The Closest Teams to a Perfect 16-0 Season

Only one team ever finished a 16-game regular season without a loss. But the near-misses are their own kind of history — teams that spent months looking unbeatable and then dropped a single game that erased the record forever.

The 15-1 club

Finishing 15-1 means winning all but one game — the closest anyone can get to 16-0 without reaching it. A handful of great teams got exactly that far:

• 1984 San Francisco 49ers (15-1) — one of the best teams of the decade. Their lone regular-season loss didn’t stop them; they went on to win Super Bowl XIX.
• 1985 Chicago Bears (15-1) — one of the most dominant teams ever, undone in the regular season only by a Monday-night loss to the Miami Dolphins. They then rolled through the playoffs and won Super Bowl XX 46-10.
• 1998 Minnesota Vikings (15-1) — a record-setting offense that scored 556 points, then the most in NFL history. They fell in the NFC Championship Game in overtime, a game remembered for a rare missed field goal late in regulation.
• 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers (15-1) — a rookie-quarterback team that lost only once in the regular season before falling in the AFC Championship Game.
• 2011 Green Bay Packers (15-1) — the defending champions ripped off a near-perfect regular season, then lost at home in the Divisional round.
• 2015 Carolina Panthers (15-1) — Cam Newton’s MVP season carried Carolina to within a game of 16-0 and all the way to Super Bowl 50, where they lost to Denver.

Every one of these teams was a single game from a perfect regular season. That’s how thin the margin is between “great” and “perfect.”

The undefeated bids that collapsed

Just as instructive are the teams that spent most of a season unbeaten and then couldn’t finish:

• 2009 Indianapolis Colts started 14-0 before pulling their starters late to protect for the playoffs, finishing 14-2.
• 2015 Carolina Panthers opened 14-0 before a Week 16 loss ended the perfect bid.
• 2011 Green Bay Packers began the year 13-0 before dropping a game in December.

Fast starts happen almost every season. What separates the 2007 Patriots is that they never let go of the rope — sixteen weeks without a single slip.

Why the near-misses matter

The 15-1 seasons are the whole reason 16-0 carries weight. If a perfect regular season were reasonably achievable, more of these dominant teams would have finished it. Instead, again and again, the best rosters in football ran into the one game they couldn’t win. Only 2007 avoided it entirely.

For the math behind why that last game is so hard to guarantee, read why 16-0 is so rare. For the one team that did complete it, see the 2007 Patriots’ perfect regular season — then draft a roster and see if you can avoid the loss that got all of these teams.