On Sunday, Sept. 3, 2000, the NFL inaugurated its first season to begin with a "2." It was, to put things charitably, a different time. There was no opening night with the defending champs on Thursday or an international game on Friday (or any other game outside of the United States all season). No games were watched in high definition. The yellow, on-screen first-down line was roughly two years old. Patrick Mahomes was a pitcher on the Mets; his son was about to turn 5. Tom Brady was a healthy scratch after making the Patriots' roster in training camp; the guy who kept him, Bill Belichick, was taking over his first game as New England's coach.
The NFL we're about to watch in 2025 is very different, both in terms of aesthetic and presentation, than the one you followed 25 years ago. Offenses and defenses have evolved pre- and post-snap, although some innovations are clever repackagings of past concepts. Rules have changed. NFL teams that might not have needed or wanted computers 25 years ago are sorting through player tracking data. It's almost impossible to pluck teams from two decades ago and compare them to the teams playing now.
Good thing it's only almost impossible, because guess what we're doing today? That's right: With 25 seasons in the books since the world celebrated the birth of the third millennium, I'm picking the 25 best teams of the past 25 years of professional football. If you could somehow take those 25 top teams from the past quarter century and get them to play one another, who would end up on top?
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That's the question I'm trying to answer below, which requires some explanation. There are lots of ways to try to answer this question. Should it be a measure of which team was most successful? Which teams played the best on a snap-by-snap basis? Should I consider each team at its peak or over the entire season? What about accounting for shorter schedules and different playoff rules?
I tried to strike a balance. My goal is to find the best team if all of these teams could play each other in what amounts to a time-traveling Champions League of the past quarter century. I considered what every team did over the course of the entire season, all the way from Week 1 through the playoffs, as the best measure of its true underlying level of play. I tried to account for injuries to emulate what we actually saw play out during each team's real season. The 2017 Eagles, for example, are going to have Nick Foles start about 31% of the time, since he took over for an injured Carson Wentz and played six of their 19 total games during their run to Super Bowl LII.
At the same time, I wanted to reward teams that won championships. I weighted postseason performance as more significant than what happened during the regular season. I looked for teams that dominated their opposition, especially when those opponents were also among the league's best. I wanted to favor teams that were complete and controlled both sides of the ball, but I didn't want to leave out true outliers that were generationally impactful on offense or defense, especially if they rode those successes into the Super Bowl.
To compare their performance, with limited data for the earlier years of the century, I kept things simple. I measured each team's scoring offense and defense per game, including its postseason figures, and then normalized them against the league average. I'm going to include each team's percentile rank on offense and defense over the past 25 years by this measure, a number that is better when higher, with 100 as the peak. Where available, I tried to use advanced metrics to get more insight into each team's level of play.
I also focused on sustainable and strong underlying levels of play as opposed to teams that were spectacular in close games or managed to squeeze out victories each week. While all of the teams here won plenty of games, this isn't a list of win totals. As a good example, the 2024 Chiefs went 15-2 while winning close games with blocked field goals, fumbled snaps and bad game management by the opposing coach, but they weren't that caliber of team from their underlying level of play. You saw what happened to them against stiff competition in Super Bowl LIX. They didn't make this list.
Finally, I measured strength of schedule using the Pythagorean formula. For each opponent a team faced in a given season, I calculated its points scored and points allowed in games not involving that team, then built an expected winning percentage off that formula. (In other words, to measure how tough of an opponent the Ravens were for the Steelers in a given year, I calculated how the Ravens performed in every game they played that didn't involve the Steelers.) Weighting for how often each team played each opponent, this average schedule difficulty helped inform the path each team took during its season.
With all of that in mind, for all the math and analysis, I asked myself one question when I was comparing a pair of teams on the list: Given everything we saw from each of these two teams over the course of their entire seasons, which would win if they met on a neutral field? Sometimes, that led to contradictory answers: There are teams on this list that lost to other teams that didn't make it or even come close. That might seem counterintuitive given that you literally saw that team win, but what happens on one day won't necessarily happen again. The Bills have beaten the Chiefs four straight times in the regular season; you know how things have gone when they've met in the playoffs.
I'll start with the honorable mention, then count down the best teams of the past 25 years:
Jump to a legendary team:
2000 Ravens | 2002 Bucs
2007 Patriots | 2010 Packers
2019 Chiefs | 2024 Eagles
Honorable mention
If I list every single team that garnered meaningful consideration, I'd be 10,000 words deep before even hitting the top 25. By restricting myself to 25 teams in 25 seasons, even my limited math is good enough to know I'm grabbing an average of one team per year. Though there are a couple of seasons in which I ended up taking two teams, think about 2024 and what limiting ourselves to one team means. With the Eagles being my pick, that means the Chiefs don't make it. It also means no 15-2 Lions. No 14-3 Vikings. No 13-4 Bills with Josh Allen's MVP campaign. No 12-5 Commanders and Jayden Daniels' special rookie campaign. There are similar great teams from each of the past 25 years that simply get squeezed out.
With that in mind, I'm limiting the honorable mention discussion to the 12 teams that won the Super Bowl and didn't end up in the top 25. Obviously, winning pro football's biggest prize is a valuable item to put on a rsum -- I weighted things disproportionately in favor of teams that took home the Lombardi Trophy -- but I'm considering what those teams did over the entire season, not just how their campaign ended. Let's run through those teams and why I believe they came up short in this ranking:
Everyone remembers three moments for the 2001 Patriots: Drew Bledsoe suffering internal bleeding on a September hit and opening up the door for Tom Brady, the Tuck Rule game and Adam Vinatieri's field goals in the snow to beat the Raiders, and an incredible performance in upsetting the Greatest Show on Turf as 14-point underdogs in Super Bowl XXXVI.
What's lost to history is a good team that doesn't push its way into the top 25. Including their playoff run, these Patriots played the second-easiest schedule of any Super Bowl winner over the past 25 years, as they had just two wins over teams with winning records during the regular season. Their playoff wins were all narrow, although whatever good fortune they might have come across in the victory over the Raiders was offset by losing Brady to an ankle injury in the second quarter of the AFC Championship Game, with Bledsoe coming back in to help top Kordell Stewart and the Steelers. Their best game of the season, quite comfortably, came in the Super Bowl. Many of the players on this team would eventually help turn New England into a dynasty, but there were much better versions of the Patriots to come.
The 2005 Steelers were 7-5 late in the season before going on an eight-game winning streak to claim Super Bowl XL. Some of those issues were due to Ben Roethlisberger missing four games with knee injuries, but Pittsburgh didn't even win its division. That honor went to the Bengals, who were then knocked out of the playoffs in the wild-card round by the Steelers when Kimo Von Oelhoeffen famously tore Carson Palmer's left ACL on the latter's second postseason snap.
The Steelers then survived a Jerome Bettis fumble on the goal line against the Colts that nearly produced a 98-yard touchdown that would have completed an 18-point fourth-quarter comeback, only for Roethlisberger to make the best tackle of his career. Mike Vanderjagt then missed a 46-yard field goal that would have sent the game to overtime. In the Super Bowl, Roethlisberger posted a 22.6 passer rating and threw two picks, but the Steelers beat the Seahawks in a game marred by dismal officiating. They were survivors, but this wasn't even a great team by their lofty standards.
The 2006 Colts were a great team when they had star safety Bob Sanders, going 7-1 with him on the field. Sanders played just four regular-season games before returning for the playoffs, at which point the Colts ran the table, most famously with a comeback from 21-3 down against the archrival Patriots to finally get Peyton Manning his playoff win over Tom Brady. The Sanders-led defense forced 13 turnovers during a four-game playoff run, including five by Rex Grossman and the Bears in Super Bowl XLI.
Without Sanders for much of the season, the Colts finished 23rd in scoring defense. They were the league's worst third-down defense and the second-worst red zone defense during the regular season. Just taking the best version of this team and assuming Sanders could play 17 games, they would be in the top 25. As it stands, other versions of the Manning-era Colts make the list, even without a ring.
The 2007 Giants produced what might have been the most memorable victory of the Super Bowl era, controlling the vaunted Patriots offense and coming up with David Tyree's famous helmet catch to set up a championship-winning touchdown. Making a run through the Buccaneers, Cowboys and Packers on the NFC side of the bracket, the Giants waylaid history.
Of course, they also lost to those same Patriots during the regular season, where they were also swept by the Cowboys and lost to the Packers. They had a minus-nine turnover differential during the regular season, and while they played the Pats close in the last week, that followed an eight-game stretch in which Eli Manning completed 51.1% of his passes and turned the ball over twice as often (14 times) as he produced touchdowns (seven, with six through the air.) This team had a great defensive line, and it hit a new stride when it leaned into its young talent during the postseason, but one snap before the helmet catch, a would-be interception bounced off Asante Samuel's hands. If he had caught that pass, nobody would even pretend this is a debate. The Giants deserve all the credit in the world for what they accomplished, but I wouldn't like their chances against these teams over another 17-game season.
