Has Any NFL Team Ever Gone 20-0?

Short answer: no. Nobody has ever gone 20-0. But the real history behind that answer is more interesting than the flat “no,” because two teams got close enough that the near-misses are as famous as the one team that actually did it.

The only perfect season in NFL history

The 1972 Miami Dolphins, coached by Don Shula, won all 14 of their regular-season games — a full slate under the shorter schedule the NFL played at the time — then won all three of their playoff games, capped by a 14-7 win over the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII. Final record: 17-0.

That’s the only time in NFL history a team has completed an entire season, regular season and playoffs combined, without a loss or a tie. It happened over 50 years ago, and it hasn’t happened since — not for lack of trying.

A detail that gets lost in the “17-0” headline: the ‘72 Dolphins were also the only team ever to lead the league in total offense, total defense, scoring offense, and scoring defense in the same season. It wasn’t a fluky run through a weak schedule; it was a genuinely dominant team on both sides of the ball.

The closest anyone has come since: 2007

The New England Patriots opened the 2007 season 16-0, the first perfect regular season under the 16-game schedule format (in place from 1978 through 2020). They then beat Jacksonville and San Diego in the first two rounds of the playoffs to reach 18-0 — one win from a perfect season.

They didn’t get it. The New York Giants beat them 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII on February 3, 2008, in one of the most famous upsets in American sports history — a game remembered for David Tyree’s helmet catch on the Giants’ game-winning drive. The Patriots finished 18-1, agonizingly short.

Why doesn’t 18-1 count as “close to 20-0” the same way it sounds? Because the 2007 Patriots played a 16-game regular season, not 17 — the schedule didn’t expand to 17 games until 2021. Their equivalent under today’s format would have needed one more regular-season win and the Super Bowl to actually reach 20-0. They didn’t get either.

Other teams that came close

None of these finished undefeated, but each represents a real shot at history that didn’t pan out:

• 1934 Chicago Bears — 13-0 in the regular season, then lost the NFL Championship Game 30-13 to the New York Giants, in a game remembered as the “Sneakers Game” after the Giants switched to basketball shoes for better traction on an icy field.
• 1942 Chicago Bears — 11-0 in the regular season, outscoring opponents 376-84, then lost the championship game 14-6 to Washington.
• 1985 Chicago Bears — 15-1, with their only loss a 38-24 defeat to Miami. They went on to dominate Super Bowl XX, beating New England 46-10. The ‘72 Dolphins’ surviving players reportedly still celebrate every season another undefeated bid falls short.
• 1998 Minnesota Vikings — 15-1 in the regular season, setting an NFL scoring record with 556 points, then lost the NFC Championship in overtime to Atlanta after a missed field goal in the final minutes.
• 2015 Carolina Panthers — 15-1 with Cam Newton winning MVP, reached Super Bowl 50, and lost to Denver 24-10.

The takeaway

Across more than a century of professional football and thousands of team-seasons, exactly one team has ever finished completely undefeated. That’s the real backdrop behind why a 20-0 run in this game — a complete regular season plus a real single-elimination playoff bracket without a single loss — is meant to feel like an actual achievement rather than a certainty. For the math behind exactly how unlikely it is, see our full odds breakdown.