What does a perfect season in football mean?
Perfect season
A true perfect season (no losses and no ties through the regular season and playoffs) has never been achieved in professional Canadian football. Only one team, the 1948 Calgary Stampeders, has completed a perfect regular season.
Perfect season
The likelihood of a national team in the FIFA World Cup to win all of its matches in regulation time to become the champion is much higher than most clubs in their domestic league, as the finals tournament in its current format only lasts seven games — although this feat has only happened twice, Brazil on both instances in 1970 and 2002. This is not counting the qualifying round of the tournament, which lasts over a year and has had a varied format since 1934. Only the Brazilian team of 1970 has won every game in the qualification and final rounds of a single tournament, a total of 13 games. In 2010, the Netherlands came very close achieving the same feat as Brazil did in 1970. The Netherlands won 8 out of 8 qualifying games and went on to win the next 6 World Cup matches in regulation time only to lose in extra time to Spain in the final, ending with a 14–0–1 record. France become in 1998 the only Host Nation to win all seven games of the FIFA World Cup and win the Tournament. In the Quarter Finals they won against Italy by Penalties, however to do so, wins (and also loses) on Penalties are being represented as a Draw in Statistics.
Apertura and Clausura
The and tournaments is a split season format for sports leagues. It is a relatively recent innovation for many Latin American football leagues in which the traditional association football season from August to May is divided in two sections per season, each with its own champion. ' and ' are the Spanish words for "opening" and "closing". In French-speaking Haiti, these are known as the ' and the ', while in English-speaking Belize, they are respectively the "Opening" and "Closing" seasons. The North American Soccer League (NASL) adopted a split season in 2013; the season is divided into a "Spring Championship" and "Fall Championship".
Perfect season
Egyptian Premier League giants Al Ahly are the only African club to have ever completed an entire domestic season unbeaten, let alone twice, having won their 30th league title in the 2004–05 season with a record of 24 wins and 2 draws and their 31st league title the following season with a slightly worse record of 23 wins and 3 draws.
Arsenal F.C.
Seasons in bold are seasons when the club won a Double of the league and FA Cup, or of the FA Cup and League Cup. The "2003–04" season was the only 38-match league season unbeaten in English football history. A special gold version of the Premier League trophy was commissioned and presented to the club the following season.
Bob Costas
Costas was outspoken about his disdain for Major League Baseball instituting a playoff wild card. Costas believed it diminishes the significance and drama of winning a divisional championship. He prefers a system in which winning the wild card puts a team at some sort of disadvantage, as opposed to an equal level with teams who outplayed them over a 162-game season. Or, as explained in his book "Fair Ball", have only the three division winners in each league go to the postseason, with the team with the best record receiving a bye to the League Championship Series. Once, on the air on HBO's "Inside the NFL", he mentioned that the NFL regular season counted for something, but baseball's was beginning to lose significance. With the advent of the second wild card, Costas has said he feels the format has improved, since there is now a greater premium placed on finishing first. He has suggested a further tweak: Make the wild card round a best two of three, instead of a single game, with all three games, if necessary, on the homefield of the wild card of the better record.
Perfect season
The caliber of talent was neither as high nor as consistent between teams at the time, the seasons were generally shorter (7 to 11 games), and it was not uncommon for top teams to play all their games at home while lesser teams played all of their games on the road. In 1918, Dayton and Buffalo had the additional advantage of having its strongest competitors suspend operations due to the Spanish flu and the First World War, restrictions that also prevented the two teams from playing each other. Thus, it was much easier to earn a perfect season than it would become in the NFL.
List of most consecutive games with touchdown passes in the National Football League
An "uninterrupted streak" is defined as a player passing for touchdown passes in consecutive games uninterrupted for any reason including injury or other reason. By this definition, a player streak ends if the player does not participate in any aspect of a given game due to injury or other reason. This definition is not officially used by the NFL to track consecutive games with touchdown passes.
1948 Cleveland Browns season
In the 2017 NFL season, the Browns went 0-16, becoming the first team in NFL history to have a imperfect season and a perfect season.
Swan song
By extension, "swan song" has become an idiom referring to a final theatrical or dramatic appearance, or any final work or accomplishment. For example, an athlete that wins a championship or breaks records in their final season are sometimes said to have had a "swan song season."
List of Fulham F.C. seasons
The following table gives a record of every season of the club from their first professional season in the Southern Football League Division 2, to the present day, in the EFL Championship. It details the club's achievements in major competitions, their managers, and the top scorers in the league for each season. The table is correct up to the end of the 2012–13 season.
Séamus Coleman
The 2013–14 season proved to be Coleman's best to date as he scored six league goals, more than his previous seasons at the club combined. In April, he was named in the PFA Team of the Year. He was also named Everton's Player of the Year and Players' Player of the Year. Manager Roberto Martínez hailed Coleman as one of the best full-backs in world football as he was part of a defence which conceded just 39 goals to help Everton finish fifth with a club record of 72 Premier League points. He created 45 chances during the season, the third highest amongst Everton players and had the second highest pass completion at 88%.
Perfect season
There have been no perfect seasons (or even perfect regular seasons) in the American Association, World Football League, United States Football League, XFL, or, to date, the Arena Football League. The United Football League has had two perfect regular seasons, but neither qualify for the list: the 2009 Florida Tuskers finished 6–0, but that team lost the subsequent championship game; the 2012 Las Vegas Locomotives had a record of 4–0 when the league abruptly suspended operations halfway through the season.
Benefit period
A Benefit year or season is a period during which a sports person is granted the benefit of various activities by his or her club or other organisation.