The good news is that no fans will be mad at me for also leaving the 2011 Giants out of the top 25. Right? The 2011 version was actually outscored during the regular season, albeit while playing a tough schedule. The Giants were 7-7 in December and Manning was being unfavorably compared to fellow New York quarterback Mark Sanchez before the team rolled off wins over the Jets and the Cowboys to win the NFC East on the final day of the season.
The league's 25th-ranked scoring defense improved massively during the playoffs, with the Giants holding the Falcons to a lone safety and then slowing down the 15-1 Packers in the divisional round. New York put up a great conference title game performance against the 49ers, who did nothing on offense and went 1-for-13 on third down one week after dropping 36 points on the Saints. The Giants then forced an early safety from Tom Brady and shut out the Patriots for the final 26 minutes of Super Bowl XLVI, eventually winning 21-17.
Was there a bit of fortune during their playoff run? Of course. Hakeem Nicks caught a Hail Mary to extend a lead against Green Bay on a day in which the Giants fell on all three Packers fumbles. In the NFC Championship Game, 49ers punt returner Kyle Williams muffed two punts, with one leading to a New York touchdown and the other setting up the game-winning field goal in overtime. Another fourth-quarter drop helped the Giants, this time coming on offense from Wes Welker in the Super Bowl. As with 2007, this was another team that was great in the postseason and closer to league average during the regular season. It's tough to sneak in when there are so many teams that were good in both spots.
Like the Super Bowl-winning Colts, the 2012 Ravens looked a lot better on defense during the postseason. Terrell Suggs missed the first half of the year, and Ray Lewis was limited to six regular-season games by injuries. By the end of the year, the Ravens didn't seem like a Super Bowl contender; they lost four of their final five games, limping into the postseason at 10-6.
Though Lewis wasn't anywhere near his peak, his return for the postseason helped spark the defense, which forced 10 turnovers in four games. The Ravens needed a miracle to make it past the Broncos in the divisional round and got one when Denver safety Rahim Moore misjudged a Joe Flacco bomb with a seven-point lead and 43 seconds left, allowing Jacoby Jones to run past him for a 70-yard score to tie the game. The Ravens won in overtime, beat the Patriots in Foxborough and then won the Harbaugh Bowl against the 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII.
Flacco had the hottest stretch of his career at exactly the right time, posting a 117.2 passer rating and throwing nine touchdowns without a pick during the postseason. There's a significant span of time before and after suggesting that stretch is an outlier for the veteran passer. This wasn't the best Baltimore team of the Flacco/John Harbaugh era, but it was the one that had the best timing.
The 2014 Patriots might suffer from being compared with so many other Pats teams. (There are a few, as you can probably surmise, in the top 25.) This was the season they famously looked cooked on "Monday Night Football" in a 41-14 loss to the Chiefs, only for a return to form from Rob Gronkowski and a revamped offensive line to quickly hush any concerns about a 37-year-old Brady losing his touch. Leaving aside a meaningless Week 18 game, the Pats went 13-1 after the loss in Kansas City.
The playoff run wasn't as dominant as others. They prevailed in a chaotic 35-31 game against the Ravens, owing in part to a substitution tactic that was banned after the season. They blew out an overmatched Colts team in the AFC Championship Game. In Super Bowl XLIX, they allowed the Seahawks to come within a yard of taking the lead with 26 seconds to go. You know what happened next.
The 2015 Broncos fielded a dominant defense, with Von Miller, DeMarcus Ware and a stout front producing 14 sacks and a staggering 33 knockdowns during their three-game run to Super Bowl 50. The offense? Well, Peyton Manning was benched at midseason for Brock Osweiler and nobody batted an eye, which should tell you what you need to know. The Broncos ranked 19th in scoring offense and 30th in turnovers (31). The offense wasn't good during the playoff run, but with Manning restored to the lineup, they turned the ball over only three times in three games, which was enough to earn a ring.
The 2018 Patriots were more good than great during the regular season, as an 11-5 team benefited from an easy schedule and finished 19th in defense-adjusted value over average. If you thought they were good at the time, you had to argue with Brady, who insisted, "Everybody thinks we suck and can't win any games" in his postgame chat after the divisional-round victory over the Chargers. (No footage could be found suggesting this was true.)
This wasn't a great defense, and the Patriots relied heavily on the offense to pull out victories over the Chargers and Chiefs in the playoffs, beating the latter after blowing a three-point lead with 39 seconds left only to prevail in overtime under the league's old rules by winning the coin toss and scoring a touchdown on the opening drive. In Super Bowl LIII, though, they were great for one day, as Bill Belichick leaned into the 6-1 front Vic Fangio had used to stymie the Rams in the regular season, taking away their run game and forcing Jared Goff to become a dropback passer. The Pats scored the only touchdown of the game in a 13-3 win, giving Brady and Belichick their final title together in New England.
Two years later, Brady won another title with the 2020 Buccaneers, who overran an injury-riddled Chiefs line in a blowout Super Bowl LV victory at their home stadium. Those Bucs didn't win their division title but led a charmed life in the NFC playoffs. They got a home game against a dismal 7-9 Washington team that lost starting quarterback Alex Smith for the wild-card round, and they still let a Taylor Heinicke-led team keep things close in the fourth quarter. The rematch against the Saints came in what would be Drew Brees' final start, a day in which he clearly didn't have his usual capacity to throw the football.
In the NFC Championship Game, the referees appeared to let both sides play by Mutant League Football rules before a late pass interference penalty and a brutally conservative call by Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur pushed the Bucs through to the Super Bowl. They were great in the Super Bowl, and this was one of the best wild-card teams of the past 25 years, but they ended up being Team No. 26.
The 2021 Rams got off to a 7-1 start and unlocked some sort of Jerry Rice mode out of Cooper Kupp, but they lost three straight in midseason and then let their rivals into the playoffs when they couldn't close out the Niners in Week 18. They dominated the Cardinals in the wild-card round, but their three other victories were narrow wins over the Buccaneers, 49ers and Bengals. They blew a 27-6 lead against Tampa and trailed for almost the entirety of the second half against the Bengals before a late score, with a nearly fatal dedication to establishing a dismal running game against the culprit.
This was a very good team, but it's tough to argue against the idea the schedule broke their way. The 4-seed Rams got to play the NFC Championship Game after the 49ers knocked out the 1-seed Packers and 3-seed Cowboys. The Rams got to play the 4-seed in the AFC when the Bengals eliminated the Titans and Chiefs, while the second-seeded Bills fell in the "13 Seconds" game at Arrowhead. After going 2-5 against playoff teams during the regular season, the Rams seem more like the last good team standing than a historically great performer.
The 2023 Chiefs were their own worst enemies at times, led by a group of wide receivers whose drops directly led to multiple losses during the regular season. A Christmas Day loss to the Raiders left them at 9-6, and though they had enough in the tank to win the AFC West, Patrick Mahomes & Co. were forced to travel to play playoff games on the road for the first time in the future Hall of Famer's career.
After a blowout win over a frozen Dolphins team at home, the Chiefs went through stiff competition on the road, narrowly beating the Bills in Buffalo and topping a 13-4 Ravens team in Baltimore before an overtime win over the 49ers earned them another Super Bowl. It was an incredible run for Chris Jones, who made a series of season-saving plays in the wins over Buffalo and San Francisco, and Mahomes, who led two fourth-quarter comebacks and a game-winning drive in overtime of the title game. Even Chiefs fans, though, would probably admit that this wasn't the best team of the Mahomes era -- or particularly close to it.
The 25 best NFL teams of the past 25 years
25. 2018 Los Angeles Rams (15-4)
Fate: Lost in Super Bowl LIII to Patriots, 13-3
Offense: 95th percentile
Defense: 48th percentile
These Rams felt like the future of football. Building on their stunning 2017 season, it didn't seem as though anything could derail Sean McVay's offense. The Rams began the 2018 season by winning their first eight games, averaging 33 points in the process. Although they lost to an excellent Saints team in New Orleans to fall from the undefeated ranks, Jared Goff & Co. followed the performance by outdueling the Chiefs in one of the most memorable games of the past 25 years, the famous 54-51 shootout on "Monday Night Football," where the defense chipped in with five takeaways and two Samson Ebukam touchdowns. (Don't ask what happened when the Rams didn't force a takeaway.)
Hitting their bye at 10-1, the Rams looked unstoppable. Then, suddenly, things changed. An injury to Todd Gurley limited the star back, who wasn't the same for any stretch of time after the bye. One week after the Lions put their edge rushers as far outside as possible to help force Los Angeles' zone runs back inside, Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio's 6-1 front stifled the run game and forced Goff to be a pocket passer. He threw four picks in a 15-6 loss. The Eagles got the Rams again the following week, and although Los Angeles came back with two victories against the dismal Cardinals and 49ers to end the regular season, warning bells were blaring.
After beating the Cowboys at home, the Rams were bailed out by their defense in the NFC Championship Game against the Saints. An overwhelmed offense struggled early and handed the Saints an early turnover, but the Rams held New Orleans to two short field goals early before a touchdown drive put them down 13-0. Aaron Donald and the defense held the Saints to 10 points over their ensuing seven drives, aided at the end by one of the most famous missed pass interference calls in league history, which gave the Rams time to drive and tie the game in regulation. John Johnson picked off Drew Brees in overtime, and although the offense couldn't do much, Greg Zuerlein hit a 57-yard field goal to send L.A. to its first Super Bowl under McVay.
