- # 1: 1972 Week 3: Redskins 23, Patriots 24 (ρ=1.4479)
- Redskins' season: finished 11-3, won the NFC East, lost Super Bowl VII (thus becoming the final notch in the Dolphins perfect 17-0 season).
- Patriots' season: Finished 3-11. Head coach John Mazur resigned 9 games into the season.
- What happened: the good news for the 1972 Patriots was, any time they held their opponent under 24 points, they won. The bad news was, they only did that 3 times. The '72 Patriots were bad on both sides of the ball, including a last-place defense (points allowed), and an offense that mostly couldn't even score 21 points.
- The same rule held for the '72 Redskins: they won almost every time they held their opponent under 24 points. The difference, of course, is that the Redskins had the #4 defense (points allowed), and only 3 teams managed to get to that 24-point threshold.
- Somehow, the Patriots offense managed to shred the Redskins defense, passing for 253 yards (more than any other Redskins' opponent), and scoring 24 points (a season high for the Patriots).
- Also of note: the Patriots' starting quarterback in 1972 was Jim Plunkett, much better known for his late-career success with the Oakland Raiders, which included two Super Bowl victories.
That's it. Thanks for hanging around this off-season to read the series. (And if you didn't, you can certainly go back and read them now.) Coming up next: new football!
