This year PFO released their 1984 and 1983 DVOA rankings with commentary. More great reading.

[TecmoSuperJoe]

So it's been a year since I talked about the 1985 write up they did. That was a great read. This year to my surprise they released two write ups on the 1984 and 1983 seasons. Both articles are also pretty intriguing. For the longest while I wanted to hear their thoughts on my 1984 49ers, the first 15-1 team in NFL history. How did it stack up against the 1989 squad? How well do Marino's 1984 numbers measure up today when contextualized for era change? Are the 1983 Redskins one the most underrated squads of all time that no one talks about? A lot of insight. Like I said last year, it's the offseason, and there isn't much to talk about. I'm sure many people would rather read tweets for hot takes, but if you have some extra time on your hands you may want to take a few minutes to check these pieces out. 

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2021/1984-dvoa-ratings-and-commentary

https://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2021/1983-dvoa-ratings-and-commentary

Edited May 30, 2021 by TecmoSuperJoe

[TecmoSuperJoe]

This is a highlight of the 1984 piece I thought was worth sharing if you don't want to read the entire thing. From the comments section is also gold, and this one story in particular was hilarious. It's about the 1984 Vikings (worst team in franchise history according to FO), and how the team essentially turned on their head coach a few games into the season, because they all hated him so much:

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No team ever quit on a coach worse than the Vikings quit on single season disaster Les Steckel, whom I am convinced was picked over Jerry Burns because they could pay him like an assistant. The entire team, grizzled veterans and rookies alike, just decided, after about 4 or 5 games, they hated ol' Les so much that they'd risk their own careers to get rid of him.

I was sitting in a bar the night of the firing, next to a guy who knew some of the players. Scott Studwell, mlb, still the all time tackles leader in Viking history, a guy so well respected that after playing that he worked in player evaluation for the team until about 5 years ago, was interviewed on local t.v.. The guy next to me looks at the t.v. screen and exclaims "Studwell did it! I didn't think he would!" I say "Did what"? He says "Studwell said he'd say good bye to Steckel in a special way". I look at the screen with Studwell on camera with a baseball hat on with "AMF" stenciled across the front. I'm a little slow on the uptake, until my drinking companion says, "Yep, that's "Adios, Motherf cker". Good times.

 

[TecmoSuperJoe]

Other 1984 gems:

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The Chicago Bears finished third in DVOA with the highest defensive rating in the league, the start of the remarkable stretch where their defense completely dominated the NFL. In 1983, although the Bears ranked fifth in points allowed, they were only 15th in yards per play and 14th in DVOA. Then for the next three years, 1984-1986, they had perhaps the best defense in NFL history. The Bears are the only team to finish No. 1 in defense for three straight years, and all three seasons rank among the ten best ever measured by DVOA

 

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Seattle ranked fourth in total DVOA for 1984, including second on defense behind Chicago. This was the best Seattle team until the Matt Hasselbeck/Shaun Alexander squad that advanced to Super Bowl XL in 2005. Most fans don't remember these 80s Seattle defenses very well but both nose tackle Joe Nash and Hall of Fame safety Kenny Easley made first-team All-Pro that year. The Seahawks had three shutouts on the year, including a 45-0 blowout over Kansas City in Week 10. Seattle had six interceptions in that game, plus a seventh nullified after an offside penalty. Four of those interceptions were pick-sixes thrown by three different quarterbacks (Bill Kenney 2, Todd Blackledge 1, Sandy Osiecki 1) and intercepted by three different Seahawks defensive backs (Dave Brown 2, Keith Simpson 1, Easley 1).

Really underrated Seahawks team that doesn't get talked about enough. 

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The two teams that competed for the NFC East title are effectively tied for fifth, although Washington is ahead by decimal points. The 9-7 St. Louis Cardinals ranked sixth might be a bit of a surprise. The Cardinals were 3-5 in one-score games that year and their schedule strength ranked sixth in the league. Based on DVOA, the 1984 Cardinals were the franchise's best team until the 2015 Carson Palmer-led Cardinals went 13-3 and finished second in DVOA. The Cardinals had a shot at the NFC East title if they could win on the road in Washington in the final week of the season. Instead, they lost by two points. Mark Moseley hit a 37-yard field goal with 1:37 left to give Washington a 29-27 lead. The Cardinals got the ball back without any timeouts and Neil Lomax moved it down to the Washington 33, but Neil O'Donoghue's 50-yard field goal try was short and wide left and the Cardinals didn't make the playoffs until 1998.

