The Top 10 Best NFL Teams of All Time
The National Football League was founded in 1920, while the Super Bowl era kicked off almost half a century later in 1967. In the years that have followed, we have seen the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers lift a record six trophies each, Peyton Manning scoop five NFL MVP awards, and Tom Brady win seven Super Bowls. Let’s take a closer look at the top 10 teams of all time!
A total of 32 teams take to the field in each season, and it has been 58 years since the modern-day NFL calendar was created. That means we have seen over 1,800 different squads assembled over the history of the National Football League.
Now it’s time to whittle them down to a ranking of the top ten best NFL teams of all time.
The History of the National Football League
Did you know that the NFL hasn’t always had playoffs at the end of a season? The American Professional Football Association was launched in 1920 before being renamed to the National Football League in 1922, but it wasn’t until 1933 that playoffs were introduced. Until then, the winners were decided purely off end-of-season standings. Between 1933 and 1966, the season ended with the NFL Championship Game to determine an overall champion. However, after the NFL merged with rival American Football League in 1966, the Super Bowl as we know and love it today was born.
The modern-day format of the NFL is simple. We start with three weeks of preseason in August, followed by 18 weeks of regular season in which each team plays 17 games within their own conference. At the end of the regular season, four division winners and three wild cards from each conference qualify for the playoffs. This elimination tournament eventually leaves us with a challenger from each conference to fight it out in the Super Bowl for ultimate glory.
Who are the Best NFL Teams in History?
There are two ways of answering the big question of ‘Who is the best team in NFL history’? Firstly, we could look at the 18 franchises that compete year in and year out to lift the Super Bowl trophy. If we look at that criteria, it is hard to look past the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers, both of whom have won the championship six times in their illustrious history.
Patriots fans will argue that they are the true ultimate champions because not only have they won six Super Bowls, but they have also qualified for another five finals. Pittsburgh fans, on the other hand, would argue that they have a much better win percentage than the Patriots, having won six out of their eight finals appearances (75% compared to the Patriots’ 54.5%).
There are also a number of other huge franchises knocking on the door of the all-time top spot. Both the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers are on five wins, with the 49ers qualifying for the final in both 2019 and 2023. The statistics seem to suggest that they have the best chance of breaking into the six-win bracket out of the chasing pack. The Green Bay Packers, Kansas City Chiefs, and New York Giants all have four all-time wins. In fact, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 2019, 2022, and 2023, while making the final in 2020 and 2024. Our three-time winners include the Denver Broncos, Las Vegas Raiders, and Washington Commanders. Only 20 different teams have ever won the Super Bowl.
But forget about franchises as a whole – what about the top ten NFL teams of all time?
Ranking the Top Ten Best NFL Teams of All Time
Let’s take a look back through the modern era to decide our top ten NFL teams of all time, and what better place to start than the first-ever Super Bowl?
10) 1966 Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers went 14-2 in 1966, making history by defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in a historic maiden Super Bowl at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Looking back now, the Packers boasted a defence with a jaw-dropping six Hall of Famers, while quarterback Bart Starr won the MVP award in both of the first two Super Bowls.
9) 1989 San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers went 17-2 in 1989, losing those two games but a combined score of just five. They outscored their rivals in the regular season by an impressive 200 points before blowing their playoff opponents out of the water by a combined 126-26. The 49ers’ most famous victory that season came in the Super Bowl where they set two records that stand to this day. The 55-10 result against the Denver Broncos was not only a record for points scored in the final, but also the biggest winning margin in history.
8) 1999 St. Louis Rams
How could ‘The Greatest Show on Turf’ not make our top ten list?! In 1999, the Rams set a then-NFL record of 526 points. That was 83 more than Washington in second and a whopping 58% above the league average. As a perfect bow on top of the perfect story, former grocery store clerk turned league MVP Kurt Warner pulled off one of the rags-to-riches arcs the NFL has ever seen. Most people didn’t know him before the start of the season, but by the time the Rams eventually went 16-3 by beating the Tennessee Titans in the Super Bowl final, Warner and co became deserved household names.
7) 1992 Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys registered a 13-3 regular season in 92 on the path to what would be their first of three Super Bowls in just four years. Troy Aikman managed to throw 23 touchdowns – the highest season tally in his career. Emmit Smith also led two personal leaderboards with his 19 touchdowns and 1,713 rushing yards that year. The Cowboys went on to demolish the Buffalo Bills 52-17 in the Super Bowl. This was the Bills’ third final defeat in a row, and the Cowboys would beat them again the following year.
6) 1991 Washington Redskins
In 1991, Washington went 14-2 in the regular season, but even those two defeats only came from a combined five points. After failing to qualify for the playoffs in 1988 and 1989, before getting knocked out in the first round in 1990, the Redskins went all the way in 91 to cement Joe Gibbs as a Hall of Fame coach. Gibbs became the first NFL coach in the history of the game to lift the Super Bowl three times with three different starting QBs.