There, with two weeks to prepare, Belichick hard-coded the Fangio approach into his defense. McVay and the Rams had no answer. The defense played its best game of the season, holding an excellent Patriots offense to 13 points on 11 possessions, but the Rams never found a way to get the Patriots out of their six-man fronts and couldn't get their dropback pass game going. They punted on their first eight drives and scored three points. It's still tied for the lowest total produced by a McVay offense in a single game.
That loss eventually changed the league. The McVay and Shanahan-style offenses were forced to diversify their run concepts, modernizing what had become the league's favorite way to attack defenses. Goff wasn't quite as effective without the heavy play-action attack, and McVay eventually grew frustrated, quasi-benched him for a playoff game against the Seahawks and then sent him to the Lions in a salary dump as part of the Matthew Stafford trade, which led to a title for the Rams and a resurgent Lions franchise. The 2018 L.A. team was eventually overshadowed by the team that won the title, but over the entire season, it was better than the 2021 edition.
24. 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers (16-2)
Fate: Lost AFC Championship Game to Patriots 41-27
Offense: 67th percentile
Defense: 89th percentile
At 15-1, this was the best regular-season team of the Bill Cowher era. Dick LeBeau's defense allowed a league-low 15.7 points per game. And after Tommy Maddox started the season by going 2-1, rookie first-round pick Ben Roethlisberger took over as the starter and won his first 13 starts, averaging nearly 9.0 yards per attempt in a low-volume, high-efficiency passing game.
Going 15-1 in the regular season is one thing, but it's even more impressive considering who the Steelers beat. In midseason, the Steelers stopped the Patriots from extending their 21-game winning streak, beating them by two touchdowns. The following week, they hosted the other team that would eventually compete in the Super Bowl and routed the Eagles 27-3. They ran a little hot, going 6-0 in one-score games, but every team runs a little hot when it goes 15-1.
The postseason just didn't go quite as well. The Steelers allowed two return touchdowns to the Jets and eventually had to survive a 43-yard miss by Doug Brien that would have won the game for New York before prevailing in overtime. In their rematch with the Patriots, New England went up 17-3 in the second quarter; with the Steelers driving for a score to get back into the game, Roethlisberger threw an 87-yard pick-six to Rodney Harrison, putting it out of reach.
23. 2014 Seattle Seahawks (14-5)
Fate: Lost Super Bowl XLIX to Patriots 28-24
Offense: 73rd percentile
Defense: 97th percentile
Although they lost by the narrowest of margins to the Patriots in the Super Bowl, I'd argue the Seahawks were the better team across the full season than their eventual conquerors. This team led the league in DVOA, thanks to a late-season surge.
After Bobby Wagner returned from a midseason pectoral injury, the Seahawks put together their best stretch of defensive football in the Legion of Boom era. Over the final six games of the regular season, they allowed a total of 39 points. In our 25-year window, it's the second-best six-game stretch by points allowed behind a run from the 2000 Steelers, who were playing in a league in which leaguewide scoring was 10% lower than it was in 2014. Colts coach Tony Dungy was sufficiently moved by Wagner's performance to give him an MVP vote for an 11-game season, meaning that Wagner is likely to finish his career with more MVP votes (one) than Russell Wilson and the rest of these legendary Seahawks teams combined (zero).
Unsurprisingly, the Seahawks finished the season as the league's best defense. The offense ranked only 10th in scoring, but it was better by EPA (seventh) and played at a relatively slow pace. Wilson threw for 3,475 yards and added 849 more with six scores as a runner, both of which would become career highs (barring something very unexpected happening with the 2025 Giants). Seattle won its Super Bowl rematch with Denver in overtime, swept the 11-5 Cardinals and dominated a Packers team it would see again in the playoffs with a 20-point victory in Week 1. The Seahawks also lost to an Austin Davis-led Rams team, which doesn't help their case.
The Seahawks' playoff run to the Super Bowl was uneven. After Carson Palmer went down with a late-season injury, a 7-8-1 Panthers team got to host Ryan Lindley in the wild-card round. The Panthers won, giving the Seahawks a home game against a sub-.500 team in the divisional round, which was an easy victory. Facing the Packers in the NFC Championship Game, Wilson threw four interceptions, only to have his season saved by a brutal stretch of in-game decision-making by Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy. With a fake field goal for a touchdown, the world's shortest Hail Mary producing a 2-point conversion and a fateful onside kick recovery giving the Seahawks a late lead, the Packers still managed to push the game to overtime before Wilson hit Jermaine Kearse for a 35-yard touchdown to send the Seahawks to the Super Bowl. Great teams persevere and find ways to win? Or was Seattle lucky? Both are probably true.
The Super Bowl was obviously a tight affair, with Chris Matthews producing one of the most out-of-nowhere 100-yard games at receiver in championship history. The Pats made defensive adjustments as the game went on, and with Cliff Avril sidelined by a midgame concussion, the pass rush eventually wore out, allowing Tom Brady to go 13-of-15 and score twice on New England's final two drives of the game. Kearse's miraculous catch gave the Seahawks life, but after Dont'a Hightower made a title-saving tackle on Marshawn Lynch at the 1-yard line, Malcolm Butler became a household name. The Legion of Boom-era Seahawks never challenged for a title again. We'll get back to them and a more successful season later on down the list.
22. 2022 Buffalo Bills (14-4)
Fate: Lost in divisional round to Bengals 27-10
Offense: 93rd percentile
Defense: 89th percentile
One of these Josh Allen/Sean McDermott-era Bills teams was going to make it into the mix. The 2021 team went 12-7, but it had the league's best defense and stomped the Patriots in the wild-card round before falling to the Chiefs in the 13-second game. The 2020 team went 13-3 and won two playoff games before losing to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game, but it wasn't as good on defense as the 2021 or 2022 editions.
This team went 13-3 through a wildly impressive regular season. Its September loss to the Dolphins required a goal-line stand by Miami, while the Week 10 defeat at the hands of the Vikings took one of the greatest catches of the past 25 years to extend the game before a bad snap to Allen at the goal line handed Minnesota a touchdown in the final minute. The Bills started the season by manhandling the defending champion Rams, and they also beat the Ravens, Steelers and Chiefs in consecutive weeks.
What happened at the end of the season couldn't have been anticipated. Set for a prime-time battle against the Bengals for the 1-seed in the AFC, Damar Hamlin's terrifying accident led the game to be called. Though the Bills came back the following week to beat the Patriots and claim the top seed, a team that had endured the Hamlin incident and a deadly snowstorm that shut down Buffalo for days in December looked worn out in the postseason.
By the time Buffalo faced the Bengals in the divisional round, the Bills were down defensive stars Von Miller and Micah Hyde, and after backup safety Dean Marlowe got hurt during the game, they finished the day with a fourth-string safety in their backfield against Joe Burrow. In the sort of snowy conditions that were supposed to be in their favor, they were overwhelmed and outplayed by a better Bengals team in their de facto rematch of the abandoned game.
Pro Football Reference had the Bills as the league's best team that season, three points better than the 49ers and nearly five points per game above the eventual Super Bowl-winning Eagles. It's difficult to add the Bills to the top 25 when their season came to such a disappointing and anticlimactic end, but this was a special team that faced difficult, unimaginable circumstances.
21. 2008. Pittsburgh Steelers (15-4)
Fate: Won Super Bowl XLIII over Cardinals 27-23
Offense: 58th percentile
Defense: 98th percentile
The Steelers winning games under Mike Tomlin with a middling offense, an elite defense and big plays from their special teams? Never seen that one before. This was a better offense than the ones they've run out during their annual trips to the wild-card round over the past few years, although Ben Roethlisberger threw nearly as many interceptions (15) as touchdown passes (17) and took sacks on almost 9% of his dropbacks during the regular season. He turned the ball over four times in a late-season loss to the Titans, handing Tennessee the top seed in the AFC.
The offense got a little better during the postseason, when Roethlisberger averaged nearly 8.0 yards per attempt. With Willie Parker averaging 3.5 yards per carry, though, the real improvement came by mitigating some of the bad plays; the Steelers turned the ball over only twice during that three-game span, which was enough for the defense and special teams to take over.
Troy Polamalu and the defense added some much-needed firepower to the offense, as the Steelers put together return touchdowns in each of their three postseason victories. In the divisional round, Santonio Holmes took a punt return 67 yards to the house against the Chargers. A week later, Polamalu broke open a close game against the Ravens with a 40-yard pick-six in the fourth quarter. In the Super Bowl, quite famously, James Harrison helped swing the game with a 100-yard interception return at the end of the first half, turning a potential Cardinals touchdown into seven points for Pittsburgh. That ended up being the difference, with a late Roethlisberger touchdown pass to Holmes overturning a three-point deficit.
This was a spectacularly good defense, with Harrison winning Defensive Player of the Year and Polamalu picking off eight passes (counting the postseason). Among other defense-heavy teams, though, there are those that were about as good on offense and just a tiny bit better on D.
