LUCKIEST single-season teams?

[RichardBak]

It's always fun to speculate about coulda, woulda, shoulda, but success most often is the end product of talent, preparation, and execution. Sure, a team can get lucky and win a game it should've lost thanks to a bad call or a dropped pass, but by and large, successful teams manufacture their own "luck".

[Saban1]

True. Long term successful teams like the Giants of 1956-63 or Packers of 1960-67 may have lucked into a league or conference championship some years but being in contention year in and year out gives a team more opportunities to luck out.

[rhickok1109]

So far as I know, Seneca the Younger didn't coach football or any other sport, but he pretty well summed it up: ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt, translated as "Luck is preparedness meeting opportunity. Branch Rickey put it more succinctly and somewhat more obscurely: "Luck is the residue of design."

[74_75_78_79_]

The '78 Steelers and the '89 Forty Niners were both..."lucky" also! Same with those un-'sexy' early-'00s Pats, the '90 G-men, '72 Dolphins, etc!

Noll, Walsh, Belichick, Parcells, Shula...I'm seeing a pattern!

[JKelly]

Based on various reasons that others have used for whichever team and year they picked, I'll say it..... the 1972 Dolphins.

1.) Schedule had only one team with a winning record the declining 8-6 Chiefs.
2.) They caught the Vikings 7-7 early in the schedule so it was still warm in Minnesota.
3.) The Vikings had there worst season of the decade.
4.) Temperature in Pittsburgh for Championship game in January 60 degrees.
5.) Sonny Jurgenson during the 72 season ruptured his achilles and was not the starting QB for the Redskins in the Super Bowl.
6.) Earl Morrall didn't have to throw the ball.