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Buffalo can set a team record this Thursday


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1 hour ago, Drunken Pygmy Goat said:

 

I wonder which teams went winless and won the SB.

 

In 1982, Washington went 0-4 in the preseason, but won the Super Bowl in a strike-shortened season in which their regular season record was 8-1:

 

https://www.footballdb.com/teams/nfl/washington-redskins/results/1982

 

31 minutes ago, Chandler#81 said:

Without checking, I think the comeback win was at the Vikings and was televised nationally. I was living in Kansas at the time and watched it. It was thrilling!

 

Lucky you! I was in Buffalo (Dunkirk actually) at the time and it was blacked out for all of Western New York...I think. Or maybe it was that I had to go to bed since it was late and I cheated by turning the radio in bed on at the end of the game??? Hmmm...I can't remember now.

Edited by from_dunkirk
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Doing more research, I see that four teams since 1976 have gone undefeated in the preseason at 4-0 and also won the Super Bowl that season:

 

1990 - NY Giants

2000 - Baltimore

2003 - New England

2013 - Seattle

 

The Giants almost did it in 1985 too when they won the SB, going 4-1 in the preseason (losing the HOF Game, and then winning the next four).

And Oakland was 5-1 in 1976 when they played 6 preseason games.

 

7 minutes ago, BuffaloBill said:

I truly hate preseason football.  The league should play two preseason games.  That is enough.  The final game of the preseason matters little.

 

Agreed. It used to be more exciting though when they had a round of cuts after each preseason game in the 80's and 90's perhaps.

 

5 minutes ago, mattynh said:

Preseason or not that winning percentage is dog crap.   I would have would expected it to be close to 0.500

 

Yep, that is really bad. I'm too lazy to do the research, but I have to imagine that is the worse or one of the worse percentages for preseason in the NFL.

Edited by from_dunkirk
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3 hours ago, from_dunkirk said:

Yes, I know, the NFL preseason means nothing and has little or no relation to the regular season. That being said, here is some fascinating trivia to satisfy you during this final week of the preseason. I have painstakingly spent half of a day compiling this data from various online sources.

 

A. Buffalo can set a team record this Thursday. If the Bills win the final preseason game vs. Minnesota, they will be 4-0 and go undefeated for the first time in 44 seasons of Bills preseason history for which we have online data.*

 

Great post!

 

Always nice to have a good topic to chew on during the painfully long pre-season besides speculation on who makes the 53.  Thanks for all the effort.

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I have done further research:

 

1. Since 1976, Super Bowl winners have been 160-70-1 in the preseason. This averages to a winning percentage of 0.596. (Remember, this includes two seasons--1976 and 1977--when teams played 6 preseason games. This also includes the 1985 Giants who played 5 preseason games due to the HOF Game).

 

2. The average preseason win loss total for these 43 Super Bowl winners is 2.47 - 1.63 - 0.02.

 

3. The mode record for preseason wins for Super Bowl winners 3-1, with 15 seasons. A close second is 2-2, with 13 seasons. Only 6 SB winners had preseasons of 1-3. 4 were 4-0. 1 was 0-4. The 4 others were 5-1, 3-3, 4-1, and 1-2-1. 

 

Bottom line: it pays to have at least a 2-2 preseason record or better. 35 of the past 43 SB winners were 0.500 or better in the preseason.

 

Also, New England was 2-2 in the preseason in 2007, the year they went 16-0 but lost to the Giants in the SB.

Edited by from_dunkirk
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32 minutes ago, Giuseppe Tognarelli said:

The laughing reaction is a positive one. It's hilariously great that you spent this much time researching this. My favorite part was "or cancellation..." lol

 

Haha! Thanks! In my research, I did find a number of preseason games that had been cancelled due to things like field conditions or a lockout. My only hope is the Bills game vs. Minnesota is cancelled so they don't get slaughtered with Tyree Jackson playing all or most of the game.

Edited by from_dunkirk
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Pre-season records and games don’t matter, but living in Northern California during the 49ers great run, they put emphasis on winning those games to keep that winning attitude.  I saw a few times when they actually put starters back in a close preseason game, which was somewhat bogus, but for the most part it was “our 3rd stringers are going to beat yours”.

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1 hour ago, from_dunkirk said:

 

Oh duh! I meant Gregg Williams! We used to have a Mike Williams on our roster, two actually. ?

 

And for some reason I also got "the Dougs" (Whaley and Marrone) confused with a hypothetical "the Mikes" when I was thinking of "Mike Williams"and "Mike Mularkey".

 

 I will go back and edit. Thanks for catching that.

 

LOL!  Next time go with Gregggggggggggggggggggg.

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3 hours ago, from_dunkirk said:

Yes, I know, the NFL preseason means nothing and has little or no relation to the regular season. That being said, here is some fascinating trivia to satisfy you during this final week of the preseason. I have painstakingly spent half of a day compiling this data from various online sources.