20. 2011 San Francisco 49ers (14-4)
Fate: Lost NFC Championship Game to Giants 20-17
Offense: 65th percentile
Defense: 98th percentile
These 49ers might seem like a curious choice. They lost in the NFC title game to the Giants, who aren't featured in the top 25. The 2012 49ers didn't have as impressive a regular-season record, but with Colin Kaepernick taking over at quarterback, they boat-raced the Packers in the playoffs and made it to the Super Bowl, where they nearly pulled off a 22-point comeback against Baltimore before coming up just short. The 2012 team also did that against a tougher schedule, coming off its first-place finish in 2011.
I wouldn't fault you for picking the 2012 team, but the 2011 49ers were more imposing on defense, allowing just over 14 points per game. They had three first-team All-Pros on defense (Justin Smith, NaVorro Bowman and Patrick Willis) and a second-teamer in Carlos Rogers, who had six picks in his best pro season. Coordinator Vic Fangio's defense forced 38 turnovers in a stunning debut season, as the 49ers' turnover margin (plus-28) tied them with the 2010 Patriots for the best from any team over this 25-year span.
The offense wasn't pretty, but with a heavy dose of the running game and safety valves built in for Alex Smith, the 2005 No. 1 pick held his own by protecting the ball. The Niners threw only five interceptions all season and had just two players (Michael Crabtree and Vernon Davis) top 250 receiving yards. They filled in some of the gaps on special teams, where their kicker (David Akers) and punter (Andy Lee) were both first-team All-Pros. These 49ers were like a supercharged version of the modern Steelers.
Perhaps I have a soft spot for what happened to them in the postseason, which seems horrible. They won my pick for the best NFL game I've ever covered, a brutal, dramatic and eventually cathartic 36-32 victory over the Saints in the divisional round. One win away from the Super Bowl, they were engaged in a defensive struggle against the Giants in the NFC Championship Game, only for it to be decided when returner Kyle Williams muffed two punts to set up the tying touchdown in the fourth quarter and the winning field goal in overtime. The Niners deserved better.
19. 2015 Carolina Panthers (17-2)
Fate: Lost Super Bowl 50 to Broncos 24-10
Offense: 98th percentile
Defense: 83rd percentile
I'll understand if Broncos fans are mad when they see that the team they beat in the Super Bowl made it onto the top 25 while their champs did not. The Panthers were simply a better team throughout the season, even if they weren't during the big game. Carolina won its first 14 games and had a real shot at going 16-0 before it fell to an 8-8 Falcons team, one year before Atlanta went on its own run to the title game.
The Panthers' disappointing performance in the Super Bowl and a lack of sticky star power has led them to quickly fade from memory. The only likely Hall of Famers on the roster were Luke Kuechly and Jared Allen, the latter of whom had two sacks in his final NFL season. A Sean McDermott-led defense got career years out of Josh Norman, Kawann Short and Kurt Coleman, a journeyman who got nine of his 23 career interceptions during this regular season and postseason.
The main star on offense won MVP: Cam Newton threw for 3,837 yards with 35 touchdowns and added 636 rushing yards and 10 more scores on the ground. An offense whose leading wide receivers were Ted Ginn Jr. and Jerricho Cotchery shouldn't have scared anyone, but buoyed by Greg Olsen and a creative run game, the Panthers were remarkably consistent: They scored 27 points in 15 of their 19 games, a mark that tied them with the 2007 Patriots and a handful of other teams in second place over the past 25 years. Only the 2018 Chiefs, with Patrick Mahomes and a handful of other future Hall of Famers on offense, got to 27 more often. The Panthers were 15-0 when they did so.
The Panthers were also excellent during their run to the Super Bowl. They dominated the Seahawks, going up 31-0 at halftime before Seattle racked up 24 unanswered points of its own. Newton & Co. then shellacked a very good Cardinals team in the NFC Championship Game, eventually forcing six Carson Palmer turnovers in a 49-15 victory. With a clearly limited Peyton Manning waiting in the Super Bowl, the Panthers were five-point favorites. They laid an egg, looked overawed by the moment and never got their run game going, which is why they're not higher in the top 25.
18. 2023 Baltimore Ravens (14-5)
Fate: Lost AFC Championship Game to Chiefs 17-10
Offense: 92nd percentile
Defense: 99th percentile
If you field one of the best defenses of the past quarter century and your quarterback plays well enough to win league MVP, you probably deserve to be on this list. I'm well aware of how things ended for the Ravens in the playoffs, but this team outscored its opposition by nearly 12 full points per game while facing the league's seventh-toughest schedule. Playing in a division in which every team posted a winning record, the Ravens comfortably won the AFC North and claimed the top seed in the AFC, blowing out playoff teams such as the Texans (25-9), Browns (28-3), Lions (38-6) and 49ers (33-19) in the process. They added a second big victory against the Texans in the divisional round, overcoming a slow start to win 34-10.
Healthy after missing the end of each of the prior two seasons because of injury, Lamar Jackson linked up with offensive coordinator Todd Monken and won his second MVP award. Jackson threw for 3,678 yards and ran for 821 more, completing more than 67% of his passes in the process. He won 49 of 50 MVP votes and single-handedly rebuked the many teams that had gone out of their way to insist they wouldn't make him an offer as a franchise-tagged quarterback during the 2023 offseason.
The Mike Macdonald-led defense was just as impressive. Young players Nnamdi Madubuike and Kyle Hamilton broke through with All-Pro-caliber seasons, while the soon-to-be Seahawks coach coaxed stunning years out of veteran castoffs such as Kyle Van Noy and Jadeveon Clowney. The Ravens allowed just 1.3 points per possession, the third-best performance by any defense in any season over the past five years.
All of that came to an end in the AFC title game, where the Chiefs looked like the Chiefs and the Ravens, well, looked like the Ravens. Zay Flowers fumbled going into the end zone for a would-be touchdown on the opening snap of the fourth quarter, with the Chiefs recovering for one of the four fumbles they fell on during the game. After a spectacular play by Jackson for a 30-yard score in the first quarter, the Ravens weren't able to keep their offense going and seemed to get away from the run. The defense held Mahomes & Co. to three points on their final nine drives, but by allowing a pair of touchdowns on the opening two possessions of the game, enough damage had been done for Kansas City to win. It's fair to knock Baltimore for another postseason disappointment, but this team was so good in the regular season that I'd feel foolish leaving it out.
17. 2022 Philadelphia Eagles
Fate: Lost Super Bowl LVII to Chiefs 38-35
Offense: 97th percentile
Defense: 81st percentile
Coming off a promising 2021 season that ended with an overmatched offense getting run over by the Buccaneers in the wild-card round, there were real questions about whether Jalen Hurts was up to the task as an NFL passer. Philadelphia general manager Howie Roseman had missed out on his primary target in free agency, Allen Robinson, and instead had to trade one of his first-round picks for A.J. Brown. The Eagles had been passive and easy to throw on under defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon the season before, and although they had imported Haason Reddick in free agency, it was unclear whether they had the defense to challenge opposing quarterbacks.
Those concerns faded sometime around September. Hurts had an MVP-caliber season, dramatically raising his game as a passer for the second consecutive season while continuing to make a massive impact in the designed run game. He threw for 3,701 yards and 22 scores and added 760 rushing yards and 13 more touchdowns on the ground. A shoulder injury kept him out of two games in December and took him out of the MVP discussion, but he returned and played through the injury in Week 18 to beat the Giants and lock up a first-round bye for the Eagles.
Roseman's offseason additions were brilliant. Brown was an immediate superstar, with his 119-yard game against the Titans helping to get Tennessee general manager Jon Robinson fired before the end of the season. James Bradberry and C.J. Gardner-Johnson, the latter acquired via trade just before the season began, combined to pick off nine passes and lock down the weak spots in the secondary. Reddick racked up 16 sacks, one of four Eagles in double digits; Gannon's defense finished with 70 sacks, the most by any team in this 25-year period.
The Eagles played the league's third-easiest schedule during the regular season, but they went 14-1 when Hurts started, winning those games by an average of more than 10 points. That trend continued in the postseason, when they got to face a Giants team that had been outscored in the regular season in the divisional round and a 49ers team that lost Brock Purdy to an elbow injury early in the conference title game. A farce of a game that saw the 49ers turn to fourth-stringer Josh Johnson before using Christian McCaffrey and a clearly compromised Purdy at quarterback followed. The Eagles won the two home games by a combined score of 69-14.
A Super Bowl against the Chiefs beckoned, and although Hurts played spectacularly, he dropped the ball on a scramble and handed the Chiefs a 36-yard score on a fumble return. It was the only turnover of the day. The vaunted pass rush wasn't able to sack Patrick Mahomes once all day, and after a Hurts touchdown and 2-point conversion tied the game at 35, a Mahomes scramble and a holding call on Bradberry set up the game-deciding field goal. A victory would have pushed this Philadelphia team higher, but the narrow loss and relatively soft schedule keep it down. There will be more Eagles teams of recent vintage later on this list.