1920 Akron Pros season
In their inaugural AFPA season, the Pros posted an undefeated, 8–0–3 season. As a result, they were the first team in the history to complete a non-modern "perfect season". Only four other teams has accomplished this feat: the 1922 Canton Bulldogs at 10–0–2, the 1923 Canton Bulldogs at 11–0–1, the 1929 Green Bay Packers at 12–0–1, and the 1972 Miami Dolphins at 17–0. Prior to 1972, the NFL did not count ties into winning percentage; however, in that year the NFL retrospectively altered its standings to treat tied games as being worth half of a win. With that being said, the 1972 Miami Dolphins are the only team to have a modern perfect season. Three other teams accumulated a perfect regular season record, but lost in the post season. The 1934 Chicago Bears posted a 13–0 record but lost in the 1934 NFL Championship Game to the New York Giants. The 1942 Chicago Bears posted an 11–0 record but lost in the 1942 NFL Championship Game to the Washington Redskins. Lastly, the 2007 New England Patriots posted a 16–0 record but lost in Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants.
Seasonal food
'Seasonal produce ' refers to the times of year when the harvest or the flavour of a given type food is at its peak. This is usually the time when the item is harvested, with some exceptions; an example being sweet potatoes which are best eaten quite a while after harvest. It also appeals to people who prefer a low carbon diet that reduces the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from food consumption (Food miles).
Food
"Seasonal" here refers to the times of year when the harvest or the flavour of a given type food is at its peak. This is usually the time when the item is harvested, with some exceptions; an example being sweet potatoes which are best eaten quite a while after harvest. It also appeals to people who prefer a low carbon diet that reduces the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from food consumption (Food miles).
Perfect season
Eight teams have completed perfect seasons, including postseason tournament victories, since the tournament era began in 1938:
European Coach of the Season (association football)
European Football Coach of the Season is an annual prize in association football awarded to the best manager of European football club in a autumn-spring season, organized by European Union of Sports Press (fr. "Union européenne de la presse sportive (UEPS)", also known as AIPS Europe) since the 2006–07 season. The prize was previously awarded by the Association of European Journalists (AEJ, 1977–78 to 1996–97) and UEFA (1997–98 to 2005–06).
Split season
If a team should win both halves of a season, most leagues provide that this team would play the team with the second-best overall record. In the past, some leagues stated that a double winner would automatically be declared champion, or automatically advance to the next round of playoffs.
Perfect season
The Victorian Football League, known until 1996 as the Victorian Football Association, began in 1877 and was Victoria's premier football league until 1897, and has been the second-tier league in the state since. Perfect seasons have been completed on four occasions in VFA/VFL history:
Perfect season
For other sports leagues for individuals, such as the PGA Tour or NASCAR, a perfect season would represent winning every event in a season. Considering the number of tournaments or races in those leagues, and the fact that each individual faces over 40 opponents as opposed to one, a perfect season is almost impossible.
Perfect season
NFL predecessors such as the Ohio League, New York Pro Football League and Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit had many perfect seasons. In Ohio, the Massillon Tigers (1904, 1905), Akron Indians (1909), Shelby Blues (1911), and Dayton Triangles (1918) all had perfect seasons during this era. In New York, the Buffalo Niagaras went 5–0–0 (6–0–0 including a forfeit) in a league that consisted of teams entirely from the city of Buffalo in 1918. In 1920, the Union Club of Phoenixville, located in eastern Pennsylvania, played in a league mostly consisting of local teams and earned a perfect season, claiming for itself a mythical national championship. In western Pennsylvania, the 1900 and 1901 Homestead Library and Athletic Club teams, as well as the 1903 Franklin Athletic Club, all had perfect seasons.
Perfect season
In 1966 Waynesburg College went 11–0 after a 9–0 regular season record.
In December 1966 Waynesburg defeated New Mexico Highlands in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the playoff game, 
and, defeated Whitewater Wisconsin in the NAIA Champion Bowl at Tulsa Oklahoma.
This was, and still is a college football rarity. 
Very few college football teams have won a College National Football Championship (including playoff games)
with an undefeated record.
New Zealand Football Championship
Seasons run from October through to April, and consist of an eighteen-round regular season followed by a playoff series involving the four highest-placed teams, culminating in a Grand Final. Each season, two clubs gain qualification to the OFC Champions League, the continental competition for the Oceania region. The league does not contain promotion and relegation, unlike most other world leagues.
American football rules
Beginning in the 2011 NFL Season, an instant replay review by the booth official will now be automatic for every play ruled by the referees on the field to have scored points. This is seen as another step in the "modernization" of sports. Every scoring play will be reviewed now, which saves coaches from using up their challenges on close plays in the endzone. And since the 2012 season, the booth official also reviews all turnovers during the game.
Perfect season
In the Liga ASOBAL the FC Barcelona Handbol had 4 consecutive perfect seasons from the 2013-14 season to the 2016-17 season.
Perfect season
The best start from an NFL team who failed to complete a perfect regular season is shared by two teams: the 2009 Indianapolis Colts, who started 14–0 before losing their final two regular season games to the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills to finish 14–2, and the 2015 Carolina Panthers, who went 14–0 before losing to the Atlanta Falcons and going on to finish the regular season 15–1. The 2009 Colts, having clinched the top seed in the AFC, sacrificed their chances at a perfect regular season and instead rested their starters the final two games to protect them for the playoffs. The Colts would go on to Super Bowl XLIV but lost to the New Orleans Saints. The 2015 Panthers were not resting their starters at the time of their loss (at the time, the Arizona Cardinals were 13–2 and still had an opportunity to surpass the Panthers for the top seed in the NFC).
