along with a copy of the entire AFC Championship Game, which I watched while researching this post.
Miami’s “home game” against the Patriots in 1969 was moved to Tampa Stadium as part of an effort to get an NFL expansion team for Tampa Bay. The Patriots defeated the Dolphins, 38-23. Will McDonough, “Pats Can Stay Alive by Beating Miami,” Boston Globe, November 30, 1969.
1980 New England Patriots team photo obtained from the Digital Commonwealth site and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License (CC BY-NC-SA).
Leigh Montville, “His timing is still perfect,” Boston Globe, October 26, 1984.
Ron Borges, “Patriot locker room - a house undivided,” Boston Globe, October 26, 1984.
Michael Madden, “Berry devoted - to details, players,” Boston Globe, January 10, 1986.
Ron Borges, “Special delivery for the Patriots,” Boston Globe, January 11, 1986.