Since 1970, only three teams have finished first in both offensive and defensive ANY/A:

• The 1996 Packers were the last team to do it. Brett Favre and Antonio Freeman helped the Green Bay offense average 6.5 ANY/A, just ahead of Miami for the league lead. On the other side of the ball, Reggie White and LeRoy Butler guided a dominant Green Bay defense that allowed just 3.1 ANY/A, far ahead of the rest of the NFL (Pittsburgh, at 3.8, was the only other defense that allowed fewer than 4 ANY/A).

• The 1987 49ers averaged 7.5 ANY/A, and no other offense topped seven ANY/A that year. The full season numbers are a bit funky for the ’87 season due to the strike, and San Francisco (thanks to Bill Walsh) handled the strike much better than most; of course, with Joe Montana, Roger Craig, and Jerry Rice, the 49ers were pretty good when the real players came back, too. On defense, the team (led by All-Pros Ronnie Lott and Michael Carter) allowed just 3.2 ANY/A, comfortably ahead of second-place New Orleans (3.6).

• The ’72 Dolphins are remembered for lots of reasons, but not many of them revolve around the team’s passing offense. This was the height of the dead ball era, and Miami was dominant on the ground on both sides of the ball. But with Earl Morrall (and Bob Griese) and Paul Warfield, the Dolphins finished 1st in ANY/A with a 6.7 average, ^[1]By the way, what percentage of people would ever guess that the ’72 Dolphins had a higher ANY/A average than the ’96 Packers? despite finishing just 16th in total passing yards. You won’t be surprised to learn that the defense allowed just 2.0 ANY/A last year, as Bill Stanfill, Nick Buoniconti, Jake Scott, and Dick Anderson all made the Pro Bowl.

Those three teams were dominant: the Dolphins and Packers won the Super Bowl, while the 49ers (13-2) were a dominant team that had an uncharacteristically bad performance in the playoffs. San Francisco would win the Super Bowl the next two years, and both Miami and Green Bay made it back to the Super Bowl the next year, too (with the Dolphins repeating).

It’s unlikely a team from 2014 joins the group. Right now, only two teams even have a realistic chance, and neither Green Bay nor Denver are likely to finish the year first in ANY/A allowed. On the other hand, through 12 weeks, the Jets ranked 32nd in both offensive ANY/A and defensive ANY/A this year. So there’s a pretty decent chance that New York could wind finishing with this very rare, and very embarrassing, fire everybody bit of trivia. Since the merger, just one team has ever finished last in ANY/A on both sides of the ball: the ’86 Bucs.

Historians might recall that in 1985, the Bucs finished with a 2-14 record, worst in the NFL. But with the first overall pick in ’86, Tampa Bay selected Bo Jackson, who promptly went through on his threat to go play baseball. ^[2]The team would draft Vinny Testaverde with the 1st pick in the ’87 draft. That didn’t wind up being much better for the Bucs. The passing attack averaged just 3.2 ANY/A, comfortably in the league basement, despite being quarterbacked by Steve Young! ^[3]In Young’s defense, he did average a somewhat more respectable 3.7 ANY/A; it was Steve DeBerg (0.97 ANY/A over two starts) who really tanked the team’s rankings. This was Leeman Bennett’s last year, and the end of his awful tenure with the team. Tampa Bay was just as much of a disaster defensively, allowing 7.1 ANY/A.

No team before (well, at least since 1970) or since has finished last in the league in ANY/A on both sides of the ball. It looks like we may have one more line to add to Rex Ryan’s Jets obituary.