Perfect season
Teams finishing a season unbeaten (i.e. having won or drawn every match) are more common. Arsenal in the 2003–04 English Premier League season, finished with no losses from 38 games over 100 years after Preston North End unbeaten streak in 22 league games and all of its FA Cup games in 1888–89. At the same time, AFC Wimbledon finished with a record of 42 wins, 4 draws and 0 defeats out of 46 games in their Combined Counties League Premier Division season. In Belgium, From 1933 to 1935 Royale Union Saint-Gilloise played 60 consecutive matches undefeated, setting a still unbeaten record in Belgium. In Italy, Perugia (1978–79), A.C. Milan (1991–92), and Juventus F.C. (2011–12) have been undefeated. In Turkish soccer, Galatasaray in the 1985–86 season completed the season unbeaten but finished as runners-up, although having the same points as Beşiktaş J.K., who won, but had an inferior goal difference to their rival. Beşiktaş J.K. in 1991–92 completed the season unbeaten and became Turkish League's only ever champions without defeat. In Portugal, Benfica (1972–73) was the first club to do so and won 28 matches – 23 consecutively – out of 30, and drew two. They also went undefeated in 1977–78 but finished second to Porto, who lost once that season. Porto finished the 2010–11 and 2012–13 seasons unbeaten, with a respective win–draw record of 27–3 and 24–6. In Saudi Arabia, Al-Hilal FC finished a 26-game season in the 2010–11 with 19 wins and 7 draws, a feat repeated a year later by Al-Shabab, whilst in Iraq, Al-Shorta FC went the entire 1980–81 Iraqi League season undefeated. Greek club Panathinaikos F.C. finished the 1963–64 season, Hungarian club Debreceni VSC finished the 2011–12 season, Norwegian club Rosenborg BK finished the 2010 season undefeated. The only unbeaten champion in Brazil was SC Internacional, who won the 1979 season with 16 victories and 7 ties. In Israel, Maccabi Haifa finished the 1993–1994 season (a 39-game season) in the Israeli Premier League with 28 wins and 11 draws.
Perfect season
The following teams completed a perfect regular season, but lost in the NCAA Tournament or other postseason action:
Serie B
During the regular season, each team plays 42 games – two games against every opponent. In Italian football, a true round-robin format is used. In the first half of the season, called "andata", each team plays once against all its opponents, a total of 21 games. In the second half of the season, called "ritorno", each team will play the same teams in exactly the same order, the only difference being that a home game played in the first half will be an away game with that same team in the second half, and vice versa.
National Football League
Free agents in the National Football League are divided into restricted free agents, who have three accrued seasons and whose current contract has expired, and unrestricted free agents, who have four or more accrued seasons and whose contract has expired. An accrued season is defined as "six or more regular-season games on a club's active/inactive, reserved/injured or reserve/physically unable to perform lists". Restricted free agents are allowed to negotiate with other clubs besides their former club, but the former club has the right to match any offer. If they choose not to, they are compensated with draft picks. Unrestricted free agents are free to sign with any club, and no compensation is owed if they sign with a different club.
All Stars Young Footballer of the Year
The GAA & GPA All Stars Young Footballer of the Year (often called the All Stars Young Footballer of the Year, or simply Young Footballer of the Year) is an annual award given at the end of the Championship season to a young footballer who is adjudged to have been the best in Gaelic football.
Perfect season
The UCLA Bruins are the only team to have back-to-back perfect seasons (1971–1972, 1972–1973), and all four of the college's perfect seasons were under Hall of Fame head coach John Wooden.
Perfect season
The following team managed an undefeated season but drew one game:
Johan Cruyff
Cruyff was the most famous exponent of the school of football known as "Total Football" ("Totaalvoetbal" in Dutch) explored by Rinus Michels. Being known as "the total footballer", he was also one of the brilliant pioneers of the "false nine" position/role in modern football. In Total Football's heyday (in the early 1970s), Cruyff was truly an 'on-field tactician', an 'on-field manager', or a 'coach-player' at the same time, before the concept of player-coach was at the height of its popularity in professional football during the 1980s and 1990s. As Argentinian World Cup winner Jorge Valdano said of Cruyff, in an interview with Thomas Goubin of "SoFoot.com",
Shutout
A shutout in American football is uncommon but not exceptionally rare. Keeping an opponent scoreless in American football requires a team's defense to be able to consistently shut down both pass and run offenses over the course of a game. The difficulty of completing a shutout is compounded by the many ways a team can score in the game. For example, teams can attempt field goals, which have a high rate of success. The range of NFL caliber kickers makes it possible for a team with a weak offense to get close enough (within 50 yards) to the goalposts and kick a field goal. In the decade of the 2000s there were 89 shutouts in 2,544 NFL regular-season games, for an average of slightly more than one shutout every two weeks in an NFL season.
Season (sports)
Many football leagues in Latin America have a very different system. Because most Latin American countries never had a football cup competition, they instead split their season into two parts, typically known as the Apertura and Clausura (Spanish for "opening" and "closing"). Most countries that use this system, Argentina being one notable example, crown separate league champions for each part of the season, using only league play. A few others, such as Uruguay, crown one champion at the end of a playoff involving top teams from each half of the season. Mexico operates its Apertura and Clausura as separate competitions that both end in playoffs. Brazil has a different system, the season starts with the state championships in January (every Brazilian state have his own championship), these state championships ends in April. The Campeonato Brasileiro Série A itself starts in May and ends in early December, and is played in a double round-robin format in the same way as the European championships.