16. 2022 Kansas City Chiefs (17-3)
Fate: Won Super Bowl LVII over Eagles 38-35
Offense: 97th percentile
Defense: 46th percentile
After their 2021 loss to the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game, 2022 felt like a retooling season for the Chiefs. They traded away Tyreek Hill for draft picks, let Tyrann Mathieu leave in free agency and cut veteran linebacker Anthony Hitchens. They fielded the league's seventh-youngest team on a snap-weighted age basis during the regular season, including its third-youngest defense, with seven of their 10 most-used defenders homegrown players on rookie deals. One year after rebuilding the offensive line, general manager Brett Veach revamped the receivers room, as Kansas City's four most-used wideouts were new to the roster.
Amid all the change, it was the old stalwarts who propelled the Chiefs forward. Patrick Mahomes threw for 5,250 yards with 41 touchdowns, earning 48 of 50 MVP votes to take home that award for the second time. Travis Kelce set career highs for receptions (110) and receiving touchdowns (12) while becoming the first tight end since the merger to top 1,000 receiving yards in his age-33 season. And Chris Jones tied his career highs for sacks (15.5) and knockdowns (29).
The Chiefs went 14-3 during the regular season, with their three losses coming by a combined 10 points. It wasn't the most difficult schedule, but they went 6-2 against eventual playoff teams and beat the teams they were supposed to beat by an average of 8 points per game. They got better as the season went along, with Isiah Pacheco taking over the lead running back role and offering more physicality, while Jerick McKinnon emerged as the most unlikely red zone threat in recent memory.
Their playoff run was almost immediately given a scare when Mahomes sustained an ankle injury early in the divisional-round win over the Jaguars. Against the Bengals the following week, a rash of injuries at receiver left the Chiefs down to one-dimensional deep threat Marquez Valdes-Scantling and special-teamer Marcus Kemp as their top two wideouts by the end of the game. After a Jones sack ended a Bengals drive with 44 seconds left, Mahomes scrambled for a first down and drew a late hit penalty on Bengals defender Joseph Ossai, setting up the field goal that sent the Chiefs to the Super Bowl.
Facing an excellent Eagles team that came close to qualifying for this list, Mahomes and the offensive line put on a show, as one of the best pass rushes in league history failed to sack him once. The Chiefs scored on a fumble return and manufactured two red zone touchdowns by breaking Philadelphia's motion rules in coverage. After the Eagles tied the score with 5:15 left, the Chiefs ate up virtually the rest of the game clock, with a Mahomes 26-yard scramble through the ankle injury as their biggest play. When James Bradberry held JuJu Smith-Schuster to convert a critical third down for the Chiefs, they were able to run down the clock and kick a winning field goal.
15. 2013 Denver Broncos (15-4)
Fate: Lost Super Bowl XLVIII to Seahawks 43-8
Offense: 99th percentile
Defense: 35th percentile
There are two strikes against the 2013 Broncos. One is a defense that gave up 399 points and finished 22nd in scoring, which might be disqualifying if we're comparing them to so many great, well-rounded teams from previous seasons. One good excuse is that they faced the second-most drives (213) of any team; they ranked 18th in points allowed per drive and 17th in defensive EPA per play, leaving them closer to league average than it seems. The other is that they were shredded by the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, which you'll read more about much later in this column.
With that being said, this offense was special enough to push those concerns aside. It ranks as the second best of the past 25 years behind the 2001 Rams, driven by what still might be the greatest quarterback season we've ever seen. Peyton Manning threw for 5,477 yards with 55 touchdowns. He took sacks on only 2.6% of his dropbacks. The Broncos had four different receivers catch at least 10 touchdowns, which is ridiculous given that only one other team in history (the 2004 Colts) had as many as three receivers make it to double-digit scores.
The Broncos topped 35 points 10 times during the regular season, a figure also unmatched in league history. Their three regular-season losses all came in one-score games. In the postseason, they gained some revenge for two of those three defeats, as they went up big on the Chargers and Patriots before some garbage-time scores. Facing his old playoff rival in the AFC Championship Game, Manning threw for 400 yards and two touchdowns against Belichick and the Patriots, the only time an opposing passer has hit the 400-yard mark in a playoff game against the legendary defensive coach.
Though they didn't have Von Miller for the first six weeks of the season after a suspension, or during the postseason because of a torn ACL, the Broncos might not have won the Super Bowl with five Millers on defense. They were simply overwhelmed by the Seahawks, whose size squeezed the field and Manning's windows to throw. The defense slowed down Marshawn Lynch, but it couldn't get much pressure on Russell Wilson, and the Seahawks took an interception and a kickoff to the house for return scores. It was the wrong time to collapse, but it was also the only time all season the Broncos looked overmatched.
14. 2009 New Orleans Saints (16-3)
Fate: Won Super Bowl XLIV over Colts 31-17
Offense: 98th percentile
Defense: 54th percentile
This was the season that proved "getting hot at the right time" shouldn't be a conversation before the playoffs begin. The 2009 Colts, who narrowly missed out on the top 25, won their first 14 games before pulling Peyton Manning with a lead against the Jets in Week 16 and losing their final two games. These Saints started 13-0 before losing their final three games, including an overtime defeat to the 3-13 Bucs in Week 16. They still landed the top seed in the NFC, but the two Super Bowl teams combined to go 1-5 over the final three weeks of the season, albeit while playing Mark Brunell and Curtis Painter over some of those losses.
This was a level-up season for Drew Brees, who became the second quarterback in NFL history to post a completion rate north of 70% while leading the league in passing touchdowns and QBR. His 82.0 QBR is the fifth-best mark since 2007, just narrowly behind his 2011 rating, when an excellent New Orleans team was taken down in a classic divisional round game by the 49ers.
Though the offense was ruthlessly consistent, it didn't have the unstoppable force later Saints teams with Jimmy Graham and Michael Thomas would possess. Marques Colston's 1,074 receiving yards made him the only player on the roster to top 1,000 rushing or receiving yards. Reggie Bush, the first draft pick of the Sean Payton era, was essentially in a backup role behind Pierre Thomas for chunks of the season. Payton found roles for Devery Henderson, Robert Meachem and Lance Moore in the passing game.
The Saints ranked 20th in scoring defense, but expected points added takes into account their 39 takeaways and pegged them as the league's 12th-best defense that season. They were a different defense when they had free agent addition Jabari Greer, who missed seven games during the regular season. Greer returned for the postseason and excelled, but when he briefly left the Super Bowl to be examined on the sidelines, Manning immediately targeted his replacement for his lone passing touchdown of the day. Greer is one of the most immediately impactful free agent signings in league history, like the 2009 version of Zack Baun joining the Eagles.
The most famous cornerback from the season likely was Tracy Porter, whose interception of Brett Favre in the NFC title game denied the Vikings a shot at a winning field goal at the end of regulation before the Saints won the coin toss and scored in overtime. Porter added a 74-yard pick-six of Manning in the Super Bowl for good measure. Under the stewardship of coordinator Gregg Williams, this wasn't always a great defense, but it was opportunistic and created lots of short fields for the offense, which inherited the third-best average field position in the league. Brees and the offense did the rest.
13. 2000 Baltimore Ravens (16-4)
Fate: Won Super Bowl XXXV over Giants 34-7
Offense: 58th percentile
Defense: 99th percentile
This defense was actually in the 99.7th percentile as a unit led by Ray Lewis, Rod Woodson and Chris McAlister allowed just 10.3 points per game and 0.8 points per drive, both of which rank as the lowest marks posted by any squad over the past 25 years. More than simply stifling opposing teams, the Ravens also served as valuable help for their offense, generating an unbelievable 49 takeaways during the regular season, the most of any team during this 25-year window. They added 12 more across four postseason victories, including five each in the AFC Championship Game and Super Bowl, a blowout win over New York.
The offense is the reason this team isn't ranked higher. Even with a dominant defense in place, the Ravens were 5-4 at midseason, averaging just 15.6 points per game on offense. In the middle of a stretch of three games without a touchdown, they replaced Tony Banks with Trent Dilfer and leaned into 21-year-old rookie running back Jamal Lewis, who averaged 26 carries per game over the remainder of the season while closing out a series of victories. Baltimore averaged more than 26 points per game the rest of the way, and after a last-minute victory over the Titans in Week 11, nobody really gave it too much trouble during its run to the title.
As with a few other teams on this list, the Ravens' landing spot might depend on how you capture these teams. If you just treat them as the Dilfer-led team that dominated in the second half and into their postseason at their best, they're closer to a top-10 team. If you treat them as some combination of that team and the one that struggled to score touchdowns early in the season, they fall here. I'm choosing to take the broad approach for each team, trying to sample what they were like throughout the season as opposed to just focusing on their peak.
12. 2007 Indianapolis Colts (13-4)
Fate: Lost in divisional round to Chargers 28-24
Offense: 89th percentile
Defense: 93rd percentile
This might be the best team in modern NFL history that didn't win a playoff game. As 11-point favorites at home, the Colts were beaten by a Chargers team that lost both LaDainian Tomlinson and Philip Rivers to injuries before the end of the game. Indy punted just once and had four drives end on San Diego's side of the field on downs or via turnovers. It would have been written off as the same old Colts if Indy hadn't won the Super Bowl the previous season.
