The 2007 Patriots' 16-0 Season

The 2007 New England Patriots went 16-0, becoming the first team ever to win all 16 games of the modern regular season, only to lose Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants and finish 18-1. It gave them the best regular-season record in NFL history, but not the perfect year that eluded them by a single game.

For most of the 2007 season, the Patriots looked less like a team than a demolition crew. Tom Brady and Randy Moss combined for an aerial assault the league had never seen, blowouts piled up, and the perfect record seemed destined to end with a coronation. That it did not is what makes the 2007 season one of the most fascinating in NFL history. Here is the record they set, and the one that got away. All figures are through the 2025 season.

The record: 16-0 and the best regular season ever

The 2007 Patriots are the only team to finish a 16-game regular season without a loss. Their 16-0 mark is the best regular-season record in NFL history by total wins, surpassing the 14-0 of the 1972 Dolphins in a longer schedule.

The perfection was built on offense. New England scored a then-record 589 points, roughly 37 per game, and rarely faced a close contest until the season’s final weeks. The 16-0 record alone would secure the team’s place in history, but it was the individual records inside it that made 2007 legendary.

The records the 2007 Patriots set

The table below shows the major single-season records New England set in 2007 and the marks they broke.

Record	Holder	2007 mark	Previous record
Perfect regular season	Patriots	16-0	14-0 (1972 Dolphins)
Points scored, season	Patriots	589	556 (1998 Vikings)
Touchdown passes, season	Tom Brady	50	49 (Peyton Manning, 2004)
Receiving touchdowns, season	Randy Moss	23	22 (Jerry Rice, 1987)

Each of these was a genuine milestone. Brady’s 50 touchdown passes broke Peyton Manning’s three-year-old record, Moss’s 23 receiving scores eclipsed a Jerry Rice mark that had stood for two decades, and the team’s 589 points topped the 1998 Vikings. It was a record-setting season on every level.

Brady and Moss: the offense that rewrote the book

The engine of it all was the connection between Tom Brady and Randy Moss, acquired in a trade before the season. Moss stretched defenses deep while Brady, in the finest passing year of his career to that point, distributed the ball with surgical efficiency. Wes Welker added a record-setting number of receptions underneath, giving the offense answers at every level of the field.

Opponents simply could not keep pace. New England routinely built large leads and won by wide margins, and by December the only question seemed to be whether they would run the table through the playoffs too.

The Super Bowl that ended perfection

The perfect run reached 18-0 after two playoff wins, setting up Super Bowl XLII against the New York Giants. But the Giants’ pass rush harassed Brady all night, and on the game-winning drive Eli Manning escaped a sack and threw to David Tyree, who pinned the ball against his helmet for one of the most famous catches in football history. New York won 17-14, ending the season at 18-1.

The loss is why the 2007 Patriots are remembered differently from the 1972 Dolphins’ perfect season. Miami finished the job; New England came within one play and did not. For the wider context of teams that reached the brink, see every undefeated NFL team.

Why the 2007 season still matters

The 2007 Patriots represent the highest regular-season ceiling any NFL team has reached, and their offensive records reshaped how the league thought about scoring. Yet they are also a cautionary tale about how a single postseason game can define a legacy. Both truths are why the season endures in the conversation.

The short version: the 2007 Patriots went 16-0 for the best regular-season record in NFL history, powered by Brady’s 50 touchdown passes and Moss’s 23 receiving scores, then lost Super Bowl XLII to finish 18-1. Through the 2025 season, they hold the regular-season record but not a perfect year.