I was talking to a guy who knows football really well, and I mentioned that the New England Patriots had ten consecutive games this season scoring at least 23 points and allowing 23 or fewer.
“How often does that happen?” He asked in a tone that appeared to indicate he thought it might happen a lot.
When I informed him that this was the first time it ever happened in professional football he was surprised. When I also revealed that only five teams before this season had scored at least 23 points and allowed 23 or fewer in as many as seven games in a row, he looked astounded.
The stat just didn’t sound on the surface like that big of a deal to him.
Now that I had his interest in this feat, I took it to the next level. The first five teams to do it at least seven times went on to win their league championship. The 1949 Philadelphia Eagles scored and allowed 23 points or less seven times and went on to win the National Football League Championship. In 1961, the Houston Oilers accomplished the feat nine straight weeks, the previous high for this record, and went on to win the American Football League title.
In the Super Bowl era, three teams before this season’s Patriots did it for at least seven consecutive games. They were the 1984 San Francisco 49ers, 1999 St. Louis Rams, and 2024 Philadelphia Eagles. Those three teams won the Super Bowl.