The last NFL team to go undefeated for the regular season was the 2007 New England Patriots. Does anyone have a shot at pulling it off for the 2023-24 season? NFL betting odds are out at legal online sportsbooks, including the option to bet on whether a team will go undefeated this season. Along with that, there are also lines for a team to go winless. Read on for a detailed look at both options.
2023 NFL odds to go perfect
For an NFL team to make it through an entire campaign without a blemish, it would take a season in which everything broke that team’s way. The betting odds reflect what sportsbooks see as the chances of it happening this season.
The teams with the five shortest odds — Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills — are also the top five favorites in Super Bowl odds. Kansas City is at the top with odds to go undefeated of +5000.
The Chiefs have won the AFC West for the last seven seasons in a row and have picked up a pair of Lombardi Trophies. However, the team’s top mark for regular season wins over that span is 14 in both 2020 and 2022.
For the other four clubs with the lowest odds to go undefeated, here is a listing of the NFL’s most total wins that each team has posted over the last three seasons.
Over a 17-game regular season, a record of 12-5 translates to a winning percentage of .706. A team that hits that mark is very on the way to the playoffs, as is any club that books a record better than that. However, that’s still very far from perfection.
NFL undefeated team history
In the Super Bowl era, just two teams have completed an entire regular season without a defeat:
- 1972 Miami Dolphins
- 2007 New England Patriots
The Dolphins posted a record of 14-0 and went on to win the Super Bowl to get to 17-0. The Patriots pushed their mark to 19-0 in advance of a Super Bowl showdown with the Giants, but the club’s run of perfection came to an end with a 17-14 loss.
In 1978, the NFL expanded the regular season from 14 to 16 games. The league then added an additional game in 2021 to get to the current 17-game schedule. For the era of 16 games or more, just six teams outside of the ’07 Patriots have made it through a campaign with just a single loss.
- 1984 San Francisco 49ers, 15-1
- 1985 Chicago Bears, 15-1
- 1998 Minnesota Vikings, 15-1
- 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers, 15-1
- 2011 Green Bay Packers, 15-1
- 2015 Carolina Panthers, 15-1
Interestingly, the ’84 49ers and the ’85 Bears are the only two teams from that group that went on to win the Super Bowl. As the odds for an NFL team to go undefeated indicate, perfection is unlikely. Making it through an entire season with just a single defeat is also a challenging trick to turn.
2023 NFL odds to go winless
On the opposite end of the spectrum, FanDuel Sportsbook also has odds for an NFL team to go winless.
For this group, the Arizona Cardinals lead the way. Arizona hit the skids last season, dropping its final seven games to finish at 4-13. A housecleaning followed, and a new GM and head coach will now need to pick up the pieces. Runners-up for favorites include the Rams, Texans, and Buccaneers. For the most part, teams are listed at +30000 to go winless this season at FanDuel.
Looking back to last season, the two worst teams in the league still managed to win three games.
A winless season isn’t quite as rare as a perfect one, but it’s far from a regular occurrence. In the Super Bowl era, it has happened only four times.
- 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 0-14
- 1982 Baltimore Colts, 0-8-1 (strike-shortened season)
- 2008 Detroit Lions, 0-16
- 2017 Cleveland Browns, 0-16
Since the schedule expanded to 16 games, 11 teams averted a complete disaster and finished with records of 1-15.
- 1980 New Orleans Saints
- 1989 Dallas Cowboys
- 1990 New England Patriots
- 1991 Indianapolis Colts
- 1996 New York Jets
- 2000 San Diego Chargers
- 2001 Carolina Panthers
- 2007 Miami Dolphins
- 2009 St. Louis Rams
- 2016 Cleveland Browns
- 2020 Jacksonville Jaguars
In short, the chances of a team finishing winless or with a single win are slightly better than those for a team to hit perfection or knock it out of the park with a 15-win season. Still, the betting odds suggest that it’s unlikely that we’ll see either an undefeated or a winless campaign for the 2023-24 NFL season.