Overshadowed by that loss and the legendary season by the Patriots was the best team of the Peyton Manning-Tony Dungy era in Indianapolis. The Colts ranked third in the league on offense, but with Bob Sanders winning Defensive Player of the Year in his final full season, they led the NFL in scoring defense. Some of that was due to an offense that ran off long scoring drive after long scoring drive, but the Colts forced 37 turnovers and held the Patriots to a season-low 24 points, albeit in a game in which Indianapolis failed to hold a 20-10 lead with 10 minutes left and gave up back-to-back scores.
On a full-season basis, this team was significantly better than the 2006 one that won the Super Bowl, perhaps a product of having Sanders for an entire year as opposed to solely for a quarter of the regular season. The Colts just happened to be stuck in a conference with one of the best teams the NFL has ever seen.
11. 2016 New England Patriots (17-2)
Fate: Won Super Bowl LI over Falcons 34-28
Offense: 91st percentile
Defense: 98th percentile
Everybody remembers the comeback, but this is my pick for the best coaching job of Bill Belichick's run in New England. There was Tom Brady, of course, and there were a few longtime Pats standouts on both sides of the ball, including Julian Edelman and Dont'a Hightower. But Chandler Jones had been traded, Rob Gronkowski missed most of the season with a back injury and even Brady was suspended for the first four games, forcing the Pats to turn to quarterbacks Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett.
When the 39-year-old Brady returned, he went scorched earth on the league, going 14-1 as the starter. He did that with Chris Hogan and Martellus Bennett as his top receivers behind Edelman. LeGarrette Blount, on a one-year deal for $1 million, ran for 1,161 yards and 18 touchdowns. The interior of the offensive line included a rookie (future star Joe Thuney) and two second-year players in David Andrews and Shaq Mason. Behind Brady and Edelman, this was the lowest-profile great offense in recent league history.
The defense might be even more obscure, full of solid players who had more success in New England than anywhere else, including Malcolm Butler, Patrick Chung, Jamie Collins and Trey Flowers. Belichick's legendary ability to spot players languishing on other teams and find meaningful roles for them on defense led to Shea McClellin and Kyle Van Noy establishing themselves in situational roles. There was no Ty Law, Darrelle Revis or Stephon Gilmore to build the secondary around, nor was there a Richard Seymour or Vince Wilfork up front.
An easy schedule helped, which knocks them down a peg. The Patriots finished with the easiest schedule of any Super Bowl winner of the past 25 years by my model, and Pro Football Reference has them with the cushiest path of any 2016 team by a considerable margin. They got some help in the postseason when the 12-4 Raiders lost Derek Carr to a late-season injury and became cannon fodder for a Brock Osweiler-led Texans team, whom the Patriots stomped in Foxborough. The Steelers lost Le'Veon Bell early in the AFC Championship Game and couldn't cover Hogan, who went for 180 yards and two touchdowns.
What do you do with the Super Bowl? The Patriots must get their due for the most incredible comeback of this generation, but they're also the ones who fell behind 28-3 to the Falcons by the third quarter. New England was a mess for most of the game, unable to block Grady Jarrett or control the Falcons' offense, with Brady throwing a pick-six for good measure. And then, well, that comeback happened. This was a great New England team and one that seemed to thrive more on sheer will than overwhelming talent. The easy schedule makes it difficult to place this squad ahead of other Brady-Belichick teams, but I wouldn't want to have to try to put away these Pats from the other sideline.
10. 2001 St. Louis Rams (16-3)
Fate: Lost in Super Bowl XXXVI to Patriots 24-20
Offense: 100th percentile
Defense: 75th percentile
Yes, the Rams had the best offense of the past 25 years by this methodology. Even including their playoff run, they averaged 31.3 points, 5.5 more than any other team in 2001. They did this despite turning the ball over 44 times during the regular season, the second most of any team. Turnovers were really the only way to beat them for most of the year; their two regular-season losses came in games in which they coughed up the ball a combined 14 times. When they merely turned the ball over four times or fewer, they went 16-1.
Unlike the 2000 Rams, whose defense collapsed after a championship run in 1999, the 2001 Rams also had a great D. All those turnovers left them in vulnerable positions from short drives, as Lovie Smith's unit faced the fifth-worst average starting field position of any team in the league. A Leonard Little- and Aeneas Williams-led unit forced 34 turnovers in the regular season, then eight more in the divisional round win over the Packers. (It was a different time.) The defense held a high-powered Eagles team to 24 points in the conference title game, coming up with a late stop to set up a trip to the Super Bowl.
And, well, a dynasty started there, just not the one St. Louis fans were expecting. The Rams weren't able to overcome their sloppiness on the biggest stage as three turnovers led to New England's first 17 points, including a pick-six by Ty Law. A second defensive touchdown was called back for a holding penalty. The Rams couldn't force any turnovers, and after a late drive to tie the score, they couldn't get Tom Brady & Co. off the field. The Patriots drove 53 yards in 74 seconds to set up the first of Adam Vinatieri's Super Bowl-winning kicks.
Even with the loss in the title game, I'm still putting the 2001 Rams ahead of the 2001 Patriots given that they were a better team for the vast majority of the season. (They beat the Pats during the regular season 24-17, although that game obviously mattered quite a bit less than the rematch.) And yet, it's only fair to point out that the Rams could be their own worst enemy at times, with that coming back to bite them in the biggest game. In a current era in which the average team turned the ball over just under 21 times in 17 games last season, it's tough to imagine a team with 44 turnovers in 16 games not having that come back to bite them more often. That's a testament to how great the 2001 Rams were when they didn't give up the ball and a reminder of what kept them from confirming their status as one of the greatest teams ever.
9. 2019 Kansas City Chiefs (15-4)
Fate: Won Super Bowl LIV over 49ers 31-20
Offense: 96th percentile
Defense: 74th percentile
The ultimate "No lead is safe" team, the Chiefs simply broke competitors' hearts. Their playoff run quickly became legendary. Down 24-0 against the Texans within 20 minutes, Kansas City promptly scored the next 41 points and won by multiple touchdowns. In the AFC title game, the Titans went up 10-0 in the first quarter before the Chiefs answered back, with a Patrick Mahomes scramble before halftime giving them a lead they wouldn't relinquish. Then, having struggled for most of the Super Bowl against the 49ers, the Chiefs converted a third-and-15 for 44 yards and scored three touchdowns in the final 6:13, speeding away from yet another deficit with what ended up as a relatively comfortable victory.
Kansas City wasn't always playing from behind, of course. One year removed from Mahomes' stunning 2018 season and an overtime loss to the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, the Chiefs won six games by two touchdowns or more. They were one of three teams to beat a 14-win Ravens squad that missed out on the top 25 only by virtue of immediately losing at home in the postseason. The Chiefs topped a Patriots team in New England that fielded one of the best defenses of the last quarter century. They avoided both teams in the AFC bracket when they lost to the Titans, a 9-7 squad that rode Derrick Henry to a deep playoff run.
This offense wasn't quite as explosive as the 2018 edition, in part because Mahomes and Tyreek Hill missed time, as the quarterback suffered a knee injury on what appears to be the last sneak Andy Reid will ever let him run. They never really settled on a starting running back during the regular season before eventually landing on Damien Williams, who had 53 career carries after his breakout postseason.
The 2019 team makes it over the 2018 version because of how its season ended and also a much-improved defense. The Chiefs jumped from 24th in scoring defense to seventh while making a major shift, swapping out stalwarts Eric Berry, Dee Ford and Justin Houston for Tyrann Mathieu, Frank Clark and Alex Okafor. A defense that had been 28th in points allowed per drive in 2018 jumped to 13th. A year after allowing 38 points to the Seahawks, 43 to the Patriots and 54 to the Rams in a series of shootout losses, no team topped 35 in a single game against the 2019 Chiefs.
It's tough to put them on a pedestal with the truly great teams of this era, though. They lost four games during the regular season, and although one was with Matt Moore at quarterback for an injured Mahomes, they also lost three of their four games against the AFC South, including a defeat to a Colts team that would finish 7-9. Unlike the Eagles, who have fielded three truly dominant teams, three above-average ones and a disaster over the past eight seasons, the Chiefs have been consistently great without ever fielding a truly overwhelming squad, which makes it harder for them to do well in this exercise.
8. 2010 Green Bay Packers (14-6)
Fate: Won Super Bowl XLV over Steelers 31-25
Offense: 81st percentile
Defense: 98th percentile
Since I've suggested I'm willing to consider broader performance over what teams do at the end of the season, I can already hear you wondering why I didn't nominate the 2011 Packers, who went 15-1 with Aaron Rodgers winning MVP before losing to the Giants in the postseason. Most of the difference between those two teams was close-game luck. The 2010 Packers went 4-6 in one-score games during the regular season, continuing what had been a frustrating start in narrow contests early in Rodgers' career. They then won three one-score games on their way to the Super Bowl and went 5-1 in those same contests during the 2011 season. Including the postseason, they won their games in 2010 by an average of 9.7 points and their games in 2011 by an average of 10.8. The two teams were more similar than their records suggest.
