According to
Perfect season - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
National Football League
Since the creation of the modern NFL in 1970, only one team has played a perfect season: the 1972 Miami Dolphins.
1972 Miami Dolphins
The 1972 Miami Dolphins won fourteen regular season games and three postseason games, including Super Bowl VII, to finish the season 17–0–0. Recently, it has often been reported that the surviving members of the 1972 Dolphins would gather to drink champagne when the final undefeated team lost its first game, or that the team would send a case of champagne to the team that beat the final undefeated team. The head coach of the 1972 Dolphins, Don Shula, denied this in a 2007 interview with ESPN.[1]
Perfect regular seasons
Before the modern NFL, American football was played professionally in a number of leagues, including an earlier version of the NFL. During this period, three teams completed perfect seasons: the 1934 Chicago Bears, the 1942 Chicago Bears, and the 1948 Cleveland Browns.
In the modern NFL, the 2007 New England Patriots went a perfect 16–0 in the regular season and won their first two postseason contests, before losing in Super Bowl XLII.
1934 Chicago Bears
The Bears are a member of the National Football League, which was founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association. In 1934, the Bears played to a 13–0–0 regular season record to become the first NFL team to complete an undefeated regular season without tied games. However, the Bears lost the 1934 NFL Championship Game against the New York Giants.
1942 Chicago Bears
Despite losing several players and head coach George Halas to military service in World War II, the 1942 Bears played a perfect season, finishing 11–0–0. The Bears were again defeated in the NFL Championship Game, this time by the Washington Redskins.
1948 Cleveland Browns
The Browns were a member of the All-America Football Conference, a professional football league that played from 1946 to 1949. In 1948, the Browns won all fourteen regular season games and the 1948 AAFC championship to post a 15–0–0 record. Cleveland's perfect 1948 season was part of a longer string of 29 straight wins, which stretched from 1947 to 1949 and included both the 1947 and 1948 title games. Overall, the Browns won all four AAFC championship games and were accepted into the NFL when the two leagues merged after the 1949 season.
2007 New England Patriots
The 2007 New England Patriots won sixteen regular season games to become the fourth NFL team to play a perfect regular season, as well as the first to do so in a 16-game regular season. Consequently, they were the first to start the regular season 15–0–0. The team was also the first to accomplish this under the NFL's "salary cap" policy, which was established in 1994 to encourage competitive equality among teams.