This was a really good Cardinals team that should have made the playoffs. There was a comment below where someone who is apart of a St. Louis Football Cardinals Facebook group stated that there are fans that feel if that team had made the playoffs, and potentially made a deep run, the team would never have moved to Phoenix.

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 Now it's time to take on the other record-setting season of 1984: Eric Dickerson set the all-time rushing yardage record by gaining 2,105 yards on 379 carries. Where does this stand on the all-time Football Outsiders DYAR list?

The answer is "nowhere near the top." Dickerson ranks No. 1 for the year with 370 rushing DYAR, and nobody else is above 300. But 370 rushing DYAR doesn't even make the top 30 rushing seasons since 1983. The problem is fumbles. My god, did Eric Dickerson fumble a lot. Dickerson had 13 fumbles in 1984. There were a lot more fumbles in 1984 than there are in the modern NFL. The average NFL team in 1984 had 9.3 fumbles from running backs on running plays. This year, in 2020, the average NFL team had just 2.5 fumbles from running backs on running plays. But even compared to the rest of the league which had a lot of fumbles, Dickerson had a lot of fumbles. He's tied for the league lead because Wendell Tyler of San Francisco also had 13 fumbles on runs. Tony Dorsett was third in the league with 10.

Anyway, if we take out the 13 fumbles, Dickerson would end up with 605 rushing DYAR which would narrowly top Terrell Davis' 1998 season for the all-time record. By comparison, Davis had one fumble in 1998. Dickerson's season is the only one ever with at least 300 rushing DYAR that has more than seven fumbles. Dickerson averaged 5.6 yards per play with a very respectible 52% running back success rate (18th among qualifying backs). But yikes, those fumbles.

 

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Another running back almost set a record but couldn't quite get there: James Wilder of Tampa Bay. My god, did the Bucs use James Wilder a lot in 1984. Wilder paced the league with 407 carries, over 90% of the total running back carries in Tampa. (By comparison, Derrick Henry had 65 more carries than any other running back in the NFL and still had only 82% of Tennessee carries in 2020.) With only 3.8 yards per carry but a tough schedule, Wilder ended up seventh among qualifying running backs in rushing DYAR. He had 1,544 rushing yards. (Our data says 1,546, so we've got a 2-yard discrepency somewhere in the play-by-play.) Wilder also was a huge part of the passing game, catching 85 passes on 104 targets for 685 yards and 96 receiving DYAR (12th among running backs).

You may have noticed that 407 carries and 85 catches is an awful lot of touches. In fact, 492 touches in a season destroyed the record at the time, which was Dickerson's 441 touches in his rookie year of 1983, and is still the record today by 35 touches over Larry Johnson's 457 in 2006. And with a lot of touches come a lot of scrimmage yards. At the time, the record for scrimmage yards belonged to O.J. Simpson, who had 2,243 yards from scrimmage in the 14-game season of 1975. Dickerson had already broken Simpson's record for rushing yards at the end of the Rams' Week 15 game with Houston. In Week 16, both Dickerson and Wilder were approaching Simpson's record for total yards from scrimmage. Dickerson played on Friday night and passed Simpson's record by one yard, finishing with 2,244 total yards. Tampa Bay, finishing up a 6-10 season, decided to do anything possible to get Wilder past that number so he could hold the record. They fed Wilder over and over from the start of the game. They kicked onside with 1:21 left and a 41-14 lead over the Jets, trying to get the ball back so Wilder could get the yards he needed to set the record. When the onside kick failed, the Buccaneers let the Jets score so they could get the ball back and get Wilder one last shot. The Bucs ended up with the ball and 47 seconds, but Wilder lost 2 yards on his first carry, gained 2 on the next carry, and was finally stuffed at the line. He finished the season with 2,229 scrimmage yards, 15 yards short of the record. Tampa Bay head coach John McKay was eventually fined $10,000 by the league for actions that hurt the integrity of the game. The Jets were so pissed off about it that when they faced Tampa Bay again the next season, they ran up the score to win 62-28.

That's a nutty story right there. But yes, Wilder was a great player on a doo doo squad. Shame. 

