In 1946, the Pittsburgh Steelers went 5-5-1. While the sum of the team’s parts may have been perfectly average, their components were far from it. The head coach was newly-hired Jock Sutherland, who had been a local hero after taking the Pitt Panthers to four Rose Bowls. After a stint in the Navy during World War II, he returned to the city and coached the Steelers for two seasons, beginning in 1946. In the 10-team NFL, Pittsburgh allowed the fewest points in the NFL at 10.6 per game, a mark that would not be matched again until the Lombardi Packers in 1962. The NFL average in 1946 was 18.9 points per game, and every other team allowed at least 14.4 points per game. Unfortunately, the Steelers offense was as bad as the defense was good: the black and gold finished last in the league in scoring at 12.4 points per game.

That 1946 team was led by Bill Dudley, an all-world star who won the league’s MVP award. In addition to leading the league in rushing yards… and punt return yards and average… Dudley intercepted 10 passes that season! That remarkable fact came despite the Steelers only facing 162 pass attempts that season, meaning Dudley intercepted one out of every 16.2 passes the Steelers defense saw that season. It remains arguably the greatest season of thievery in NFL history.

Those ’46 Steelers were otherwise an unremarkable team, notable for this one fact: Pittsburgh is the last team to finish as the league’s lowest scoring team and to also allow the fewest points in the league. But this year, the 2022 Denver Broncos are challenging that mark. Through 9 games and 10 weeks of the season, Denver ranks last in scoring and first in points allowed. The Broncos have 131 points scored through 9 games — a very bad number although not a particularly low mark for the league’s worst-scoring team. ^[1]Last year, Houston scored 128 points through 9 games, and this year, the Colts have just one more point than Denver And they have allowed 149 points despite facing 11.8 drives per game (thanks, offense), tied for the most in the NFL.

A few teams have come close to pulling off this rare achievement, but it’s remarkable to consider that no team has done this since Sutherland’s Steelers. ^[2]Only one team has gone in the other direction: the 2000 Rams led the league in scoring but also ranked last in points allowed. There have been just 31.1 points per game scored in Broncos games this season.  In the last 25 seasons, only two other times has that happened: the famed 2000 Ravens teams, and the 2005 Bears team that tried to replicate that approach, using Brian Urlacher as Ray Lewis and Kyle Orton as Trent Dilfer. [continue reading…]