NFL playoffs
The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the National Football League (NFL)'s regular season to determine the NFL champion. Six teams from each of the league's two conferences qualify for the playoffs based on regular season records, and a tie-breaking procedure exists in the case of equal records. The tournament ends with the Super Bowl, the league's championship game, which matches the two conference champions.
History of American football
Due to the intensification of the college football playoff debate after nearly a decade of the sometimes disputable results of the BCS, the conference commissioners and Notre Dame's president voted to implement a Plus-One system which was to be called the 'College Football Playoff'. The College Football Playoff is the annual postseason tournament for the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and just as its predecessors, has failed to receive sanctioning from the NCAA. The playoff began with the 2014 NCAA Division I FBS football season. Four teams play in two semifinal games, and the winners advance to the College Football Playoff National Championship game. The first season of the new system was not without controversy, however, after TCU and Baylor (both with only one loss) both failed to receive the support of the College Football Playoff selection committee.
Championship ring
In addition, the championship in North American pro team sports is the culmination of the regular season and playoff tournament, while in European club football the league championship and domestic/continental cups are separate competitions. For North American pro teams, the playoff league championship is the single most significant part of the season. Indeed, most teams and fans in North America do not consider division titles or conference titles to be notable honors at all, and therefore in practice teams in major North American professional sports consider themselves to compete annually for only a single honor, the league championship, which is determined by a playoff tournament that is seeded based on regular season performance. This is in sharp contrast to European football clubs who celebrate and compete for both regular-season "league" titles and playoff tournament "cups", as well as international tournaments in some cases.
Mayo GAA
The GAA & GPA All Stars Footballer of the Year—known for sponsorship reasons as the Vodafone Footballer of the Year—is an annual award given at the end of the Championship season to a footballer who is adjudged to have been the best in Gaelic football. 
Players from Mayo have won this twice, with Lee Keegan winning it in 2016 and Andy Moran winning it in 2017, Mayo did not win the All-Ireland Championship in either of those years. The GAA & GPA All Stars Young Footballer of the Year (often called simply Young Footballer of the Year) is an annual award given at the end of the Championship season to a young footballer under the age of 21 who is adjudged to have been the best in Gaelic football.
Players from Mayo have won this award more times (4) than players from any other county since the award was instituted in 1997. Both Cillian O'Connor and his brother Diarmuid are the only multiple winners ever of the award, they are also the only set of brothers to win the award.The Team of the Century was nominated in 1984 by "Sunday Independent" readers and selected by a panel of experts including journalists and former players. It was chosen as part of the Gaelic Athletic Association's centenary year celebrations. Two Mayo players were chosen on the team. These were Seán Flanagan at Left-Corner-Back and Tommy Langan at Full-Forward.
Incomplete pass
An incomplete pass is a term in American and Canadian football which means that a legal forward pass hits the ground before a player on either team gains possession. For example, if the quarterback throws the ball to one of his wide receivers, and the receiver either does not touch it or tries to catch it unsuccessfully, it is ruled as an incomplete pass. An incomplete pass causes the down to advance by one and the offensive team gains no yards. The game clock is stopped.
Season (sports)
In sport, the term "regular season" or "home and away season" refers to the sport's league competition. The regular season is usually similar to a group tournament format: teams are divided into groups, conferences and/or divisions, and each club plays a set number of games against a set number of opponents. In most countries the league is played in a double round-robin format, where every team plays every other team twice, once at their home venue, and once away at the oppositions venue as visitors. The results over all games are accumulated and when every team has completed its full schedule of games, a winner is declared.
Pittsburgh Panthers football
Pitt has had eight undefeated seasons. Six of the eight seasons are perfect seasons with no ties. Of the eight undefeated seasons, four are not claimed as national championship seasons by Pitt. Pitt football finished the season undefeated in:
Mike Vanderjagt
In 2003, Vanderjagt became the first kicker in the league's history to go an entire season, including the playoffs, without missing a field goal or point-after attempt. (In 1998, Minnesota kicker Gary Anderson was perfect in the regular season, but missed a field goal attempt in the playoffs.) In the process, he made his first Pro Bowl and was named first team All-Pro. He finished the regular season 37 for 37 in field goals and 46 for 46 in PATs. He was also perfect on three field-goal attempts and 12 PATs in the postseason. He did however miss a potential game tying 51-yard field goal in that season's Pro Bowl with three seconds left in a 55-52 loss to the NFC.
A-League
Seasons run from October to May and include a 27-round regular season followed by a Finals Series playoff involving the highest-placed teams, culminating in a grand final match. The winner of the regular season tournament is dubbed the 'premier' while the winner of the grand final is the season's 'champion'. This differs from the other major football codes in Australia, where 'premier' refers to the winner of the grand final and the winner of the regular season is the 'minor premier'.
List of winless seasons
In the other major professional sports leagues of North America it is virtually impossible that a team could lose all its games, for the simple reason that there are many more games in the regular season than in football or lacrosse.
Perfect season
One other team has won a championship unbeaten: in 1997, the Auckland Blues (known simply as "Blues" since 2000), which at the time represented the central and southern parts of the Auckland area plus some adjacent regions to the south, finished the regular season with one draw from 11 matches. They also won both of their finals matches to claim the title.
Conditional rebate
As an example, a retailer might want to insure the following: if a particular National Football League team returns the opening kickoff of a game or season for a touchdown, then the customer who made a purchase during the specified promotional period will get a 100% rebate on their purchase. Another example is that of a conditional weather rebate where if there is snow on New Year's Day the customer will receive a full refund of all purchases made during the month of November.