[TecmoSuperJoe]

1983 gems:

I'll just get this ancient flex out the way right quick:

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Adding 1983 now makes seven straight years where San Francisco had DVOA over 25%. The 49ers also had DVOA over 25% in five straight years from 1994 to 1998. No other franchise has ever had DVOA over 25% in more than four straight years. New England's Brady-Belichick dynasty never did it for more than two straight years.

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From 1983-98, the 49ers finished in the top 4 in DVOA every year but 1990, when they finished 7th while going 14-2 against an easy schedule.  They finished 1st four times, 2nd five times, 3rd four times, and 4th twice (at the end of the run, in 1997 and 1998).   

In those 16 seasons, not only did the 49ers have 7 and 5-year stretches of DVOA >25.0% from 1983-89 and 1994-98, but they were also >25.0% in 1991 and 1992.  They only missed that cut-off twice in 16 years (18.5% in 1990 and 24.4% in 1993 which was still the best in the league that year).

 

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Dallas finished fifth in total DVOA, the best rating for a Dallas team until the 1992 squad that won the Super Bowl. The Cowboys went 12-4 despite playing one of the 10 toughest schedules in the league. They started out 7-0, then went 5-4 in their final nine games. But their losses were primarily to better teams: three of their four losses in the regular season were to teams that were higher in DVOA, including the Raiders, 49ers, and Washington. Their wild-card loss to the Rams was seen as a clear sign the dynasty was over, but even that was a loss to a pretty good team that was ranked right below them in total DVOA.

Pretty much the last really good Tom Landry Dallas squad. 

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The identity of the best defense of 1983 is a big surprise. How much do you know about the 1983 New Orleans Saints defense? The Saints finished second in the league with just 4.58 yards allowed per play despite playing the second-toughest schedule of opposing offenses by DVOA. They also get a little bonus for playing indoors, and that puts them ahead of the Raiders as the No. 1 defense of the league. This was years before the Dome Patrol, and you won't recognize most of the names on the Saints defense. Rickey Jackson was there in his second season; he was the only player to make the Pro Bowl. Defensive end Bruce Clark was the only first-round pick in the starting lineup. (Clark is an interesting story; he refused to play for the Packers when they took him fourth overall in 1980 and went up north to play two seasons in the CFL. The Saints dealt their first-round pick in 1983, 11th overall, for the rights to Clark and he played for them for seven years.) Guys like nose tackle Derland Moore, defensive end Jim Wilks, and cornerback Dave Waymer played long careers in New Orleans but I had never heard of them. No, the name you know from the 1983 Saints defense is the coordinator. Bum Phillips was the head coach of the 1983 Saints, and his son Wade Phillips was the defensive coordinator. Nepotism in the NFL isn't all bad.

This Saints team almost made the playoffs, but lost a close one against the division rival LA Rams in the final week of the season. 

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The 1983 Giants defense is certainly worth talking about. You may have noticed above in the table that the Giants were 18th overall and fourth on defense despite going 3-12-1. They had better DVOA than two teams with winning records! This was Bill Parcells' first season as head coach of the Giants after Ray Perkins had left to succeed Bear Bryant at Alabama. Bill Belichick was technically not yet the defensive coordinator, although the Giants had no defensive coordinator in 1983 or 1984. Belichick, as linebackers coach, worked with Parcells to run the defense.

The 1983 Giants went 1-5-1 in one-score games. The most noteworthy was a Monday contest in Week 8 that Gary Myers of the New York Daily News later called the worst game in Monday Night Football history. The Giants lost a 17-10 lead on an aborted snap by Jeff Rutledge, then went ahead with a field goal, then let the Cardinals go downfield and tie the game on a field goal with 57 seconds left. Ali Haji-Sheikh missed a 66-yard attempt for the Giants as time expired. In overtime, the Giants just kept giving the Cardinals chances and the Cardinals could not score. The Cardinals' drives in overtime ended with a punt from the Giants 39, a missed 45-yard field goal, an interception, a missed 19-yard field goal with 1:06 left, and then, after Rutledge threw an interception, a missed 42-yard field goal with 25 seconds left. The game ended in a 20-20 tie.

