The New York Jets' Historic Streak Ends

One of the greatest streaks in NFL history has come to an end. This streak lasted for decades and it’s extremely unlikely any team will ever match it, let alone better it. If some team ever does surpass this incredible streak it will probably not be in the lifetime of anybody reading this post. Yet this historic streak and its ending received no press, it got no TV coverage, nobody’s talking about it, and I’m just beside myself that it’s all over.

Since 1960, all the way through the 2010 season, 50 NFL seasons, a half century of football, the National Football League has produced exactly 22 teams who finished a season posting but a single win. Just four teams have gone completely winless in that same time span so we can see just how hard it is for even the worst teams ever to pull off a winless season. 26 of the worst teams ever made a run and 22 of them failed. They failed because some other NFL team proved unable to notch a win against a loser team that couldn’t beat anybody else for a whole entire season.

I first wrote about those teams guilty of Losing to Losers here back in 2007, but now that the first decade of this century is behind allow me to present a complete list of all one-win teams from 1960-2010, with the teams they defeated in parenthesis.

1960: Washington Redskins (Dallas Cowboys)
1961: Washington Redskins (Dallas Cowboys)
1962: Oakland Raiders (Boston Patriots)
1962: Los Angeles Rams (San Francisco 49’ers)
1966: New York Giants (Washington Redskins)
1967: Atlanta Falcons (Minnesota Vikings)
1968: Buffalo Bills (New York Jets)
1969: Chicago Bears (Pittsburgh Steelers)
1969: Pittsburgh Steelers (Detroit Lions)
1971: Buffalo Bills (New England Patriots)
1972: Houston Oilers (New York Jets)
1973: Houston Oilers (Baltimore Colts)
1980: New Orleans Saints (New York Jets)
1982: Houston Oilers (Seattle Seahawks)
1989: Dallas Cowboys (Washington Redskins)
1990: New England Patriots (Indianapolis Colts)
1991: Indianapolis Colts (New York Jets)
1996: New York Jets (Arizona Cardinals)
2000: San Diego Chargers (Kansas City Chiefs)
2001: Carolina Panthers (Minnesota Vikings)
2007: Miami Dolphins (Baltimore Ravens)
2009: St. Louis Rams (Detroit Lions)

As you can see six teams have twice pulled off the feat of falling to an otherwise winless team. But the New York Jets have lapped the field over the past half century, serving as the lone victim to an otherwise winless team an amazing four times! But the amazement doesn’t end there people. Check the years of those four humiliating, embarrassing Jets’ defeats: 1968, 1972, 1980, and 1996. Yep, that’s right, Losing to Losers in the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s. One loss in four successive decades. Simply incredible. No other team has even done back-to-back decades.

Unfortunately the Jets will have to be satisfied with a four-decade streak. They managed to finish their last ten seasons without once losing to a one-win team. Sad. The 2007 season was their last real shot at one for the thumb but the Jets insisted on toppling the Dolphins twice and forcing Miami to instead beat the Ravens to avoid the ignominy of an 0-16 campaign. But despite the end of their historic streak, the Jets can sit back contentedly knowing the odds of anybody bettering their four-decade streak are practically nonexistent. In recent times we’re only seeing three or four teams a decade go 1-15. And other than the J-E-T-S, Jets Jets Jets, no franchise has managed to lose to a 1-15 squad in consecutive decades. The four teams to fall to a 1-15 team in the last decade will have to do it again in this decade just to have a two-decade streak going. The Jets’ record is totally safe for several decades at least and 31 years from now will be the earliest any franchise would even have a crack at breaking the record should they first be able to set up the loser’s table for a shot at history. We here at Past Inteference mourn the end of the Jets' Losing to Losers streak but given NFL history, their record looks as safe as any record could be.

The New York Jets: On the Verge of Football History?