Rodgers had a better 2011 season, but he took a massive leap forward halfway through the 2010 campaign. Through a Week 8 game against the vaunted Jets defense, Rodgers ranked eighth in QBR, with the future Hall of Famer throwing nine picks and completing 61% of his passes. From Week 9 onward? He led the NFL in QBR, threw 25 touchdown passes against four picks, averaged a league-leading 8.9 yards per attempt and increased his completion percentage by nearly 10 full points. He had three sterling starts during the postseason, although he was bailed out of a rough NFC Championship Game against the Bears when Jay Cutler was injured, and Green Bay spent most of the game against Caleb Hanie and Todd Collins.
And though Rodgers was better in 2011, the defense was superior in 2010. The 2011 defense forced 38 turnovers but ranked 28th in points allowed per possession when the drive didn't end with a takeaway. The 2010 unit forced 31 takeaways but ranked second in points allowed per drive when the possession didn't end with the Packers taking away the ball. It was a career year for Clay Matthews, who racked up 13.5 sacks, and the Packers benefited from the presence of Nick Collins, who was a second-team All-Pro in 2010 before suffering a career-ending neck injury two weeks into the 2011 season.
The Packers ran the table as the 6-seed in the NFC, beating the Eagles, Falcons and Bears on the road. Green Bay avoided the 14-2 Patriots in the Super Bowl when a Mark Sanchez-led Jets team took them out in the divisional round, and the Packers went up 21-3 early against the Steelers before Pittsburgh made it a game in the second half. Green Bay wasn't always dominant but exemplified a team that looks underrated for most of the regular season and then lives up to its underlying metrics late in the year and through the playoffs.
7. 2003 New England Patriots (17-2)
Fate: Won Super Bowl XXXVIII over Panthers 32-29
Offense: 63rd percentile
Defense: 97th percentile
The 2001 Patriots were a good team that gritted its way through a memorable playoff run to a Super Bowl. The 2003 Patriots were much more like the dominant New England teams that would mark many of their other Super Bowl runs, just with the sides flipped. Tom Brady had a solid season and finished third in MVP voting, but this was another early-2000s title winner driven by a dominant defense. The Pats forced 41 takeaways during the regular season and added seven during the playoffs, including five in a 24-14 AFC Championship Game victory over the Colts.
The season didn't start auspiciously. Bill Belichick made one of the first sudden and dramatic discards of his reign, cutting Lawyer Milloy just before the season began after the starting safety decided against taking a pay cut. Milloy caught on with the Bills, who then beat the Patriots 31-0 in the opener, giving Buffalo its first win against Brady in five tries. After the Patriots missed the playoffs in 2002, the same skeptics who weren't impressed by Belichick's run in Cleveland were ready to write him off as an overmatched coach.
Well, the Patriots went 17-1 the rest of the way, including a 15-game win streak through the Super Bowl. Over that run, they went 10-0 against teams that won at least 10 games during the regular season, becoming the only team in NFL history to win double-digit games against double-digit winners. The defense produced three shutouts in the second half of the season, including a 31-0 win against the Bills to end the year. And though the defense twice blew a lead that was as high as 11 points during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl against the Panthers, an out-of-bounds kickoff by John Kasay and another Vinatieri field goal gave the Patriots their second title in three years.
6. 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (15-4)
Fate: Won Super Bowl XXXVII over Raiders 48-21
Offense: 70th percentile
Defense: 99th percentile
The 2002 Buccaneers were the spiritual successors to the 2000 Ravens, as they won by fielding the second-best defense of this era. (The 2000 Ravens actually ranked third; the best defense by this measure belonged to the 2006 Ravens, who lost to the Colts in the divisional round on a day in which they didn't allow a touchdown.) That Tampa Bay defense sent four players to the Hall of Fame and had a fifth, edge rusher Simeon Rice, who was a first-team All-Pro with 15.5 sacks. The Bucs allowed just 4.5 yards per dropback to opposing quarterbacks, the second-best rate of the past 25 years, trailing only the 2008 Steelers.
With Jon Gruden imported at great expense to replace Tony Dungy as head coach, the Bucs got the best of both worlds: The Monte Kiffin-led defense sustained its prior level of play for another year, while Gruden was able to do just enough to spark the offense. The offense wasn't great, ranking 18th in scoring, 26th in third-down conversion rate and 28th in red zone conversion rate that season, but they protected the football, with Brad Johnson posting a league-low 1.3% interception rate.
Tampa Bay helped its case with a dominant playoff run. It blew out San Francisco 31-6, which served as the last gasp of the 49ers' dynasty; they wouldn't return to the playoffs for nine years. Traveling in the cold to play the Eagles at Veterans Stadium in the NFC Championship Game, the Bucs forced three Donovan McNabb turnovers, including a pick-six that sealed a 27-10 victory. They added three more defensive scores in the Super Bowl, picking off league MVP Rich Gannon five times in a rout. They are one of two teams in league history to produce four return touchdowns during a postseason run. The other? The 2000 Ravens, of course.
5. 2017 Philadelphia Eagles (16-3)
Fate: Won Super Bowl LII over Patriots 41-33
Offense: 96th percentile
Defense: 92nd percentile
This is one of the most fun and out-of-nowhere teams of the past 25 years. The 2016 Eagles went 7-9 with excellent underlying metrics. Every nerd you knew, myself included, suggested they were going to improve. Nobody believed they would get this good this quickly. And there wasn't a soul on the planet who thought their Super Bowl victory would include a touchdown catch by eventual MVP Nick Foles.
The Eagles had to overcome losing Carson Wentz, who parlayed a white-hot season on third down and in the red zone into serious (regular-season) MVP consideration before tearing an ACL late in a December victory over the Rams. At 11-2 and with a win over one of their rivals atop the NFC, the Eagles were still in good position to claim the top spot in the conference. When Foles threw four touchdown passes and Philadelphia blocked three kicks in his first start -- a 34-29 win over the Giants -- it felt like the Eagles could continue steamrolling their competition.
Forgotten is what happened next. Foles and the Eagles limped through an ugly victory over a limited Raiders team, taking the lead with 23 seconds left on a day in which he went 19-of-38. With the top seed clinched, Foles started the following week but was pulled for Nate Sudfeld after going 4-of-11 for 39 yards. In the divisional round, Foles and the offense scored just 15 points, including a critical field goal at the end of the first half. That kick came on a drive in which he sailed a would-be interception several yards over his receiver's head, only for it to bounce off the knee of a Falcons defender and into the arms of Torrey Smith, who turned it into a 20-yard catch. The Eagles then came up with a stop on the 2-yard line with 1:05 to go to seal a 15-10 victory.
From that point on, Foles was dominant. He threw for 352 yards with three scores in a blowout win over a 14-4 Vikings team in the NFC Championship Game. And while the most memorable moment of his Super Bowl will always be that fourth-down touchdown catch on the Philly Special, Foles went 28-of-43 for 373 yards and three scores in the biggest game of his life. His two most productive receivers on the day were Corey Clement and Nelson Agholor. On a day in which Tom Brady threw for 505 yards and three touchdowns, the Eagles needed Foles to be brilliant. He was nearly perfect.
This was a deep, talented football team with plenty of homegrown talent. Like the 2024 edition, the Eagles got some help from unexpected places. Clement had a big game in the Super Bowl, joining a backfield that included low-cost additions in LeGarrette Blount and Jay Ajayi. Chris Long, who joined Blount in leaving the 2016 Patriots for the 2017 Eagles and winning rings in both places, added valuable depth to the defensive line rotation. Journeyman cornerback Patrick Robinson, moved into the slot role, had a career year. And of course, Foles had already nearly retired after his struggles with the Rams before returning to the Eagles to play behind Wentz. These Eagles might not have had the same caliber of star power on offense as the 2024 team, but with a bit of perspective this squad looks more similar than I had remembered.
4. 2024 Philadelphia Eagles (18-3)
Fate: Won Super Bowl LIX over Chiefs 40-22
Offense: 90th percentile
Defense: 96th percentile
You probably don't need me to refresh your memory too much with regard to these Eagles, so I'll keep this one simple. If we were leaving aside the first quarter of the season, I'd say they would have a reasonably strong case as the best team of the past 25 years. Before the bye, they went 2-2, blowing a late lead over the Falcons and getting overwhelmed by the Buccaneers in Tampa. They won a sloppy affair in Brazil over the Packers and needed a third-and-16 catch-and-run by Dallas Goedert for 61 yards with 1:16 left to avoid losing to the Saints. Through four weeks, the Eagles ranked 26th in defensive EPA per play.
Afterward, with rookie Cooper DeJean moving into the lineup as the team's slot corner, the Eagles were the league's best defense by EPA per snap. They were fifth best on offense. They proceeded to go 16-1 over the rest of the season into the playoffs, winning their games by an average of 14 points. Though the Rams came within 13 yards of ending their run with a late comeback in the divisional round, the Eagles stomped the Commanders in their rubber match a week later and then ripped apart the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, going up 40-6 before a pair of garbage-time touchdowns.
