Manny Fernandez, the brawny, tenacious anchor of the Miami Dolphins\u2019 \u201cNo Name Defense,\u201d which helped carry the team to an undefeated season in 1972 that culminated in a victory in Super Bowl VII, died on Sunday at his home in Ellaville, Ga. He was 79.<\/p>\n
His daughter, Christina Dailey, confirmed the death but did not specify a cause.<\/p>\n
Fernandez, who stood 6-foot-2 and weighed about 250 pounds, joined the Dolphins as an undrafted free agent in 1968 and played defensive tackle for Miami for his entire career. The team began its growth into one of the National Football League\u2019s best franchises when Don Shula<\/a> took over as coach in 1970 and then rolled through the momentous 1972 season.<\/p>\n During the third quarter of a Week 6 game against the Buffalo Bills, Fernandez executed a remarkable play: He swept into the Buffalo backfield so quickly that he stole the football away from the startled Bills quarterback Dennis Shaw, who was attempting a handoff to the running back Jim Braxton<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI went after him, but I didn\u2019t know he still had the ball until I saw him turn around waiting to hand off to somebody,\u201d Fernandez told Florida Today after the game. \u201cThen I just moved in and took it away from him. Maybe I could have scored, but I’m not used to handling the ball much.\u201d<\/p>\n Miami won, 24-23, by the narrowest margin of the season.<\/p>\n The Dolphins kept winning. They finished the regular season 14-0 and defeated the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers in the playoffs before facing the Washington Redskins (now the Commanders) in Super Bowl VII in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n About a week before the Super Bowl, Fernandez and Bill Stanfill, another defensive lineman and a close friend, decided to ease the pregame tension with a prank: They captured a three-foot-long alligator during a fishing trip. After practice the next day, Fernandez left it in Shula\u2019s private shower; Shula screamed when he got into the shower and then rushed into the locker room to confront his players.<\/p>\n Shula recalled to The New York Times in an interview in 2016 for his obituary<\/a>: \u201cThey said, \u2018Coach, can\u2019t you take a joke?,\u2019 and I said, \u2018A joke? A live alligator?\u2019 They said, \u2018We took a vote, and you only passed by one vote on whether we should tape up the mouth of the alligator.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Fernandez was a singular force during the Super Bowl, which Miami won, 14-7. He recorded six official tackles and one sack, although some reports say he had 17 tackles, and he said he had 11. The Redskins ran repeatedly at Fernandez, while Fernandez focused on Len Hauss, Washington\u2019s center. Unlike other teams that faced Miami that year, the Redskins didn\u2019t double-team Fernandez.<\/p>\n \u201cI outmaneuvered him and outquicked him, and I beat him in every other way,\u201d he said after the game.<\/p>\n Dick Anderson, one of Miami\u2019s safeties, told reporters afterward that Fernandez had been nearly everywhere. \u201cOne second I\u2019d look up, and he was in their backfield,\u201d he said. \u201cAnother time, he was knocking a guy out of bounds, and another time he was downfield.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Fernandez\u2019s dynamic performance, the safety Jake Scott<\/a>, who had two interceptions during the game, was voted the most valuable player.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe I should have shared the M.V.P. with Manny,\u201d Scott told the Dolphins website in 2019,<\/a> \u201cbut at least I gave him a set of keys to my pickup truck that I got from winning the award.\u201d<\/p>\n Manuel Jose Fernandez Jr., the oldest of three brothers, was born on July 3, 1946, in Hayward, Calif. His father, also named Manuel, was a brick mason, and his mother, Dolores (Campos) Fernandez, managed the house.<\/p>\n In high school, he played football and was a state champion in wrestling. At the University of Utah, where he majored in English, he played tackle. He was ignored during the 17 rounds of the 1968 N.F.L. draft but signed with the Dolphins after persuading the team to let him try out.<\/p>\n He quickly became a critical member of the Dolphins\u2019 defense and accumulated 19.5 of his 35 career sacks in the 1971, 1972 and 1973 seasons; at the end of each, the Dolphins played in the Super Bowl \u2014 losing to the Dallas Cowboys, 24-3, beating Washington, and then defeating the Minnesota Vikings, 24-7. In the latter game, Fernandez had four tackles and one sack.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Purple People Eaters didn\u2019t eat any people,\u201d Fernandez said after the game, referring to the Vikings\u2019 vaunted defensive line.<\/p>\n Fernandez retired after the 1976 season and worked mostly at First American Title Company, where he was vice president of sales.<\/p>\n Like other former players, he began to experience memory loss and feelings of aggression, symptoms associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., a degenerative brain disease that is linked to repetitive head trauma. <\/p>\n Fernandez said that he was spooked to learn that quarterback Earl Morrall<\/a>, a member of the 1972 team, was found in 2016, two years after his death, to have had advanced C.T.E.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve talked to a half dozen teammates over the last two years\u201d about the cognitive issues, he told The Miami Herald in 2016. \u201cQuite a few have been tested.\u201d<\/p>\n (Other teammates<\/a> \u2014 Stanfill, Scott, Bob Kuechenberg<\/a>, Jim Kiick<\/a> and Nick Buoniconti<\/a> \u2014 have also been diagnosed with C.T.E.)<\/p>\n \u201cNobody hit anybody with their head harder than I did,\u201d he said. But, he added, his wife, Marcia (Schoonover) Fernandez, who died in 2015, \u201chad Alzheimer\u2019s and never took a hit. Where did she get it?\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to his daughter, Fernandez is survived by a son, James, and four grandchildren.<\/p>\n Fernandez didn\u2019t like to hear the word \u201cperfect\u201d attached to the Dolphins\u2019 17-0 season in 1972.<\/p>\n