Before the 2007 NFL season began, I authored a blog entry discussing the interesting fact that since the 1970 merger, eleven teams had produced one-win seasons and, of the eleven wins of those eleven teams, three had come at the expense of the New York Jets while only one other team had at least two such losses. Even more fascinating, the Jets’ three defeats had each come in an entirely different decade: one in the 1970’s, one in the 1980’s, and one in the 1990’s, meaning the Jets currently owned a three-decade streak of Losing to Losers (unless you’re one of those odd people who insist that 1980 is the last year of the 1970’s rather than the first year of the 1980’s; then this strange “streak” does not exist for you). I bemoaned the fact that this current decade was nearing its end before the Jets could extend their streak into a fourth consecutive decade. Since the writing of that post, two things have happened necessitating this follow-up:

1) First, I engaged in further research, going back to 1960, and I discovered that in fact the Jets’ streak has lasted over four decades! The 1960’s saw a surprising nine teams produce horrible one-win seasons. Adding those nine teams to the prevous list of the post-Sixties Awful Eleven leaves us this list of twenty one-loss teams with, more importantly for the purpose of this post, in parenthesis those teams that managed to fall in defeat to the Terrible Twenty:

1960: Washington Redskins (Dallas Cowboys)
1961: Washington Redskins (Dallas Cowboys)
1962: Oakland Raiders (Boston Patriots)
1962: Los Angeles Rams (San Francisco 49’ers)
1966: New York Giants (Washington Redskins)
1967: Atlanta Falcons (Minnesota Vikings)
1968: Buffalo Bills (New York Jets)
1969: Chicago Bears (Pittsburgh Steelers)
1969: Pittsburgh Steelers (Detroit Lions)
1971: Buffalo Bills (New England Patriots)
1972: Houston Oilers (New York Jets)
1973: Houston Oilers (Baltimore Colts)
1980: New Orleans Saints (New York Jets)
1982: Houston Oilers (Seattle Seahawks)
1989: Dallas Cowboys (Washington Redskins)
1990: New England Patriots (Indianapolis Colts)
1991: Indianapolis Colts (New York Jets)
1996: New York Jets (Arizona Cardinals)
2000: San Diego Chargers (Kansas City Chiefs)
2001: Carolina Panthers (Minnesota Vikings)

Five franchises, the Cowboys, Patriots, Redskins, Vikings, and Colts have fallen twice to one-win teams. But the New York Jets easily stand alone when it comes to Losing to Losers. Including the decade of the Sixties, now it’s four separate times the Jets have been the sole victim of a one-win team. And it’s so much better once we tally up the years the Jets have been vanquished by the lowest of the low: 1968, 1972, 1980, and 1991. With awe we see each ignominious defeat taking place in a different decade; the Jets embarrassed themselves in the 1960’s, 1970’s, the 1980’s AND the 1990’s. Unfortunately, it’s been 16 years since the Jets’ last ultimate loss and with this current decade nearing its end the Jets’ amazing streak had appeared to be in serious jeopardy at the time of my previous blog post on this subject.

2) Suddenly opportunity in the form of the 0-11 Miami Dolphins has dropped into the New York Jets’ lap. Should the Jets find a way to lose to the Dolphins this weekend and the Dolphins then go on to lose their remaining games, the Jets will have lost to a one-win team for an unprecedented fifth consecutive decade, a record guaranteed to last for over half a century at least! As a Dolphins fan I am a little torn about this scenario. I will be rooting for Miami to beat the Jets just as enthusiastically as I do every time my favorite team squares off against those losers in Kelly green. Perhaps even more so this time as I desperately do not wish to see the Dolphins become the first 0-16 team in NFL history. So that part is easy. But should Miami knock of the J-E-T-S this weekend that only completes the first part of the equation. The Dolphins would then have to lose their final four games and become a 1-15 team in order for the Jets’ Losing to Losers streak to continue for a fifth straight decade. Could I really root for Miami to drop four straight? Of course not! But you know if it happens it happens.

First things first. Can the New York Jets rise to the challenge and pull out a critical loss on the road to ensuring their place in history? It all starts this weekend.


Trivia Notes:
1) In addition to the 20 one-win teams, the modern era has seen three winless teams. The 1976 Bucs of course, the 0-11-1 Dallas Cowboys of 1960 who tied the New York Giants, and the 0-8-1 Baltimore Colts of 1982 who tied the Green Bay Packers.

2) The 1968 Jets and Bills were actually AFL teams at the time.

