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1972 New England Patriots season — Wikipedia (en)

Source: Wikipedia (en)
Original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_New_England_Patriots_season
License (as archived): CC-BY-SA-4.0
Archived: 2026-10-19T03:07:35.953Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: cbf631cc76dbe680f092bcf88068501bd67f7e4ecfc65b358875c05d57b5ae2f
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1972 New England Patriots season — Wikipedia (en) — Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_New_England_Patriots_season (CC-BY-SA-4.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_ba45bcea8ade (Metraipolis archive dc_ba45bcea8ade, sha256 cbf631cc76dbe680f092bcf88068501bd67f7e4ecfc65b358875c05d57b5ae2f)

BibTeX

@misc{dcba45bcea8ade,
  title = {1972 New England Patriots season — Wikipedia (en)},
  howpublished = {Wikipedia (en)},
  url = {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_New_England_Patriots_season},
  note = {License CC-BY-SA-4.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_ba45bcea8ade; sha256 cbf631cc76dbe680f092bcf88068501bd67f7e4ecfc65b358875c05d57b5ae2f},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Attribution: Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_New_England_Patriots_season. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

The 1972 New England Patriots season was the franchise's third season in the National Football League and 13th overall. The Patriots ended the season with a record of three wins and eleven losses and finished last in the AFC East Division. The Patriots continued their period of futility as they slumped to another horrendous record, and missed the playoffs for the ninth straight season. After being embarrassed 31–7 in their home opener against Cincinnati, the Patriots would win their next two games against Atlanta and eventual NFC champion Washington. However, the Patriots would continue their mid-season misery, losing nine consecutive games to slide to 2–10 before winning their first (and only) road game against the New Orleans Saints, who went 2–11–1. New England went winless against AFC opponents. Out of their 11 losses, only two were by one possession, a 24–17 loss to Baltimore in the Patriots' first Monday Night Football appearance and a 27–24 loss to Buffalo. The worst of these losses was a 52–0 thrashing by the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Miami Dolphins, who would go on to achieve the only undefeated season in NFL history. That Dolphins loss remains the worst loss and most points ever allowed in a game in Patriots history. Although they won three games, the 1972 Patriots had the second-worst point differential (minus-254) of any team in a 14-game NFL season, ahead of only the expansion 1976 Buccaneers. The 1972 Patriots had the franchise's worst point differential until the 1990 team was outscored by 265 points (181–446) in a 1–15 season. They lost eight of their fourteen games by three touchdowns or more, and their first two wins were by a single point. Jim Plunkett and reserve quarterbacks combined for only 10 touchdown passes with 28 interceptions, and were sacked 44 times. The defense allowed 5,250 total yards and ranked last in the league. Pro Football Reference argues that the 1970 and 1972 Patriots were, owing to the more difficult schedule faced by the 1990 team, the weakest Patriot teams ever, and rivalled only by the 1991 Colts and 2009 Rams as the weakest team by an established franchise since the NFL–AFL merger. The team drafted John Hannah before the next season to bolster the offensive line.

Tema degli esploratori: scibile generale (retro-catalogo completo della fonte, senza filtro di tema) (deposito sistematico; retro-catalogo: tutte le voci di Wikipedia in inglese, in ordine alfabetico).
Fonte: Wikipedia in inglese, voce «1972 New England Patriots season» — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_New_England_Patriots_season
Wikidata Q4575086 (dati Wikidata in CC0 1.0) — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4575086
Autori: i contributori di Wikipedia (cronologia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_New_England_Patriots_season?action=history).
Licenza: Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Il riuso richiede attribuzione e stessa licenza.
Estratto dell'introduzione non modificato nel contenuto; revisione 1371447704, consultata il 2026-10-19T03:04:51.042Z tramite l'API ufficiale di Wikipedia. Impronta SHA-256 dell'estratto: f120abc95234c565592d4426bc437ff71b5ae20b9ba1cb501c3fd3590c66a248