 

A. Buffalo can set a team record this Thursday. If the Bills win the final preseason game vs. Minnesota, they will be 4-0 and go undefeated for the first time in 44 seasons of Bills preseason history for which we have online data.*

 

B. The best Buffalo has done so far in the preseason is 3-1, on five separate times in 1982, 1994, 1999, 2000, and 2003. In each of these five preseasons of 3-1, the Bills won the first preseason game, only to lose the second game, going 1-1.

 

C. Overall, the Bills have gone 66-115-1 in the preseason beginning in 1976, the first year which we have online records, with a winning percentage of 0.363.

 

In 6 of those preseasons, the Bills have had winning records.

In 24 of those preseasons, the Bills have had losing records.

In 14 of those preseasons, the Bills have had 0.500 records.

 

This equates to a 0.295 percentage of seasons with winning records, assuming a 0.500 preseason counts as a half-winning season and half-losing season. In a perfectly random world, the average would be 0.500, assuming each of the following five theoretically-possible records occurs equally in a 4-game preseason: 4-0, 3-1, 2-2, 1-3, 0-4.

 

D.  From 2004-2018, the Bills had losing or 0.500 records in 14 of the 15 preseasons.

From 1976-1998, the Bills had losing or 0.500 records in 21 of the 23 preseasons.

From 1983-1990, Buffalo suffered 8 consecutive losing preseasons.

From 1976-1990, Buffalo had losing preseason records in 13 of 15 seasons.

 

E. Here are the overall preseason records and preseason winning percentages for all Buffalo Bills coaches for which records exist:

 

1. Wade Phillips - 8-4 - 0.667

2. Sean McDermott - 6-5 - 0.545

3. Rex Ryan - 4-4 - 0.500

4. Gregg Williams - 5-7 - 0.417

5. Mike Mularkey - 3-5 - 0.375

6. Dick Jauron - 6-11 - 0.353

7. (tie) Marv Levy - 15-30 - 0.333

7. (tie) Doug Marrone - 3-6 - 0.333

7. (tie) Jim Ringo - 2-4 - 0.333

10. Chuck Knox - 6-14 - 0.300

11. (tie) Chan Gailey - 3-9 - 0.250

11. (tie) Hank Bullough - 1-3 - 0.250

13. Kay Stephenson - 2-9-1 - 0.208

 

F. The only coach with career winning preseason and regular season records in Bills history is Wade Phillips (preseason 8-4 and regular season 29-19). Sean McDermott can join him with a regular season this year of 9-6-1 or better; and a tie, win, or cancellation of this Thursday's final preseason game vs. Minnesota..

 

G. Two of the three all-time regular season winningest coaches in Bills history for which we have preseason records have overall losing records in the preseason: Marv Levy and Chuck Knox. (As stated above, Wade Phillips has both preseason and regular season career winning records.) (Few preseason records exist for Lou Saban, who is the third winningest coach in Bills history.)

 

H. Buffalo is 0-4 in Hall of Fame Games, losing in 2014, 2009, 1989, and 1974.

 

I. The only AFL team to have ever defeated legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi was Buffalo in the 1969 preseason on August 8, in which the Bills defeated Washington 21-17.**

 

J. In researching the preseason records of Buffalo, I also found out the last three non-interim coaches for the Bills have nearly identical regular season records:

 

a. Sean McDermott - 15-17

b. Rex Ryan - 15-16

c. Doug Marrone - 15-17

 

------------

 

NOTES:

 

*Most records for NFL preseason games do not exist before 1976 online, at least in resources I knew about and checked. Likewise, it seems that no AFL preseason records exist online, so this post only concerns the Bills from 1976 onward.

 

From 1970-1977, NFL teams played 6 preseason games and 14 regular season games.

From 1960-1969, AFL teams played up to 6 preseason games.

 

Most of the preseason records for the Bills came from this site:

 

https://www.footballdb.com/teams/nfl/buffalo-bills/results/

 

supplemented by this site:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Football_Hall_of_Fame_Game

 

since the first site did not include Hall of Fame Games.

 

and this site:

 

https://www.nfl.com/standings (preseason records from 2006 onward).

 

There may have been a few seasons from 1978-2005 in which the Bills played five preseason games in a year in which they did not participate in the Hall of Fame game. The first website above did not include these possible games, nor did any other site which I checked.

 

**http://www.remembertheafl.com/AFLNFLexhibitions.htm

 

This is interesting to only the diehards- and I appreciate you doing the legwork.

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55 minutes ago, Binghamton Beast said:

Used to be that teams played 6 pre-season games and if you played in the HOF game, 7.

 

Imagine that? 7 PS games. 

 

I did not know that! Thank you. I was too young back then. I will go ahead and edit my original post.

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7 hours ago, Boca BIlls said:

I just get reminded of teams that went 0-4 in preseason and won super bowls... And then Lions and Browns going 4-0 in preseason... 0-16 regular season.

 

 

So many things show why preseason is useless and it's just a money grab from the NFL against season ticket holders.

https://www.wtsp.com/article/sports/nfl/does-winning-in-the-nfl-preseason-matter-sort-of/67-592c3fa4-1546-4524-8965-3abfd80274db

 

Ehh...

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