The New York Jets: Losing to Losers

Nothing's tougher for an NFL team than going undefeated. After nearly a century of NFL play the 1972 Miami Dolphins still stand alone as the only perfect team ever. But strangely, losing all your games is almost as difficult as going undefeated. Since the merger only the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers have managed to blow an entire season’s worth of games. You've got to go all the way back to the WWII era to find other perfect losers. Somehow, someway, even the absolute worst football teams find a way to eke out that one win enabling them to avoid the eternal shame that would come with losing every single game. And “eke” is the correct word to use. Since the merger, eleven teams have posted one-win seasons and of those eleven stirring victories, eight were decided by a seven points or less. The largest margin of victory in those eleven games was thirteen points.

Here are the teams that fell just short of awful perfection:

1971: Buffalo Bills
1972: Houston Oilers
1973: Houston Oilers
1980: New Orleans Saints
1982: Hoston Oilers
1989: Dallas Cowboys
1990: New England Patriots
1991: Indianapolis Colts
1996: New York Jets
2000: San Diego Chargers
2001: Carolina Panthers

Only the Oilers managed to post multiple one-win seasons, including back-to-back ones! But what of the teams that managed to lose to these losers? On the roll call of teams that failed to defeat the above-listed Awful Eleven only two franchises appear more than once. The Colts lost to both the 1973 Oilers and the 1990 Patriots. But the biggest Loser to Losers are of course the New York Jets. Three times were the Jets asked to defeat a winless team and three times did the Jets deny that request. They lost to the 1972 Oilers, the 1980 Saints, and the 1991 Colts.

Note with awe that the Jets not only uniquely managed to pull off this feat three separate times, but each ignominious defeat took place in a different decade. The Jets embarrassed themselves in the 1970’s, the 1980’s AND the 1990’s. Unfortunately, the Jets’ “streak” appears to be in serious jeopardy. Just two years remain in this current decade and New York has yet to fall to a winless team in the 2000’s (the Oughts?). No NFL team has even ended a season with just one-win since the 2001 Carolina Panthers. Time is running out for the Jets to put their record out of reach for probably all-time. This MUST happen (Did I mention I hate the Jets?). Will the football gods cooperate?

Lay Off the 1972 Miami Dolphins Already

As the New England Patriots inch ever closer to becoming the first team since the 1972 Dolphins to complete a perfect season, many football fans are rooting hard for the Pats to join the Dolphins in perfection. Some of those fans are longtime New England partisans, but a surprisingly large number of them cheer on the Pats for a strange reason: so they will no longer have to hear from or about those cranky, bitter, old men who suited up for Miami back in ’72. Now is it true that the perfect Dolphins are cranky, bitter, bad sports who openly celebrate the losses of others with a champagne celebration, alienating football fans by the dozens with their bad sportsmanship? Not really. The champagne celebrations are a myth promulgated by our ignorant sensationalizing sports media. Snopes busts the myth here.

To boil it down, just two guys, Dick Anderson and Nick Bunoconti, toast each other in a parking lot with champagne after the last undefeated team loses every year. That’s it, only two men, not every surviving member of the team, and I’m pretty sure the little ritual of Dick and Nick isn’t nationally televised. Honestly, I blame ESPN and Chris Berman for blowing that all out of proportion. Each year, when that last undefeated team loses, NFL Primetime/The Blitz shows the highlights, we hear the sound effect of a champagne cork popping, Berman mugs, makes a big show of the whole thing (“What’s that I hear Tommy? The 1972 Dolphins celebrating?”), and congratulates the Fins again for being the only NFL team to accomplish perfection. Now the champagne myth had to predate Berman’s shtick for that tired bit to have ever been generated, but I’m pretty sure the shtick popularized the whole thing in the minds of fans who are convinced this mythical team celebration is both real and in poor taste.

