Chiefs extend 100% start: How many NFL teams have had a perfect season?

The Kansas City Chiefs extended their perfect start to the 2024 season with a 26-13 win over the New Orleans Saints on Monday evening.

The Chiefs, winners of three of the past five Super Bowls, are chasing a historic third consecutive NFL championship. Only the Canton/Cleveland Bulldogs (1922-24) and the Green Bay Packers (1929-1931 and 1965-67) have previously won three in a row.

In fact, since the start of the Super Bowl era in 1967, no NFL team has managed a three-peat.

The MNF victory over the Saints also maintains the Chiefs’ 100% start to the season. Only the Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings have won all five of the opening five games in 2024.

“It’s a credit to not only the guys and how hard they work, but coach [Andy] Reid and just knowing their skill sets and how to put them in great positions,” Patrick Mahomes said of the Chiefs’ offensive performance on MNF. “Kareem [Hunt] just runs extremely hard. He gets every yard out there, catches the ball, does whatever it takes in order to go out there and win.”

NFL teams with a ‘perfect season’

Across the long History of the NFL, there are only four examples of 100% records in the regular season. Those teams are the New England Patriots (16-0, 2007), the Miami Dolphins (14-0, 1972) and the Chicago Bears (13-0, 1934), (11-0, 1942).

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Of those four great teams, only one of them went on the win a championship. Both Bears teams lost the NFL Championship, first to the New York Giants and then to the Washington Redskins. After a remarkable 2007 campaign the New England Patriots were widely expected to clinch Super Bowl XLII but they were beaten by the Giants, who had stumbled to a mediocre 10-6 record in the regular season.

The only team to have managed a true ‘perfect season’ was the iconic Miami Dolphins team of 1972. They won all 14 regular season games before triumphing over the Redskins at Super Bowl VII. With a shorter postseason schedule at the time, the Miami Dolphins finished with a flawless 17-0 record for the 1972 NFL season.