NFL
Chiefs extend 100% start: How many NFL teams have had a perfect season?
Four teams in NFL history have won every regular season game, but only one of them went on to clinch the Super Bowl.
The Kansas City Chiefs extended their perfect start to the 2024 season with a 26-13 win over the New Orleans Saints on Monday evening.
The Chiefs, winners of three of the past five Super Bowls, are chasing a historic third consecutive NFL championship. Only the Canton/Cleveland Bulldogs (1922-24) and the Green Bay Packers (1929-1931 and 1965-67) have previously won three in a row.
In fact, since the start of the Super Bowl era in 1967, no NFL team has managed a three-peat.
The MNF victory over the Saints also maintains the Chiefs’ 100% start to the season. Only the Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings have won all five of the opening five games in 2024.
“It’s a credit to not only the guys and how hard they work, but coach [Andy] Reid and just knowing their skill sets and how to put them in great positions,” Patrick Mahomes said of the Chiefs’ offensive performance on MNF. “Kareem [Hunt] just runs extremely hard. He gets every yard out there, catches the ball, does whatever it takes in order to go out there and win.”
NFL teams with a ‘perfect season’
Across the long history of the NFL, there are only four examples of 100% records in the regular season. Those teams are the New England Patriots (16-0, 2007), the Miami Dolphins (14-0, 1972) and the Chicago Bears (13-0, 1934), (11-0, 1942).
Of those four great teams, only one of them went on the win a championship. Both Bears teams lost the NFL Championship, first to the New York Giants and then to the Washington Redskins. After a remarkable 2007 campaign the New England Patriots were widely expected to clinch Super Bowl XLII but they were beaten by the Giants, who had stumbled to a mediocre 10-6 record in the regular season.
The only team to have managed a true ‘perfect season’ was the iconic Miami Dolphins team of 1972. They won all 14 regular season games before triumphing over the Redskins at Super Bowl VII. With a shorter postseason schedule at the time, the Miami Dolphins finished with a flawless 17-0 record for the 1972 NFL season.