List of undefeated NCAA Division I football teams
The following categories represent the historical equivalents of the highest level of play over the history of college football, and the subsequent tables list the teams for each season that went undefeated while competing in these highest categories:These teams finished the season having won every game in which they played, thus completing a "perfect season".
Modern history of American football
The CFP system is centered on six major bowl games played on or near New Year's Day, often called the "New Year's Six". Three pairs of games rotate annually as hosts of CFP semifinals. The champions of the so-called Power Five conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC) all receive guaranteed berths in one of the New Year's Six games, though not necessarily in the CFP semifinals. Notre Dame, a football independent but otherwise an ACC member, has its own arrangement for access to the New Year's Six should it meet specified criteria. A selection committee similar to those used by the NCAA basketball tournaments for men and women releases a weekly ranking concurrently with the AP Poll starting with the Monday after Week 10 of the season. After the completion of the regular season, the committee selects the four teams that will compete in the CFP semifinals and the at-large entries to the New Year's Six games. One of the at-large entries is reserved for the top-ranking champion of the so-called "Group of Five" conferences (American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt). The semifinal winners advance to the College Football Playoff National Championship game. The first season of the new system was not without controversy, however, after TCU and Baylor (each with only one loss) both failed to receive the support of the College Football Playoff selection committee.
Perfect season
A perfect season is a sports season including any requisite playoff portion, in which a team remains and finishes undefeated and untied. The feat is extremely rare at the professional level of any team sport, and has occurred more commonly at the collegiate and scholastic levels in the United States. A perfect regular season (known by other names outside the United States of America) is a season "excluding" any playoffs, where a team remains undefeated and untied; it is less rare than a complete perfect season but still exceptional.
Perfect season
The 1933 Providence Huskies (possibly a successor to the Providence Steam Roller) played arguably the most perfect season ever recorded by a professional or semi-professional team: a ten-game season in which they won every game and did not concede a single point during any game.
Perfect season
The WAFL has existed since 1885 within Western Australia, and until the latter part of the 20th century was of equivalent standard to either the VFL or SANFL. The 1946 East Fremantle team was the first club in senior WAFL football to have managed a perfect season or even a perfect home-and-away season, winning all twenty-one of its games; it is noted that the playing lists of many of its opponents had been seriously depleted by World War II. The only loss for the season came against Collingwood in a post season match. The 2018 Subiaco team won all of its 18 games in the minor round before winning both their second-semi-final against South Fremantle and the Grand Final against West Perth.
Perfect season
Since the National Football League began in 1920, only one team has played a complete perfect season (both regular season and playoffs): the 1972 Miami Dolphins, who won all fourteen of their regular season games and three postseason games, including Super Bowl VII, to finish the season 17–0–0.
Season ticket
In sports, such as Association football or American football, a season ticket grants the holder access to all regular-season home games for one season without additional charges. The ticket usually offers a discounted price over purchasing a ticket for each of the home games for a season individually. In some sports, season ticket holders are usually allowed to buy tickets for other home games (such the playoffs) earlier than other fans, and may be given priority when buying tickets for their team's allocation at a road game. Seats assigned to season tickets are generally the better ones in their seating section. Season ticket holders are frequently offered preferred seating at special events or extra games.
Tiebreaker
In the National Football League of professional American football, if both teams are tied at the end of regulation, an overtime period is played under modified "sudden death" rules. Before the 2017 season, this period was 15 minutes in all games. Since 2017, a 15-minute period has been used only in playoff games (in which a winner "must" be decided); overtime in preseason and regular-season games consists of a 10-minute period. If the team that receives the ball first scores a field goal, then the opponent must receive a chance at equalising that score of their own; the first team to score a touchdown or safety wins the game; and once both teams have had possession of the ball in overtime, the first team to score under any legal means, touchdown (offensive or defensive), field goal or safety, wins. If neither team scores before the end of the overtime period, or both teams score one field goal each, the game is considered a draw and ends, and counts as a "half-win" in the standings for purposes of winning percentage for both draft order and playoff positioning. However, in the playoffs, true sudden death rules apply from double overtime onwards.
Perfect season
Since tables of results have been kept in 1864, the only team to have competed a true perfect season – winning outright every game – was Yorkshire in 1867 when led by George Freeman's and Tom Emmett's deadly fast bowling on uncovered and unrolled pitches, they won all seven county games.
Perfect season
The Browns were a member of the All-America Football Conference, a professional football league that played from 1946 to 1949. In 1948, the Browns won all fourteen regular season games and the 1948 AAFC championship to post a 15–0–0 record. Cleveland's perfect 1948 season was part of a longer string of 29 straight wins, which stretched from 1947 to 1949 and included both the 1947 and 1948 title games. Overall, the Browns won all four AAFC championship games and were accepted into the NFL when the two leagues merged after the 1949 season.
Second season syndrome
Second season syndrome is the now-common phrase that is used to describe a downturn in fortunes for a football club in the second season after its promotion – particularly if the first season after promotion had brought a strong finish. The syndrome could be seen in the cases of Swansea City (1981–1983) and Millwall (1988–1990).
Perfect season
Since the NFL expanded to a fourteen-game regular season in 1961, eleven teams have had regular seasons with one loss and no ties (or better) while failing to achieve a perfect season:
Most of these teams suffered their regular-season loss early in the year and, other than the 2007 Patriots (finished regular season 16–0), only the 1962 Packers (10–0), 1985 Bears (12–0), 2011 Packers (13–0), and 2015 Panthers (14–0) were on track for a perfect season when they lost. Coincidentally, the 1985 Bears’ lone loss came to the Miami Dolphins.