There were two other reasons for the huge gap between the Giants' non-adjusted VOA and DVOA from the table above. On defense, the big difference was schedule. The Giants played the toughest schedule of opposing offenses in the league, with half of their schedule coming against the top eight offenses including Washington and Dallas twice. On offense, the issue was fumbles. The Giants offense was the worst in the league by DVOA, but they looked even worse than that because they fumbled 27 times and recovered just five of them.

Giants just had really bad luck in addition to a tough schedule. But they weren't as bad as that record at face value would tell you they were. So perhaps on the contrary to Bill Parcells' great quote, you aren't always what your record says you are hee haw. 

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One quarterback who had a particularly interesting 1983 season was Lynn Dickey of the Packers, who ends up sixth in passing DYAR. Dickey was second with 7.92 net yards per attempt, and Dickey and Fouts were way past the rest of the league. (Theismann was third at 7.04.) Dickey led the league in passing yards, touchdowns, and yards per completion. He had a career high in completion rate. But he also led the league with 29 interceptions. Dickey's 1983 season is a massive outlier in his career. He had only one other year above 20 touchdowns and only one other year above 20 interceptions. He had 58 yards per game more in 1983 than in any other season of his career, and beat his second-best season by 1.1 net yards per attempt.

Nice spotlight on Dickey. Certainly the best season in his career. Probably should have gotten to the Pro Bowl. 

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One player who is shockingly low in advanced stats for 1983 is Marcus Allen, who took over the Super Bowl with 191 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Allen comes in with -23 DYAR, ranking him 43rd out of 51 qualifying running backs with at least 100 carries. He was better in receiving, with 92 receiving DYAR (13th). Despite his outstanding reputation, Allen averaged less than 4 yards per carry in 1983, and it was Allen not Dickerson who actually led all running backs in fumbles. Allen had 14 total fumbles: 12 rushing and 2 receiving. He even had a fumble in that fantastic Super Bowl performance, although the Raiders recovered it.

It obviously all worked out for Allen down the road.

BTW I read somewhere that the Raiders that year had 28 turnovers in 5 straight games. They actually won two of those games, and of course went on to win the Super Bowl. Remarkable. 

[CP3MVP]

83 Washington is acknowledged as a top ten all time team that didn’t win. They get their credit 

[Chargers]

37 minutes ago, CP3MVP said:

83 Washington is acknowledged as a top ten all time team that didn’t win. They get their credit 

What held them back? Isn't the 1991 team better and they don't get mention much either.

[Apparition]

2 minutes ago, Chargers said:

What held them back? Isn't the 1991 team better and they don't get mention much either.

Near as I can tell, Theismann imploded in the Super Bowl and Marcus Allen went HAM (capping off arguably the best 3-game playoff run ever by a RB). 

Edited May 30, 2021 by Starless

[CP3MVP]

4 hours ago, Chargers said:

What held them back? Isn't the 1991 team better and they don't get mention much either.

The 91 team is one of the few teams that has a legit claim for best team ever

 

1983 Just imploded after Joe Thiesman Interception 

[TecmoSuperJoe]

4 hours ago, Chargers said:

What held them back? Isn't the 1991 team better and they don't get mention much either.

Nothing. They just sucked in the Super Bowl. 

As for 1991, they just didn't have any memorable personalities, or a narrative that the media could cling to. Probably why they aren't remembered as well. Charles Mann and Mark Rypien talked about that in the America's Game episode. 

Edited May 31, 2021 by TecmoSuperJoe

[FinSting]

5 hours ago, CP3MVP said:

83 Washington is acknowledged as a top ten all time team that didn’t win. They get their credit 

Destroyed by the Raiders in the Super Bowl, Washington decided to start game one of the '84 season in their home opener by again being destroyed 35-17 by Marino and the Dolphins. No one saw that coming. 

That game was the front page photo of the next issue of Sports Illustrated. Like 'who is this Marino guy? Is it normal for a 2nd-year QB to throw 5 TD's and a 150 QB rating vs a Super Bowl team?' What a season, that 1984. Never seen anything like it, before or since. It was rather special. 

After the Niners lost to the Steelers, the hype train didn't follow SF quite as much. Media was more about Miami as the mind-boggling passing stats were freaking everyone out. Meanwhile the Niners were pitching a shutout in the NFC Championship game. Getting red-hot at just the right time. 

Marino did a surprise no-huddle in the 1st qtr of the Super Bowl and had Miami up 10-7 on the Niners. Then it all fell apart, as often happens in the NFL when you only have one elimination game so anything can happen. What might have been.  