Now, here’s the crux of the problem. The 17-0 mark is a unique record that stands alone among all other records. You know in baseball every single game starts out as a potential no-hitter. Something similar happens with every new football season. Every team’s got a shot at an undefeated season until they lose. So the story of Miami’s record comes up every single year. Nobody really cares all about that much about any team records, a la most points, fewest points allowed, etc., other than winning them all. When Brett Favre breaks another one of Marino’s records, it’s a one-time story (just as Manning breaking Favre’s records one day will be). Nobody cares anymore, nobody will be asking him about it in the future, we all move on. But the 17-0 mark is a completely different animal. After 34 years the 1972 Miami Dolphins still remain the only undefeated team in NFL history. So for 34 years we’ve had sportswriters calling 1972 Dolphins players and coaches to ask those players and coaches what they think about somebody’s chances of going undefeated. And in years where a team appears to actually have a shot at doing it, we get lots and lots of attention paid to those 1972 players and coaches, attention that gets exponentially worse over the years with the rise of sports-talk radio and 24 hour cable sports channels. And who are the players and coaches most likely to be asked for their thoughts? Why, controversial opinionated types like Eugene “Mercury” Morris and cranky high-profile former head coaches like Don Shula. The sports media want to fan the flames of controversy and the likes of Morris and Shula are all too happy to help them.

And what should an undefeated Dolphin answer when asked how he feels about the 2007 New England Patriots? Does any football player want their record tied or beaten? Of course not and if they say they the opposite then they’re lying and we all know it. Honesty does not equal poor sportsmanship. And those old Dolphins really, really do not want anybody to join them in the pantheon of perfection. The greatness of the 1972 Miami Dolphins is inextricably intertwined with that team remaining as the NFL’s only perfect team. When fans and football experts debate who the greatest team of all time is, the arguments get complicated. Points scored, points allowed, margins of victory, strength of schedule, Hall of Fame players, clutch performance--all factors to be considered. But the1972 Miami Dolphins claim to greatness is the simplest argument of all: They won ‘em all. Nobody else can say that. Nobody else ever failed to put forth at least one losing effort. Everyone else cracked under the pressure of trying to win every time out. But not the 1972 Dolphins. Maybe there were other more dominant teams, but alone the 1972 Dolphins succeeded every time they stepped on the football field. Should the 2007 Patriots also go undefeated, the ’72 Miami Dolphins forever lose their unique claim to fame. Understandably, none of them wish that to happen and several of them aren’t shy about letting that be known. And the media constantly sticking microphones in their faces allows us to repeatedly be bombarded with this vital information, negatively coloring the perceptions of those old players.

But you cannot let the words of a few men from an entire football team stand in for the whole. It’s totally unfair. Fine, Dick and Nick celebrate, Shula think the Pats cheat, and Merc is kind of a jerk. That’s hardly the whole story. Former Dolphins tight end Jim Mandich said this recently to the New York Daily News: “You guys put forth the myth that we are pathetic losers down here clicking champagne glasses and clinging desperately to a record set 35 years ago…Somehow we've been portrayed as being evil. We don't ever blow our own horn. It's a great record, but the record doesn't get beaten. The Patriots have assembled a powerhouse of a team. They are a classy bunch of guys and play ball the right way. If they want to join the unbeaten club, come on aboard."

Now get off the Dolphins’ backs already!

The Worst Trade in Miami Dolphins History, Part III

Here’s two of the Herald’s Dishonorable Mention Trades:

DOLPHINS TRADE NO. 1 PICK (26TH OVERALL) AND TWO THIRD-ROUND PICKS TO BUFFALO FOR NO. 1 PICK (14TH) IN DRAFT TRADE-UP -- 1984.

Jackie Shipp. A bust of the highest order. In fact, his selection marked the start of a string of post-Marino 1st-round disasters for the Fins. How bad was Shipp? He was so bad that…Ah, who cares? He sucked. The question here is, Was trading up to get the 14th pick a bad deal? To do it the Fins gave up two 3rd rounder to the Bills. The Bills picked Sean McNanie and Speedy Neal, two losers. Would Miami have done any better if they had kept those picks? Who knows? I’ll say this, if you use their entire all-bust 1984 draft as your signpost, the Magic Eight Ball says, “All signs point to No!” I don’t think losing two 3rd rounders is that big a sacrifice anyway. The Herald points out that had Miami just stayed at 26, they could have picked the player the Bills ended up with: RB Greg Bell. Bell was a good player as it turned out. He gave the Bills two good years, got hurt and missed most of the next two, then had two great years for the Rams before flaming out with the Raiders. Not the greatest career but compared to the backs Miami was running out there in the Eighties he was like Jim Brown, Walter Payton, and Barry Sanders rolled into one. Yeah, getting Bell instead of Shipp would have been the way to go.