Season (sports)
In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from April to October. In other team sports, like association football or basketball, it is generally from August or September to May although in some countries - such as Northern Europe or East Asia - the season starts in the spring and finishes in autumn, mainly due to weather conditions encountered during the winter.
1948 Cleveland Browns season
The season is recognized as perfect by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, although the National Football League (NFL), which absorbed the Browns when the AAFC dissolved in 1949, does not recognize it. Ohio senator Sherrod Brown wrote a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell in 2008 asking the league to officially recognize AAFC team statistics, including the perfect season. The 2007 New England Patriots were vying to complete a 19–0 season at the time and join the 1972 Miami Dolphins as the only teams to register a perfect record.
List of college football coaches with a .750 winning percentage
This is a list of football coaches with a .750 or greater winning percentage. College football coaches who have coached college teams for 10 or more seasons are included in the list. "College level" is defined as a four-year college or university program in either the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) or the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). If the team competed at a time before the official organization of either of the two groups, but is generally accepted as a "college football program," it is also included.
Perfect season
The following is a list of teams in minor or alternate leagues that compiled perfect seasons of six games or more, including postseason games, with no ties:In indoor football, the following teams have had perfect seasons:At least twenty-three other semi-professional football teams have had perfect seasons, seven of them being at least 17 games long. The Chambersburg Cardinals won a record 72 straight games between 1977 and 1984.
Perfect season
The Sydney Swifts were the only team to achieve a perfect season, winning all fourteen regular season games and both their finals matches for a record of 16–0.
Perfect season
Due to relatively short seasons through most of college football history, the list of undefeated Division I football teams includes dozens of teams. The highest level of college football, the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (introduced as Division I-A in 1978), did not use a playoff to determine a champion prior to the introduction of the four-team College Football Playoff (CFP) in 2014. The system replaced by the CFP relied on a combination of polls and computer rankings to choose two teams to play one title game in a system known as the Bowl Championship Series. Prior to 1992, no attempt was made to match up the top two teams in a championship game, further increasing the chances of multiple teams achieving a perfect season. The record for most wins in an undefeated FBS season is 15-0 accomplished in the 2018/19 season by Clemson Tigers Football Team. Following that the record is 14–0, accomplished in 2002 by Ohio State, twice in 2009 by Boise State and Alabama, in 2010 by Auburn, and in 2013 by Florida State.
Silly season
The term is also used in sports, to describe periods outside traditional competitive sporting seasons.
Parity (sports)
Many consider the NFL to be the most "fair" or competitive league, with many different teams having a chance to win each year. In the NFL, complete parity would be a state where on any given Sunday, any given team can win any given game. The illusion of parity in the NFL may be somewhat of a misconception, given that several teams such as the New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Green Bay Packers have appeared in the playoffs in almost all of the past ten years, while a team such as the Cleveland Browns has a playoff drought that is currently over a decade long. The most important thing to remember is that a franchise can be struggling and the reason for it can be due to the team's ineptitude when it comes evaluating talent, coaching strategies, developing players, having a good organizational structure, and overall team and player operations.
Big Ten Football Championship Game
The Big Ten Football Championship Game is a college football game that is held by the Big Ten Conference each year since 2011 to determine the conference's season champion. The championship game will pit the division champions from the conference's West and East divisions in a game held after the regular season has been completed. The game is held the first Saturday of December at 8 PM Eastern.
New Year's Six
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system that created five bowl game match-ups involving ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of college football, including an opportunity for the top two teams to compete in the BCS National Championship Game. The system was in place for the 1998 through 2013 seasons and in 2014 was replaced by the College Football Playoff. The four-team playoffs consist of two semifinal games, with the winners advancing to the College Football Playoff National Championship. If New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, those games traditionally on New Year's Day will be played the next day on January 2 in deference to the National Football League's Week 17, which marks the end of the NFL regular season.
Shutout
There are at least five instances in American football in which a team had been shut out throughout an entire season, and four in which a team has shut out all of their opponents in the season (the longest of these being the ten-game perfect season in which the 1933 Providence Huskies did not concede a single point).
Official (American football)
Because their regular season spans only 17 weeks, the NFL is one of only two major sports leagues in the United States that only pay their officials on a contract basis as opposed to being full-time salaried employees, the other being Major League Soccer. Advantages to this system include being able to eliminate unqualified officials simply by not offering them a contract the following season, where terminating full-time employees would require them to show cause. Critics argue that full-time officials would be free from the distractions of a second job, but proponents of part-time officials point out that the NFL would lose a number of qualified officials because many of them are owners, presidents, or CEOs of various companies. Proponents also argue that there is only one game per week and the regular season is only four months long, and that having full-time officials does not necessarily guarantee that they will make fewer officiating mistakes. The level of training and review in which NFL officials participate makes additional time redundant. In any event, veteran officials can earn substantial salaries for their work. The NFL Referees Association serves as the union that represents officials in the NFL.
Franchise tag
In the National Football League (NFL), the franchise tag is a designation a team may apply to a player scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent. The tag binds the player to the team for one year if certain conditions are met. Each team only has one franchise tag (of either the exclusive or non-exclusive forms) and one transition tag per year. The transition tag can only be used if the team does not use a franchise tag.
Perfect season
Exhibition games are generally not counted toward standings, for or against. For example, the 1972 Miami Dolphins (below) lost three of their preseason ("exhibition" games in 1972 NFL vernacular) games but are considered to have had a perfect season.