[Mr Raider]

Fantastic reads. Really appreciate you sharing and the effort of going through certain things you found interesting and worth highlighting. 

[Awsi Dooger]

17 hours ago, FinSting said:

Destroyed by the Raiders in the Super Bowl, Washington decided to start game one of the '84 season in their home opener by again being destroyed 35-17 by Marino and the Dolphins. No one saw that coming. 

That game was the front page photo of the next issue of Sports Illustrated. Like 'who is this Marino guy? Is it normal for a 2nd-year QB to throw 5 TD's and a 150 QB rating vs a Super Bowl team?' What a season, that 1984. Never seen anything like it, before or since. It was rather special. 

After the Niners lost to the Steelers, the hype train didn't follow SF quite as much. Media was more about Miami as the mind-boggling passing stats were freaking everyone out. Meanwhile the Niners were pitching a shutout in the NFC Championship game. Getting red-hot at just the right time. 

Marino did a surprise no-huddle in the 1st qtr of the Super Bowl and had Miami up 10-7 on the Niners. Then it all fell apart, as often happens in the NFL when you only have one elimination game so anything can happen. What might have been.  

I moved to Las Vegas for the 1984 season. Washington opened 5.5 point favorite hosting the Dolphins in the opener and was immediately bet down to -4. I had the Dolphins and seemingly every wise guy I met wagered on them including on the money line. Nobody cares about DVOA in that town. Literally nobody. I have never met one one serious bettor who uses it. If it had been available in 1984 nobody would have cared.

If you immerse yourself in the sports betting scene in that town you are immediately struck by the fact that they don't care about technical football at all. They never mention players or matchups or anything similar. Everything centers around situational trends. The sharp guys know which teams figure to be up and which ones down, based on historical trends. They know all the trends based on whether the team won or lost the prior week, whether the game was home or road, division or non-division, grass or turf, short week or long week, etc. It is an entirely different world. I was shocked because I was a line of scrimmage guy. Everything I did was based on which team figured to control the line of scrimmage. And I had a great season in 1984. I was scoffing at the situational guys. But one year later it reversed in dramatic fashion. My method flopped and the situational guys dominated all season. From that point forth I started incorporating some of their thinking, and within a few years all I cared about was situational handicapping. It is the truth and the light. To this day it is astonishing that the mainstream media is so clueless and even the specialized fan sites never mention it. 

This was my favorite one. Man, what a goldmine it was during the heyday of those rock hard artificial turf surfaces. It was a 75% system and one year late '90s it went 17-2: "Bet against any team that has played at least two straight on grass, is coming off a victory, and now is on the road on artificial turf as either a favorite or no more than a 3 point underdog."

I'm still livid the NFL teams got rid of those cement artificial surfaces. The road team simply could not cope especially if it was in a poor situational spot. That angle still works to some degree on field turf, but not nearly as lopsided as previously.

The above example is what the sharp guys look for. Combination of situational trends that point to one side or the other. It's the reason they'll laugh at Football Outsiders or any attempt to handicap the game from a technical standpoint. By the late '90s I had hundreds of angles like that. I still use them. One great combo is very simple because it supplies clarity to every week's slate in general: "Bet against any road team coming off a loss. Bet the home team if the road team is coming off a victory." Those angles work because road teams coming off a defeat have dramatically increased energy and intensity level. Consequently they cover the spread 54% of the time on average. Conversely, road teams coming off a victory tend to be satisfied fat cats. They cover the spread only 45% on average. Those numbers by themselves won't dominate the sportsbooks but you can see what a jumpstart it is. Take other angles in combination to boost the percentage. It doesn't really matter what the home team did the prior week. They perform similarly whether it was a win or defeat. But every sharp guy I know is looking to bet on road teams coming off a defeat and on home teams when the road team won the prior week. 

[TecmoSuperJoe]

2 hours ago, Awsi Dooger said:

I moved to Las Vegas for the 1984 season. Washington opened 5.5 point favorite hosting the Dolphins in the opener and was immediately bet down to -4. I had the Dolphins and seemingly every wise guy I met wagered on them including on the money line. Nobody cares about DVOA in that town. Literally nobody. I have never met one one serious bettor who uses it. If it had been available in 1984 nobody would have cared.

