Which is the best single-season team in NFL history?

Derp, must win Super Bowl to be best, derp, derp...

 

Yeah, I'd think it would be a basic pre-req for status of best team in history.

And, even if we were to consider non SB winners, we can do plenty better than your 10-4 Steeler crew. For example, as Norrin mentioned, the 18-1 Patriot team that would quite likely be leading this discussion if not for a miraculous helmet catch.

 

"And, even if we were to consider non SB winners, we can do plenty better than your 10-4 Steeler crew. "

Plenty better than the best defense of all time? A team that won its last 9 regular season games and allowed a grand total of 28 points during that stretch? Okay, skippy, let's see you come up with "plenty" of better options.

 

I'm sorry, offense doesn't count? The whole season doesn't count? Only defense, only the last nine regular season games? Wow, it's fun to argue when you get to rig the rules however you want.

 

Sure, offense counts -- they set an NFL record for offense in the game in which Bleier and Harris got hurt in the playoffs. Rigging the rules? As in only considering teams as best of all time if they won some arbitrarily decided tournament?

 

This is ridiculous. Anyone else think this thread topic would end up getting dominated by discussion of a 10-4 Steeler team that failed to reach the Super Bowl?

 

Great points. And I will add this about another Packers team - the 1996 team. Only two teams in NFL history have gone through a season with the NFL's No. 1 scoring offense and No. 1 scoring defense - the 1972 Dolphins (undefeated) and the 1996 Packers. Green Bay lost three games that year, but two were consecutive losses after Robert Brooks, Mark Chmura and Antonio Freeman all went down with injuries. They got Chmura and Freeman back and were unstoppable the rest of the way.

 

Then just stop talking about it. And if we all make that collective decision, poof, we can talk about other teams.

'89 49ers were my first thought, though I'm a youngin', so I feel I need to study more to have a solid answer.

 

Actually, looking back, the '07 Pats probably peaked around Week 11 (a 56-10 win over the Bills) and clearly started to fade a bit after that. They had close games against the Eagles (A.J. Feeley threw for 345 yards against them), the gift-wrapped win against the Ravens on Monday night, and the regular-season finale against the Giants that they had to scrap to win. The AFC championship game against the Chargers was no cakewalk, either.
It was a veteran team, especially on defense, that obviously wore down toward the end.

 

The Pats' scoring differential is not very relevant here, because they were the rare team that willingly ran it up every week. It's more common now, but it was a big deal then. They scored two fourth-quarter TDs in Washington and two in Buffalo, in each case already leading by more than 30 points.

They also did not come close to dominating the postseason. Before losing to the Giants, they led both the Jaguars and Chargers by a single score at some point of the fourth quarter.

 

In my lifetime, it was the 1985 Chicago Bears. They actually struck fear in the hearts of their opponents, which doesn't happen much in pro sports anymore. Absolutely dominant and it took a phenomenal game from Dan Marino and the pass-happy Miami Dolphins to keep them from an undefeated season.

Runnersup: 1989 49ers and 2007 New England Patriots. Pats were the best offensive machine I've seen and the Bears were the most dominant defense.

 

I didn't start watching football until the early 90s, so I don't feel qualified to judge teams prior to that. Of the ones I've seen, the 1996 Packers stick out for a couple reasons.

1. They were literally everyone's preseason pick and they won the Super Bowl with relative ease. They were 13-3 but dropped two games in the middle of the season after a barrage of injuries to some key players. But those players came back. I don't remember a team that had that many blowout wins. Certainly no Packers team that I saw play.

2. They really didn't have a weakness. They had Brett Favre at his best. They had some capable WRs. They had Chmura AND Keith Jackson at TE. The defense led by Reggie White was ranked #1 in the league. The offense was #1 in the league. Desmond Howard was the best returner in the league.

It was a dominating season in which everyone expected a championship, really didn't consider anyone else, and they came through with very little struggle. The Super Bowl was one of the closest games of the year and I give a lot of credit to a New England team that was greatly overmatched.