Perfect season
The current Canadian Football League schedule would require a team to win 20 games (18 regular season, 1 playoff after bye week, and the Grey Cup championship) to post a perfect record.
Perfect season
Many association football teams have also had perfect seasons, however doing so in a season of 20 or more matches is very rare. Clubs to have achieved this include: Dresdner SC of Germany in 1942–43 (23 wins out of 23), Ferencvárosi of Hungary in 1931–32 (22), Sunrise Flacq United of Mauritius in 1995–96 (22), and Nacional of Uruguay in 1941 (20). Al Ahly (of Egypt) hold the record of going a whole season being unbeaten, in all possible competitions they were involved in (46 matches in total played in: Egyptian Premier League, Egyptian Cup, Egyptian Super Cup and CAF Champions League between 2005 and 2006). The longest winning streak of any team over multiple seasons was Sparta Prague's run of at least 51 wins in a row, between 1920 and 1923.
50–40–90 club
This requirement to consistently produce through a season has pertinence regarding several players have been cited in the media or by their basketball clubs for having a 50–40–90 season, while ignoring the full minimum successful shots makes criteria required to be considered a leader in each category. For example, a book published in 2009 credits Steve Kerr as achieving a miracle 50–50–90 in the 1995–96 season, but ignores the fact that he was considerably short of the minimum requirements for field goals (short by 56 makes) or free throws (short by 47 makes) to be recognized officially.
Other players have been very close, but still failed to completely meet the criteria for an official 50–40–90 season.
Polish American Football League
The regular season in the Topliga starts in March/April and ends in June/July. Each team plays nine games competing against every other team in the division (4 or 5 home games and 5 or 4 away games). A team is awarded two points for a win, one point for a tie, and zero points for a loss (a tie only occurs if the overtime can not be played). After a regular season, the top four teams qualify for the play-offs (1st place against 4th place and 2nd against 3rd) and the Semi-Final winners meet in the championship game called SuperFinal; there is no 3rd place game.
List of Major League Soccer seasons
The postseason consists of a ten-team, four-round knockout. The top three teams in each conference reach the overall quarterfinal round, while the fourth and fifth seeded teams from either conference playoff for the last spot in that round. The final, the MLS Cup, is a single match with the winner becoming league champion of the year. Six times a team has won the league double: winning both the MLS Cup and the Supporters' Shield in the same season. In 2017, Toronto FC became the first team to win a domestic treble. This has been done by four different teams. The MLS Golden Boot is awarded each year to the player with the most goals in the regular season, and the best overall player is awarded the Most Valuable Player Award.
1948 Cleveland Browns season
In winning all of their regular season games and the AAFC championship, the Browns recorded the first perfect season in professional football since the advent of NFL championships in 1933. The feat has been duplicated only once since, by the Miami Dolphins in 1972. When the AAFC faltered and dissolved after the 1949 season and the NFL absorbed the Browns, their new league did not recognize AAFC statistics, including the perfect season. The Pro Football Hall of Fame, however, recognizes it as a perfect season. In 2008, United States Senator Sherrod Brown, who represents Ohio in the United States Congress, sent a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell asking the league to recognize AAFC championships and team records including the perfect season. At the time, the New England Patriots were undefeated as they prepared for the Super Bowl against the New York Giants, a game they went on to lose. Dante Lavelli also advocated for the NFL to adopt AAFC records.
College recruiting
The football recruiting season typically begins the summer after the previous year's class has signed — though the building of relationships between college coaches and high school players and their coaches may have been going on for months or years before that. Each summer, high school players attend various football camps at nearby college campuses to be evaluated on measures of athleticism, such as the 40-yard dash, vertical jump, agility shuttle; and the number of repetitions of the bench press that an athlete can perform at a given weight, usually 225 pounds. Recently, the SPARQ rating has become a popular composite metric of a high school football player's athleticism. At this time of year, based on game film and performance at combines, this is typically when players begin to receive most scholarship offers.
Perfect season
There were also cases of teams going undefeated through the season in the nineteenth century, but none completed perfect seasons because some of their matches were drawn. Of those, could be interpreted as having been perfect in 1879; it had a record of 15–0–1, and the draw came by agreement when a match was abandoned due to inclement weather.
UEFA Club Footballer of the Year
The UEFA Club Footballer of the Year was a football award presented by UEFA to the most outstanding performers of every European club football season. The award, along with "Best Goalkeeper," "Best Defender," "Best Midfielder," and "Best Forward," was given at the end of each season at a special gala in Monaco prior to the UEFA Super Cup. The honour had been bestowed upon first-class European football stars since the 1997–98 season, when it was awarded to Ronaldo, then of Internazionale. For the 2010–11 season, it was replaced by the newly formed UEFA Best Player in Europe Award.
Shutout
In football a team's defense or goalkeeper may be said to "keep a clean sheet" if they prevent their opponents from scoring any goals during an entire match. Because football is a relatively low-scoring game, it is common for one team, or even both teams, to score no goals. A theory as to the term's origin is that sports reporters used separate pieces of paper to record the different statistical details of a game. If one team did not allow a goal, then that team's "details of goals conceded" page would appear blank, leaving a clean sheet.
American football
American football also plays a significant role in American culture. The day on which the Super Bowl is held is considered a "de facto" national holiday, and in parts of the country like Texas, the sport has been compared to a religion. Football is also linked to other holidays; New Year's Day is traditionally the date for several college football bowl games, including the Rose Bowl. However, if New Year's Day is on a Sunday, the bowl games are moved to another date to not conflict with the typical NFL Sunday schedule. Thanksgiving football is an American tradition, hosting many high school, college, and professional games. Steve Deace of "USA Today" wrote that Americans are passionate about football "because it embodies everything we love about American exceptionalism. Merit is rewarded, not punished. Masculinity is celebrated, not feminized. People of various beliefs and backgrounds – a melting pot, if you will – must unify for a common goal for the team to be successful". Implicit rules such as playing through pain and sacrificing for the better of the team are promoted in football culture.
