Which Super Bowl winners had win-less preseason records if any?

Answer 1

The 1982 Redskins are the only team to have won a Super Bowl after going winless in the preseason.

Both the 1990 Buffalo Bills and the 2000 New York Giants made the super bowl after going winless in the preseason, although both lost.

In 2008 the Lions won all their preseason games but proceeded to go 0-16 in the regular season.

Preseasons or exhibitions have been around in professional football since the 1920s, often 'barnstorming' or playing teams from leagues other than theirs or amateurs. From 1970 and the AFl merger to 1977, there were 14 regular season and 6 preseason games. In 1978, this was changed to the current format of 16 and 4.

Since 1978 there have been 33 or so Super Bowl winners. 60 teams have gone undefeated in the preseason, 61 have gone winless.

Of the 60 Undefeateds:

31 made the playoffs. (52%)

7 of those lost in the Wild Card Round. (12%)

12 lost in the Divisional Round. (20%)

6 (3 and 3) lost in either the NFC/AFC Championship. (10%)

3 lost in the Super Bowl. (5%)

2 won the Super Bowl. (3.33%)

Of the 61 Winless:

8 made the playoffs. (13%)

2 of those lost in the Wild Card Round. (3.33%)

2 more lost in the Divisional Round. (3.33%)

1 lost in the NFC Championship. (1.66%)

2 more lost in the Super Bowl. (3.33%)

1 won it all. (1.66%)

Of the teams that split one way or the other I would imagine there are not many conclusions to draw based purely on record. In those 33 years there would have been approximately 977 teams.

Of those 977 teams:

About 362 made the playoffs. (37%)

18 lost in the Wild Card (7.5%)

39 lost in the Divisional Round (16%)

66 lost in the NFC/AFC Championship (6.75%)

33 lost in the Super Bowl (3.44%)

33 won the Super Bowl (3.44%)

This shows a pretty stark difference in the percentages of getting to the playoffs for undefeated versus winless teams in the preseason. Sample size of 60 or so is pretty decent for considering how drastic the changes are (50% better chance of making the playoffs if undefeated versus split record/winless and 65% less chance if winless versus split record/undefeated).

Now this makes some intuitive sense, for while the preseason features relatively small amounts of field time for the starters, their backups get ample playing time. I would imagine that successful teams tend to be fairly deep, given the propensity for injury in the NFL. There may not be a huge difference between going 1-3, 3-1 or 2-2 during the preseason due to coaches trying out different strategies and giving playing time to ppl who won't make the roster, but it is possible a larger percentage of 4-0 or 0-4 teams actually are showing through some strengths or weakness based on roster depth at each position. There are plenty of examples of teams that went winless preseason making the playoffs and vice versa, but if you had to bet across all winless or undefeated teams from the preseason, there might be a trend worth noting there.

http://sportsdelve.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/undefeatedwinless-in-nfl-preseason-play/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_preseason