5) 1984 San Francisco 49ers
Had the 49ers pulled off an undefeated season in 1984, they might be a little lower down on our list. They did manage to become the first team to go 15-1 following the switch to a 16-game regular season in 1978, but they tasted a narrow three-point defeat to the Steelers along the way. Joe Montana was the hero of the season, winning the league and Super Bowl MVP awards while throwing for 333 yards and three touchdowns in the final against the Miami Dolphins. To make their season even more impressive, the 49ers beat the next two Super Bowl champs in the playoffs that year – the Bears and the Giants.
4) 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers went 17-2 through the 1978 season, defeating reigning champions the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XIII to crown their campaign in the perfect way. Ironically, many predicted that the Steelers would struggle in 78 due to new rules designed to limit contact from defensive backs and promote higher-scoring games. In reality, the Steelers fielded one of the best defensive lines of all time in Mean Joe Greene, L.C. Greenwood, Ernie Holmes, and Dwight White. They went on to not only win the Super Bowl that year, but also in 1979 too, making it four wins in six years for the Steelers.
3) 1985 Chicago Bears
In 1985, the Chicago Bears were one game away from a perfect 19-0 record. Fortunately for them, that loss did not come in the Super Bowl, where they steamrolled the New England Patriots 46-10. The Bears shut out the Giants in their first playoff game, shut out the Rams in their second playoff game, and conceded just ten points in the final. If only they hadn’t lost to the Dolphins in the regular season! This season also saw the birth of the famous Buddy Ryan 46 defense, which revolutionized the concept of having six players along the line of scrimmage. The stars of the show were undoubtedly Super Bowl MVP Richard Dent, quarterback Jim McMahon, and Hall of Famer Walter Payton.
2) 2007 New England Patriots
You know a team must be good if they make the number two spot without even lifting the Super Bowl! In 2007, the New England Patriots became the first team to go undefeated in the regular season since the switch to a 16-game format. They also recorded the highest-ever points differential during that campaign with +315. The iconic Tom Brady earned his first NFL MVP award by setting a new record for touchdown passes with 50. Randy Moss also racked up 23 touchdown catches, a record that remains unbroken to this day. The defense wasn’t half bad either, with the likes of Junior Seau, Rodney Harrison, Vince Wilfork, Mike Vrabel, and Asante Samuel keeping the opposition score under 20 more often than not that season. Unfortunately, the 18-0 was followed by the defining game of their campaign, a 17-14 defeat to the New York Giants in Arizona. So close, and yet so far!
1) 1972 Miami Dolphins
The 1972 Miami Dolphins are widely regarded as the best NFL team of all time – and with good reason! The Dolphins went 17-0 across the regular season and the playoffs, featuring both the best offense and the best defense. This set up a chance for redemption in the Super Bowl, with Miami having lost 24-3 to the Dallas Cowboys the year before. Second time was the charm though, as the Miami Dolphins recorded the first and only ever undefeated Super Bowl-winning campaign in history. If that isn’t worth the number one spot, then what is?
Dallas Cowboys head coach, Tom Landry, infamously referred to the Dolphins’ defense as the ‘no name defense’ because he simply couldn’t remember the names of any of the players. The likes of Nick Buoniconti and Manny Fernandez may not have been widely known then, but they are known far and wide now. The Dolphins defense, including Super Bowl MVP winner Jake Scott, kept their opponents below the 18-point mark 14 times that year. In offense, Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris each ran over 1,000 yards across the season – the first pair to ever achieve that feat. Receiver Paul Warfield has also since been inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame.
The most famous win on the road to their perfect record is unsurprisingly the 14-7 Super Bowl victory over the Washington Redskins. In fact, the Dolphins were within touching distance of the only-ever Super Bowl shutout in history before Garo Yepremian whiffed and virtually handed Washington a free touchdown.
Who is the Worst NFL Team of All Time?
If there is a best, there must also be a worst. Of course, there are a number of ways you can define the ‘worst’ NFL team.
While they definitely aren’t the worst franchise in history by a long shot, the Buffalo Bills have to go down as the unluckiest. The Bills have still never won a Super Bowl, but famously somehow managed to lose four straight finals between 1990 and 1993. The run started with a narrow 20-19 defeat to the New York Giants in the 1990 season, before being compounded by a loss to the Washington Redskins, and twice to the Dallas Cowboys over the next three years.
The Detroit Lions have a very real case as one of the worst franchises on the roster. In the history of the NFL, the Lions have a win percentage of just 44.4%, which is 28th out of the 32 teams. They also have a play-off win percentage of just 35% – which is the second worst in the league. The Lions have never won the Super Bowl and are one of the four teams to also never even qualify for the final. It comes as no surprise that they are tied second-last for the fewest MVPs per season too at 0.015.
However, that being said, the worst individual NFL team of all time has to go down as the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs started the season with a pretty poor roster but that was made worse by a series of injuries stemming from an intense practice schedule. They ended up going 0-14 in the 1976 season, with a minus-287 differential which is the worst ever recorded. They were completely shut out five times that year and came within one score just two times. They even went on to lose the first two games of the 1977 season, taking their losing streak to 16!
Please note that the odds might have changed since the writing and/or publication of this article.
Last updated: 21.03.25