BUT, Miami NEVER would have picked Bell even if they hadn’t made that trade. Never I tell you! Why? ‘Cause Shula wanted linebackers real real bad that year. Not only did he take Shipp in Round One, he drafted LB Jay Brophy in Round Two. If Miami stayed put and Shipp was gone by the 26th spot, MIA would have just taken another linebacker there. Probably Mike Guendling (who went 33rd), or Scott Radecic (34th), or Thomas Benson (36th), or Ed Williams (43rd), or Ron Rivera (44th). I’m sure you’ve heard of all those guys. (Rivera had a good career). Why did the Dolphins need linebackers so bad you ask? Well, the year before their fine LB Larry Gordon died from a heart attack. A tremendous blow obviously compounded by the fact that another fine Dolphins LB, Rusty Chambers, died in a car accident two years earlier. So Miami was incredibly weak at the linebacker position by the time of the 1984 draft and that’s where Shula’s focus rightfully was (and watch Super Bowl XIX again sometime to see the marvelous results of that focus).

Wouldn’t they at least have considered Bell if Shipp was gone? No, they would not have. How can I know this? Because Miami was already set at running back. Miami drafted David Overstreet in the 1st round back in 1981. Joe Robbie, Dolphins owner and notorious cheapskate, not necessarily in that order, wouldn’t pay Overstreet what he wanted back then so Dave booked for the greener pastures of the Canadian Football League. He was rookie of the year there in 1981, but got hurt in 1982. He returned home in 1983 and played very well for the Fins in limited action: 392 yards on only 85 carries. Shula promised him the starter’s job in 1984. So as of May 1, 1984, Draft Day, Miami’s offense was all set. The first full season for both the great Dan Marino and David Overstreet. As she usually does however, Fate had other plans for the Dolphins. On June 25, 1984, 55 days after the draft, David Overstreet died in a car wreck. He fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into some gas tanks that exploded on impact. RIP David. You too Larry and Rusty.

So, Shipp--a bad pick, but I’m pretty sure that even if they don’t make that trade Miami winds up with a different lousy linebacker. Losing two third-rounders aren’t enough to make this a contender for worst trade ever.


DOLPHINS TRADE QUARTERBACK JOE THEISMANN TO WASHINGTON FOR A FIRST-ROUND PICK -- 1976.

In no way shape or form was this a bad trade. Israel Gutierrez says the Dolphins "still had Bob Griese for another four years, but it couldn't have hurt to have a Theismann, whom the team drafted in 1971 before he went to the CFL." Actually, the Dolphins still had Griese for another six years. Miami got Washington's 1976 first-rounder but they dealt Theisman in 1974. Sure it probably wouldn't have hurt to have Joe T around (unless you had to listen to him. Dude is really annoying), but who needed him? He wasn't as good as Griese. And Miami got Marino in 1983, just three years after Griese's career ended. So, assuming Miami still gets Marino in an alternate "keeping Theisman" world, we only would have used Theisman from 1980-1982, the David Woodley years. They could have used Theisman then but of all the bad trades discussed so far, this is the only one where Miami came out with something positive. They used the Skins number one pick to take Larry Gordon. Gordon was a hell of a player for seven years. He won the team's Outstanding Linebacker award in the late 70s and was named to the Dolphins' Silver Anniversary team. He was still a good player up to the time he dropped dead of heart disease while jogging at age 28.

There's only one way you could say trading away the Theis was a bad move. Miami won a division title in 1981 and made the Super Bowl in 1982. They had an excellent team. Their biggest weak spot was quarterback. Woodley just wasn't cut out for the job and his worthless play in Super Bowl XVII definitely cost Miami the game. If Miami had Theisman, who was one of the best QB's in the league from 1982-1984, one would have to say their chance at winning it all in 1982 would have been excellent. Espeically when considering that the team that beat them in 1982, the Redskins, wouldn't have had Theisman. So maybe cutting Theisman loose in 1974 cost Miami a championship eight years later. Of course, if Miami wins in 1982 maybe they don't draft Marino. (And maybe Washington would have drafted him). Clearly this is all Speculation City. In the end we didn't need Theisman. We got Gordon. He played great. The trade paid off. Not the worst trade ever.

The Worst Trade in Miami Dolphins' History:

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Addendum: The Marlin Briscoe Trade