If you immerse yourself in the sports betting scene in that town you are immediately struck by the fact that they don't care about technical football at all. They never mention players or matchups or anything similar. Everything centers around situational trends. The sharp guys know which teams figure to be up and which ones down, based on historical trends. They know all the trends based on whether the team won or lost the prior week, whether the game was home or road, division or non-division, grass or turf, short week or long week, etc. It is an entirely different world. I was shocked because I was a line of scrimmage guy. Everything I did was based on which team figured to control the line of scrimmage. And I had a great season in 1984. I was scoffing at the situational guys. But one year later it reversed in dramatic fashion. My method flopped and the situational guys dominated all season. From that point forth I started incorporating some of their thinking, and within a few years all I cared about was situational handicapping. It is the truth and the light. To this day it is astonishing that the mainstream media is so clueless and even the specialized fan sites never mention it. 

This was my favorite one. Man, what a goldmine it was during the heyday of those rock hard artificial turf surfaces. It was a 75% system and one year late '90s it went 17-2: "Bet against any team that has played at least two straight on grass, is coming off a victory, and now is on the road on artificial turf as either a favorite or no more than a 3 point underdog."

I'm still livid the NFL teams got rid of those cement artificial surfaces. The road team simply could not cope especially if it was in a poor situational spot. That angle still works to some degree on field turf, but not nearly as lopsided as previously.

The above example is what the sharp guys look for. Combination of situational trends that point to one side or the other. It's the reason they'll laugh at Football Outsiders or any attempt to handicap the game from a technical standpoint. By the late '90s I had hundreds of angles like that. I still use them. One great combo is very simple because it supplies clarity to every week's slate in general: "Bet against any road team coming off a loss. Bet the home team if the road team is coming off a victory." Those angles work because road teams coming off a defeat have dramatically increased energy and intensity level. Consequently they cover the spread 54% of the time on average. Conversely, road teams coming off a victory tend to be satisfied fat cats. They cover the spread only 45% on average. Those numbers by themselves won't dominate the sportsbooks but you can see what a jumpstart it is. Take other angles in combination to boost the percentage. It doesn't really matter what the home team did the prior week. They perform similarly whether it was a win or defeat. But every sharp guy I know is looking to bet on road teams coming off a defeat and on home teams when the road team won the prior week. 

DVOA isn't designed to predict what's going to happen. It's designed to analyze the results and just put them out there as "this is what happened". Not "this is what happened so you should do ABC to get to XYZ so you'll have a chance to make a quick buck". It's completely different from the sports betting arena. Of course no one in their right mind would utilize DVOA to make money. It's not designed for that purpose. Why even compare the two? 

Edited May 31, 2021 by TecmoSuperJoe

[Thelonebillsfan]

On 5/30/2021 at 4:57 PM, Starless said:

Near as I can tell, Theismann imploded in the Super Bowl and Marcus Allen went HAM (capping off arguably the best 3-game playoff run ever by a RB). 

He didn't really implode as much as the Raiders had a really solid understanding of the Redskins offensive concepts because they'd already played them once in the year and had a bunch of tape of their tendencies. The famous pick six play on a rocket screen had beaten them for a TD earlier in the year in that exact situation, in the SB they were sitting on it. They were, at the time and until the 99 Rams, the most prolific offense in NFL history. So it was likely just a fluke of a million circumstances, they got down at the half and just couldn't play very well from behind.

[TecmoSuperJoe]

1 hour ago, Thelonebillsfan said:

He didn't really implode as much as the Raiders had a really solid understanding of the Redskins offensive concepts because they'd already played them once in the year and had a bunch of tape of their tendencies. The famous pick six play on a rocket screen had beaten them for a TD earlier in the year in that exact situation, in the SB they were sitting on it. They were, at the time and until the 99 Rams, the most prolific offense in NFL history. So it was likely just a fluke of a million circumstances, they got down at the half and just couldn't play very well from behind.

As stated in that article, Washington was a great offense, but they really benefited from their defense and special teams that year to help put them in favorable positions. Especially that takeaway figure for a plus 40 ratio. That's a huge advantage in their pocket that other teams around the same era like the 1989 49ers, 1981 Chargers, or 1984 Dolphins didn't have. I know the had the scoring record in a season until the 1998 Vikings broke it, but like the article implied itself, their offense had a lot of help through other factors.