The Dolphins have announced the death of Manny Fernandez at the age of 79.
Fernandez signed with the Dolphins — who were then an AFL team — after going undrafted in 1968 and played his entire career with the team before retiring after the 1975 season. Fernandez’s run included three trips to the Super Bowl and back-to-back championships after the 1972 and 1973 seasons.
Fernandez had sacks in each of those Super Bowl wins and is unofficially credited — the NFL did not officially record sacks until 1982 — with 35 regular season sacks and 4.5 playoff sacks for his career.
The Dolphins became the first and only NFL team to go undefeated for an entire season in 1972. That entire team was inducted into the Dolphins’ Honor Roll and Fernandez was also inducted individually in 2014.
