Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

The worst shutout in NFL history took place on 12-10-1925. Chicago Cardinals 59 Milwaukee Badgers 0 in a game that featured a small Milwaukee roster that included 3 HS players and was quickly reassembled when Chris O'Brien wanted 2 extra games to try and make the Red Grange post-season tour. (The following week they beat Hammond 13-0.) What makes this game the worst is that Joe Carr and the league said they would review this game and strike it from the records. But they never did, and they should have. Although I do believe they punished the Milwaukee management.

As far as the 1925 Championship goes, I know that Chris O'Brien did not want it when it was voted to him (even though the Bidwells now claim it) and that it was never actually officially awarded as a result. (I believe Pottsville should have and should be recognized as NFL champs for 1925 (I've no connection to Pottsville or even to Pennsylvania, I live in Nevada and am from Ohio originally.) I know about Bob Carrolls research and articles... no need to refer me to those, I've read them. (I'm not here to argue the point either, just to express my opinion.)

I will NEVER understand why Pottsville didn't demand the 1925 NFL Title as a condition of returning to the NFL in 1926. The NFL wanted to keep them and any other team they could from joining the "Grange League" (First AFL). The 1925 Title wasn't officially awarded to anyone anyway, and I bet a deal could have been worked out to compensate Frankford in some way to soothe their feelings. Pottsville had of course violated their territorial rights in 1925 (Wish they hadn't, the game was a financial flop anyway) at the end of the season to play the Notre Dame All-Stars.

ChrisBabcock wrote:Worst shutouts, as in, aside from 73-0?

That was so far back I didn't even think about that. Was home field advantage a thing in the 1940's with crowds? Alas, it was a home team getting wrecked to the nth degree.

BTW it wasn't a blowout, but it was a shutout in the playoffs, and it was the conference champ game...

The 1979 loss the Bucs had to the Rams on their home turf was a 9-0 L. I'm not sure which is worse, that the prospect of going to the Super Bowl was only 9 points away, and you manage 0, or would it have been better to just have a 30-0 blowout of sorts where you were never even in the game? If that type of loss happened today on a homestand, heads would roll for any franchise.

Statistically this has to be one of the worse:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/ ... 110phi.htm


In 1962 the Bears defeated the Colts 57-0. Two years later the Colts defeated the Bears 52-0.

First off, Happy Holidays to you all!

Second.. how about the LA Rams losing, 28-0, at home in the ’78 NFCC to that very team wearing their, then, blue ‘jinx’ jerseys??

Losing by a close score to the defending-Champs/perennial contender? Of course understandable. But losing to them, at home, in that very fashion? And this was a 12-4 team who beat them, and Pittsburgh, during the regular season!

Speaking of the Rams the next year they went to Seattle and won 24-0. The score itself wasn't so bad but they outgained the Seahawks by 475 yards to minus-7. And the Seahawks had a good offense that was 4th in scoring that year. Since it was in a dome weather wasn't even a factor.

In 1985 the Packers outgained the Bucs 512 yards to 65 in a 21-0 game. That was in the snow and the Bucs were bad so not quite as inexplicable as the Seahawks loss.

How about Steelers 42, Tampa Bay 0 at Three Rivers in ’76? If anything, you’d think Steelers score even more points on such an historically awful team in their first year of expansion as the ’Burgh themselves were riding so high on, arguably, their most dominant stretch of the entire Dynasty. But given it was still in the dead-ball era, I guess “adjusting inflation” for today’s higher-scoring standards, it’d be a 74-0 final just the same.

Ness wrote:BTW it wasn't a blowout, but it was a shutout in the playoffs, and it was the conference champ game...

The 1979 loss the Bucs had to the Rams on their home turf was a 9-0 L. I'm not sure which is worse, that the prospect of going to the Super Bowl was only 9 points away, and you manage 0, or would it have been better to just have a 30-0 blowout of sorts where you were never even in the game? If that type of loss happened today on a homestand, heads would roll for any franchise.

A good example of a non-shutout version of this, is SBLIII. Rams hold Belichick/Brady’s Pats to just 13? Then you think that they, with their great offense that they had that year, WINS it!! Not score just a FG!

One of the most embarrassing championship game losses was the Vikings against the Giants in the 2000/01 NFC Title game 41-0 ... The Vikings team acted like they didnt even want to show up, while making Giants QB Kerry Collins look like Joe Montana. It was such a one-sided game that the Giants team actually thought they could challenge for the SB win but only avoided their own shutout to the champion Ravens because of a great kickoff return for TD. Ironically enough, they gave up their own return TD on the next play ...

The ’48 Eagles and their three 45-0s! Two of them being back-to-back!

1940 NFL title game. Chicago 73, Washington 0.