The story of the season was Saquon Barkley, who put together one of the best seasons ever by a running back. Quarterback Jalen Hurts wasn't always playing at his best, but even when the passing offense wasn't racking up huge numbers, he was making an impact as a runner and protecting the football. After the Eagles turned the ball over eight times during the first four games of the season, they had only eight more across their remaining 17 contests.
Realistically, you can make a strong case the Eagles were two drops away from going 20-1. In Week 2, Barkley dropped a pass that would have allowed them to run the clock out, with Philadelphia kicking a field goal before Kirk Cousins drove the length of the field for a winning score. Then, in Week 16, DeVonta Smith dropped a pass with 2:07 to go that would have allowed the Eagles to run down the clock down before kicking a short field goal to go up five. Instead, Jayden Daniels got the ball back and drove the length of the field for a winning touchdown.
And yet, at the same time, the Eagles weren't always dominant against some middling opposition. They nearly lost to the Saints before that Goedert third-and-forever conversion. They beat the Browns by only four, needed a red zone interception with 1:13 to go to beat the Jaguars and were lucky to escape Carolina with a win after an open Xavier Legette dropped a would-be touchdown that should have given the Panthers a lead in the final minute.
In time, those narrow victories fade into history, and we remember each team's best moments. At their best, on the biggest stage, the Eagles were ruthless and overwhelming. They deserve to be considered as one of the best teams of the past 25 years right now, and they might look even better with some perspective down the line.
3. 2004 New England Patriots (17-2)
Fate: Won Super Bowl XXXIX over Eagles 24-21
Offense: 91st percentile
Defense: 92nd percentile
This was the best Super Bowl-winning team of the Brady era. Though its winning streak was disrupted by a midseason loss to the Steelers and its December interrupted by an inexplicable collapse in a loss to a Dolphins team that would finish 4-12, the Patriots were otherwise brilliant on both sides of the ball.
They did it against stiff competition. By my model, including the postseason, this was the second-toughest schedule any team has faced over the past 25 years, trailing only the 2000 Jets. The Patriots faced both a 12-4 Colts team and a 15-1 Steelers squad twice, winning three of those four contests. They dominated both of those teams in the postseason, topping the Colts 20-3 in the divisional round before enacting revenge on the Steelers, who were on a 14-game winning streak of their own, with a 41-27 victory. They then controlled the Super Bowl against a 13-3 Eagles team before a late score made things look close.
Though Brady wasn't quite at the heights he would hit in 2007 and beyond, the offense was taken to the next level by the addition of Corey Dillon, who ran for 1,635 yards and 12 scores. The defense forced turnovers on a league-high 20% of possessions and added 10 more turnovers in three games during the title run. Vinatieri was nearly perfect, missing just two of the 96 kicks he attempted between the regular season and playoffs. This was a truly impressive and complete team, albeit one that gets a bit lost in the shuffle between the other victories and the drama of 2007.
2. 2013 Seattle Seahawks (16-3)
Fate: Won Super Bowl XLVIII over Broncos 43-8
Offense: 80th percentile
Defense: 99th percentile
From the second half of 2012 through the end of the 2014 season, the Seahawks were the league's best team. They turned that run into one title and came within a yard of a second. They were the first example of how a team could build a Super Bowl contender by nailing their picks in the rookie scale era; they had a few standouts on reasonable deals drafted just before the CBA change in 2010 (Russell Okung, Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor) and then added superstars on bargain deals in the 2011 and 2012 drafts (Richard Sherman, K.J. Wright, Bruce Irvin, Bobby Wagner and Russell Wilson). Seattle basically had more cap space than it knew what to do with, which led to the signing of Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett and trading a first-round pick for Percy Harvin.
I won't fault you for picking the 2013 Seahawks as the best defense of the past 25 years; they were the fourth best by this measure, while EPA has them as the eighth-best unit since 2008. They're going to send three players to the Hall of Fame in Wagner, Sherman and Wilson, and they were deep enough along the line of scrimmage to have Avril and Bennett in situational pass-rush roles. They forced 39 turnovers and scored four touchdowns. They inspired a defensive revolution among teams that tried to emulate their single-high approach and failed.
The difference between these Seahawks and the other dominant defenses, like the 2000 Ravens and 2002 Bucs, is that the offense was better. This team had Marshawn Lynch running for 1,257 yards and 12 touchdowns before adding 288 yards and four more scores during the playoff run. Wilson averaged 8.2 yards per attempt, threw for 3,357 yards and added 539 more yards on the ground, all while making a sensibly-priced sedan (just under $31,000) per game. Harvin and Sidney Rice, nominally the team's top two wideouts on paper because of their contracts, combined for 16 catches during the regular season because of injuries. Golden Tate, Doug Baldwin and Jermaine Kearse stepped in and held their own.
You can't poke many holes in what this team accomplished. The run to the Super Bowl required a fourth-quarter comeback against the 49ers and a late interception by Malcolm Smith (via Sherman) to send them to the title game. There, the Seahawks delivered a performance every bit as dominant as the one we saw from the Eagles earlier this year, manhandling a Broncos team that came into the game off a 606-point regular season. The Broncos snapped the ball into the end zone for a safety on the opening snap and didn't get much better from there, as they didn't have any answers for Seattle's physicality. Denver's lone scoring drive came while trailing 36-0 in the third quarter.
The only reason this Seattle team isn't No. 1? It was sloppy at times during the regular season. The Seahawks went to overtime to beat the 2-14 Texans and the 4-12 Buccaneers, needed a goal-line stop on the final snap to beat the 7-9 Rams and gave up 34 points to the Colts in an early-season defeat at home. The offense went missing in a late-season loss to the Cardinals. This is nit-picking, but the margins at the very top are thin. This was a special team, and I went back and forth with the idea of picking them to top the list. Very narrowly, though, if I had to pick one team to beat them, I'd lean toward the best version of the quarterback and the franchise that got them to the Super Bowl the following season.
1. 2007 New England Patriots (18-1)
Fate: Lost Super Bowl XLII to Giants 17-14
Offense: 99th percentile
Defense: 94th percentile
No, the best team of the past 25 years did not win a Super Bowl. Would this even be a debate if Asante Samuel caught that interception on the final drive? If David Tyree didn't bring in the Helmet Catch? Of course not. Samuel didn't and Tyree did, and it's why these Patriots aren't the most successful team of the past 25 years, even if they came within moments of being the first 19-0 team in league history.
We're using how each team played over the full season to evaluate their chances of winning in a new season, though, and there's no contest there. Even if we factor in what the Giants did during the playoffs and give them extra credit for beating the Patriots when it mattered most, that team lost six times, including a 24-point loss to the Vikings with Tarvaris Jackson under center. They lost to the Patriots in Week 17 in a game in which they famously were trying their hardest to compete, even with nothing to play for. Those games also matter in evaluating their true level of talent.
Over a full year, it's tough to find a team that can realistically compete with the 2007 Pats, even with Super Bowl wins on their rsum. They were the only one-loss team of the era. They had the largest average margin of victory (17.5 points) by more than a field goal over the next-best team. The 2000 Ravens were the only team with a better pythagorean expectation over the regular season and postseason combined.
You remember (or have heard about) the offense, but the defense wasn't too shabby, either. The Patriots ranked sixth in EPA per play and fourth in points allowed per drive. The defense contributed six touchdowns during the regular season, which seems almost unfair given what the offense was doing on a weekly basis. Getting to play from ahead as often as they did obviously made life easier for Mike Vrabel & Co., but even with win probability constraints on their performance and measure what they did when each team had at least a 20% chance of winning, New England ranked fourth in third-down conversion rate and QBR allowed.
The Patriots' schedule ended up being tougher than you might remember. Before the Giants loss, they won all eight of their games against 10-plus win competition, prevailing by an average of nearly two touchdowns. Things were a little friendlier in the postseason when they got to face a Chargers team without LaDainian Tomlinson for much of the day while Philip Rivers played through a torn ACL. The Super Bowl gave them the 4-seed in the NFC, thanks to the Giants knocking out two 13-win teams along the way. That seemed easy until it wasn't.
To be fair, the Patriots slipped a bit as the season went along. They needed a fourth-quarter comeback to beat an A.J. Feeley-led Eagles team as 24.5-point favorites in Week 12, then some questionable calls and a touchdown pass with 48 seconds to go to top a 5-11 Ravens team the following week. They weren't great against that compromised Chargers team in the AFC Championship Game, with Brady throwing three picks. And while they might have been unlucky to have the Giants fall on all three fumbles in the Super Bowl, Tom Coughlin's team beat them up on the line of scrimmage and was hardly lucky to win.
I've already written at length about the stylistic and schematic legacy of that 2007 team, so I won't reiterate all that again. I'm not considering aesthetic impact here, but it's tough to pick another team that was more influential or striking on the league to come. The 2007 Patriots did everything except win a Super Bowl. If you put them against every other team on this list on a neutral field, I believe they're the team that would take home a title.
