Friday, October 23, 2009

NFL: 0-6? It's worse than you think

After reading this post on profootballtalk, I started looking to see who was the best team to start 0-6. The answer? They've all been so bad, it hardly matters.

I limited my candidates to the seasons since the NFL expanded to a 16-game regular season (1978-2008), and eliminated the strike-shortened years of 1982 and 1987. The following is a summary of what I came up with.

How they finished:

Final
Standing
# of
Teams
6-103
4-11-11
4-128
3-138
2-1410
1-156
0-161
Total37

This does not include the 2009 Titans, Buccaneers, and Rams, whose final standings are to be decided. But that whole notion of "running the table"? Yeah, Titan fans can forget that.

Other Observations

  • Of the 35 teams who have completed the following season, 23 (65.7%) finished at or below 6 wins the next season too.

  • Only 6 of those 35 teams finished with a winning record the following season, with the 1998 Redskins and 2008 Dolphins the only teams to make it to 10 wins.

  • The Bengals are easily the team with the most appearances (8) on this list, with the Colts a distant second (4 appearances).