What Team Went Undefeated In The NFL?
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Can you guess which team went undefeated in the NFL this season? Check out our blog post to find out!
The 1972 Miami Dolphins
The 1972 Miami Dolphins were the only team in NFL history to have a perfect season. They finished the season 17-0, and won Super Bowl VII. They are considered one of the greatest teams of all time.
The perfect season
The 1972 Miami Dolphins season was the perfect season. The team went 14-0 in the regular season and then won all three of their playoff games, including Super Bowl VII against the Washington Redskins, to finish 17-0.
It was the first and still only perfect season in NFL history. The Dolphins would later go on to win Super Bowl VIII, becoming the first team to ever win back-to-back championships.
The Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the biggest and most important American football game of the year. It is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL). The game is played between the winning teams from the NFL’s two conferences, the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). The winner of the Super Bowl receives the Vince Lombardi Trophy, named after the legendary Green Bay Packers head coach who led his team to victory in the first two Super Bowls.
The first Super Bowl was played on January 15, 1967, when the NFL champion Green Bay Packers defeated the AFL (American Football League) champion Kansas City Chiefs 35-10. Since then, there have been a total of 52 Super Bowls. The most recent one was Super Bowl LII, which was played on February 4, 2018. The NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles defeated the AFC champion New England Patriots 41-33.
The 2007 New England Patriots
The perfect season
The 2007 New England Patriots season was the franchise’s 38th season in the National Football League, the 48th overall and the 8th under head coach Bill Belichick. The Patriots looked to improve on their 12–4 record from 2006 and repeat as AFC champions. They finished the 2007 regular season by winning all sixteen of their games, becoming only the second team in NFL history to go undefeated throughout an entire regular season (the 1972 Miami Dolphins were 14–0).
The Patriots qualified for Super Bowl XLII with a perfect 18–0 record. In a close game, they lost to the New York Giants by a score of 17–14, ending their bid for what would have been a perfect 19–0 record — an undefeated campaign from start to finish that would have had an asterisk due to not winning the Super Bowl. The loss moved them into a tie with the 1972 Miami Dolphins for the NFL’s best ever regular season record at 17–1 (.944).
Despite losing star wide receiver Deion Branch to Seattle via trade during training camp, quarterback Tom Brady still managed to win his second consecutive NFL MVP award. Brady threw for 4,806 yards and a then-record 50 touchdown passes, which helped lead him and wide receiver Randy Moss (on pace for 23 touchdown receptions before suffering a late-season injury) being selected as co-MVPs of Super Bowl XLII.
The Super Bowl
The NFC Champions, the New York Giants, went on to win the Super Bowl in a stunning upset against the previously undefeated New England Patriots, who had gone 18-0 in the regular season and were favored to win.
The 2020 Kansas City Chiefs
The 2020 Kansas City Chiefs became the first team in NFL history to finish a season with an undefeated record. The Chiefs went 14-0 in the regular season and then won the Super Bowl, giving them a perfect 20-0 record. This was an incredible accomplishment, and it was made possible by a great team effort.
The regular season
The Kansas City Chiefs entered the 2020 NFL season as the defending Super Bowl champions, having defeated the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV. The Chiefs began their defense of their title with a 34–20 win over the Houston Texans on Thursday Night Football in September. They followed that up with eleven consecutive wins, including a come-from-behind victory over the Las Vegas Raiders on November 22, in which they scored fourteen unanswered points in the fourth quarter to win 35–31. With that win, the Chiefs became the first team in NFL history to start a season 12–0 after suffering a deficit of at least ten points in each of their first twelve games. They clinched their fifth consecutive AFC West division title with a 33–27 overtime win over the Miami Dolphins on December 13.
The Chiefs went on to win their final two regular season games to finish 14–2, matching their record from the 2018 season. With those wins, they also secured the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs for the second consecutive year. In so doing, they became only the third team in NFL history to earn back-to-back No. 1 seeds (joining the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots), and only the second team ever to do so in consecutive seasons (after the Patriots).
The Super Bowl
The 54th edition of the Super Bowl was played on February 2, 2020, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. This was the tenth time the Super Bowl was held in South Florida, after it was previously hosted there in 1968, 1969, 1971, 1976, 1979, 1989 (at Joe Robbie Stadium), 1993 (at Pro Player Stadium), 1995 (at Joe Robbie Stadium), and 1999 (at Pro Player Stadium). The game was broadcast nationally by CBS. For the first time since Super Bowl 50 in 2016, Nielsen reported that more people watched digitally than on TV; an estimated average of 1.6 million watched on connected devices such as computers and cell phones via CBS Sports’ digital platforms (up 11 percent from last year), while 99.9 million watched on TV.
