Is an Undefeated NFL Season Still Possible?

Everybody does it – win the first few games of an NFL season and fans start chattering about their team going the entire season undefeated. Conversely, every unbeaten run has Dolphins fans everywhere sweating that the team’s long-standing record might fall.

Protecting Miami’s solo status as the only NFL team to win it all without suffering a loss is one thing, but the fact that 54 years later the feat has never been equaled reveals the escalating degree of difficulty teams face in posting the perfect season. 

More regular season games, more away-day battles, not to mention the ever-increasing physical demands placed on players, mean teams now have to navigate the near-impossible path to NFL immortality. 

Can it be done, or is a 20-0 season simply an unrealistic fantasy?

So Close, Yet So Far: The NFL's Near-Perfect Teams

While Don Shula’s Dolphins may be the only team to have completed the feat in the Super Bowl era, a shout-out must go to the Chicago Bears, who registered two undefeated regular seasons in 1934 & 1942, but fell short of the perfect season, losing the NFL Championship Game (the precursor to the Super Bowl) both times around. 

It’s also worth noting that to go an entire season undefeated and win the Super Bowl back in '72 meant only winning 17 games. So, spare a thought for Tom Brady’s 2007 New England Patriots, who won the first 18 games of the season, also only to fall at the last hurdle, losing to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII.

So Why Is a Perfect NFL Season So Difficult to Complete?

No doubt, it was hard enough to do before the 2021 season, but when NFL owners voted to expand the season from 16 regular-season games to 17, they arguably further sabotaged every team's chances of achieving the impossible dream. 

Worse still, in doing so, not only did the number of games increase, but with alternating seasons where teams have to play eight away games one season and nine the next, it creates yet another obstacle to achieving perfection.

All this only compounds the extra difficulty given the additional constraints of the NFL's salary cap and drafting system. A system deliberately implemented to prevent one team’s dominance by rewarding the worst-performing teams with the highest draft picks.

Then there's the challenge of keeping an entire roster healthy throughout the 17-game regular season. After all, teams with high aspirations aren’t going to get anywhere close to a 20-0 record when their franchise QBs are ruled out through injury, as seen already this season with:

• Jayden Daniels (Washington)
• Caleb Williams (Chicago) 
• Lamar Jackson (Baltimore)
• Jalen Hurts (Philadelphia)

The Math Behind an Undefeated Season

The stark reality of your team hitting the jackpot and winning 20 games on the trot in the same season becomes even more daunting when you ask a mathematician to get involved. 

For instance, even if the best sports betting sites gave an NFL dream team moneyline odds of -400 to win twenty individual games, even at this 80% probability for each, that still only equates to a 1.15% chance of achieving the feat.

In an ironic twist of fate, while the Vikings' loss in Week 8 closed the door for any prediction market traders banking on an NFL team going all the way this season, there's still a lot to play for at the other end of the spectrum. That's because, while they may be the only team in history to win it all in one go, the Dolphins currently lead Kalshi's sports event contracts as favorites to post the worst record of the 2026 season.

The Disappearing Art of Winning Consecutive NFL Games

Incidentally, Minnesota’s streak was one game more than their 5-0 start in 2025, showcasing that they’ve become quite accustomed to starting the season well. And while their season is still far from over, it has once again reignited fears that the North Star State's barren run of championship winners will continue.

As for those betting that another undefeated NFL season is bound to happen someday… digging through the NFL records reveals that it’s become increasingly less likely. Sure, there have been plenty of seriously big winning streaks in football over the years – but none that coincided over the course of a whole season.

Unfortunately, some of these winning runs also come with caveats. Chiefly, that of Peyton Manning's Indianapolis Colts record of 23 wins in a row, which was made up of only consecutive regular-season games in the 2008 and 2009 seasons, having been knocked out of the playoffs in the first round during that stretch.

Similarly, New England’s amazing run saw them win their final 12 regular-season games in 2003, then three playoff games, before winning their first six games of 2004. That's 21 consecutive victories.

While the Pats comfortably surpassed the requisite win total and claimed football's biggest prize along the way, sadly for them, their 21-game winning streak fell short of the iconic milestone because it spanned two seasons.

And here lies the problem: these winning runs both feel like they happened a lifetime ago, and even the Carolina Panthers’ impressive streak of 18 wins in 2014-15 is now more than a decade old. So while the great Don Shula is probably pounding the football sidelines up in heaven these days, he can do so safe in the knowledge that his achievement with the Dolphins looks unlikely ever to be repeated.