Serie A Team of the Year
The Serie A Team of the Year AIC (in Italian: "Squadra dell’anno AIC") is an annual award given to a set of 11 footballers in the top tier of Italian football, the Serie A, who are seen to be the best eleven players of the calendar season. It is awarded within the Gran Galà del Calcio event.
BBC Goal of the Season
In English football, the Goal of the Season is an annual competition and award given on BBC's "Match of the Day", in honour of the most spectacular goal scored that season. It is typically contested between the winners of the preceding ten Goals of the Month, although the goal can and has come from any game in the regular season, including international qualifiers and friendlies—potentially from the opening league games of the season to the end of the European season UEFA Champions League final. In several instances, the goal has come in the final game of the domestic season, the FA Cup Final, the most recent example of which is Steven Gerrard's last minute goal in 2006. However, in 1980-81 for example the superb goal scored by Ricky Villa in the FA Cup Final replay for Tottenham Hotspur against Manchester City could not be considered as voting had already taken place.
Perfect season
A perfect season may be part of a multi-season winning streak.
College Football Playoff
The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout tournament to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level of college football competition in the United States. The inaugural tournament was held at the end of the 2014 NCAA Division I FBS football season which was won by Ohio State. Four teams play in two semifinal games, and the winner of each semifinal advances to the College Football Playoff National Championship game.
Mid-major
These leagues were so-called AQ ("automatic qualifying") conferences during the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) era in college football, and are primary members of the College Football Playoff (CFP) structure that began in the 2014 season. The CFP is centered around a group of bowl games often called the "New Year's Six", with two of them hosting CFP semifinals each season in rotation. Football champions of these conferences are assured of a spot in a "New Year's Six" game, though not necessarily in a CFP semifinal.
Football Outsiders
DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) calculates a team's success based on the down-and-distance of each play during the season, then calculates how much more or less successful each team is compared to the league average. According to Football Outsiders, DVOA "breaks down every single play of the NFL season to see how much success offensive players achieved in each specific situation compared to the league average in that situation, adjusted for the strength of the opponent. ... Football has one objective -- to get to the end zone -- and two ways to achieve that, by gaining yards and getting first downs. These two goals need to be balanced to determine a player's value or a team's performance."
Perfect season
The 1921 Buffalo All-Americans were controversially denied a similar type of near-undefeated season, when they believed that their final game, a 10-7 loss to the Chicago Staleys, was an exhibition game which would not count in the final standings; the NFL records that game as official, and Buffalo's record as 9–1–2.
Game of the Century (college football)
The phrase "Game of the Century" is usually placed in quotation marks to indicate the irony or emphasize the incorrectness of the term as it applies to college football games. What makes the phrase subjective is that sportswriters and fans list the games that they remember or attended. Games that were played before radio and television broadcasts are only preserved in print. Working sportswriters have a history that goes back at most to the middle of the 20th century. Television and the Internet have made broadcasts of more recent games available to all. Unlike the "Game of the Century" in college basketball, or the 1958 NFL Championship Game, which is commonly called "The Greatest Game Ever Played", there has been no specific college football game that changed the sport as dramatically.
Playoffs
A "test match" is a match played at the end of a season between a team that has done badly in a higher league and one that has done well in a lower league of the same football league system. The format of a test match series varies; for instance it can be a head-to-head between one of the worse finishers of the higher league and one of the better finishers of the lower league, or it can be a mini league where all participants play each other or teams only play those from the other league. The winner of the test match series play in the higher league the following season, and the loser in the lower league.
Perfect season
Four other teams have started 13–0 before losing their fourteenth game: the 1998 Denver Broncos, 2005 Indianapolis Colts, 2009 New Orleans Saints and 2011 Green Bay Packers (Of those near-perfect seasons, the 2011 Packers are the only team that did not win a single playoff game). The 1998 Broncos, 2005 Colts and 2009 Saints lost at least two of their final three games but the Broncos and Saints recovered to win the Super Bowl. The 1953 Cleveland Browns and 1969 Los Angeles Rams started 11–0 in twelve- and fourteen-game seasons respectively; both lost their only playoff game.
1952 NFL season
This was the last NFL season prior to the introduction of regular season overtime in 1974 that there were no ties in the regular season.
"W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PCT= Winning Percentage, PF= Points For, PA = Points Against"
Perfect season
The 2007 Patriots became the first team after the NFL expanded its regular season to sixteen games in 1978 to finish the regular season undefeated. The Patriots then won their divisional and conference playoff games, but were upset by the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII, giving them a final record of 18–1.
2002–03 Arsenal F.C. season
Wenger hoped his team's success would begin an era of dominating English football for years to come, citing a "shift of power". He moreover aimed for significant improvement in the Champions League, a competition where the club failed to reach higher than the quarter-finals. Such was Arsenal's impressive form in late summer, Wenger commented that his team could go the entire season undefeated.
Hat-trick
Football has also extended the term to include the phrase perfect hat-trick, achieved when a player scores one right-footed goal, one left-footed goal and one headed goal within one match. In Germany and Austria, the term "(lupenreiner) Hattrick" ("flawless hat-trick") refers to when a player scores three goals in a row in one half without the half-time break or a goal scored by another player interrupting the performance.