1990 New England Patriots

In fact, the 1990 New England Patriots may be one of the worst teams in NFL History, behind only the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers who went 0-14 - a winless season.

After 9 games of the 2007 season, the Patriots scored 355 points. Throughout the entire 1990 season, the Pats scored 181 in their march toward a 1-15 season. Their only win: a 16-14 squeaker past the 7-9 Indianapolis Colts in the second game of the season.

That years performance was doom for head coach Rod Rust's head coaching career - it was his one and only opportunity in the NFL and he was dismissed at the end of the season. He had been the defensive coordinator for the 1985 Patriots - the first Patriots team to advance to the Super Bowl - but left after the 1987 season. He rose to the position of head coach one more time - in 2001 when he joined the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes; the defending Grey Cup Champions fired him six games into the season.

John McKay, the head coach of that abominable Buccaneers team, went on to be head coach of the Bucs through 1984 amassing a 44-88 records and exactly 2 winning seasons - one of which was the strike shortened 1982 season when he went 5-4.

The practice following that squeaker win, the season came derailed.

The story of the 1990 Patriots was not just one of on field ineptitude. Lisa Olsen, a reporter for the Boston Herald, while conducting interviews after practice on September 17, was harassed by players; Pat Sullivan - the General Manager and son of the previous owner - attempted to cover the incident up, and Victor Kiam - the short tenured owner of the team - was reported to have called her a "classic bitch." The incident claimed whatever credibility the team may have had; the team was fined $50,000 by the league, the main protagonist in the harassing - Tight End Zeke Mowatt - was fined $12,500 and two others were fined $5000. The incident created a distraction for the entire season. Mowatt played in 10 games for the Pats in his only year with the team.

After that distraction, the team never gained focus on the field.

The week after their single win, they were pummeled by the Cincinnati Bengals 41-7. Two other times they managed a single touchdown: A 37-7 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs and, in the penultimate game of the season, the New York Jets beat them down 42-7. They managed a field goal in a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers 24-3 and were shut out by the Buffalo Bills 14-0.

A quick glance at the team's statistics show an offense that was an apparently competent passing team - 11^th in completions and 10^th in attempts - but an utterly inept rushing team with team statistics at the bottom of the league. The inability to run the ball led the team to attempt short passes and thereby inflating the completion and attempts statistics. Overall, they finished dead last in offensive numbers.

A quick glance at the season's defensive statistics shows the defense was first in pass attempts (meaning, the fewest) and second in completions (second fewest). While this might lead the uninitiated to the conclusion that this was an adequate defense and that the offense must have been the sole reason this was such a bad team, but that would be far too simplistic.

The reason the defense defended fewer pass attempts than anyone else, and successfully defended more passes than all but one team was that opposing teams simply didn't need to throw the ball and when they did they were overwhelmingly successful at it - the opponents' yards per attempt was 8.68, the worst average in the league.

Their rush defense was terrible on all counts - the only statistic they did not finish as worst in the league was yards per attempt and in that they finished 27^th of 28, but their performance on this count was enough to keep them out of the basement in the league overall - they finished 27 of 28. Overall, they gave up 5921 yards on defense and gained just over 4600 on offense.

Their 16-year quarterback, Steve Grogan, was at the end of his career, having played in only 4 games, and had one of the worst yards per attempt percentage of his career at 6.7, yet this was the best "YPA" of the three QB's that took the field for the Pats that year.

Nothing went well for the 1990 Patriots or Coach Rust. The next year they went 6-10 under Dick McPherson lead by an improved defense, but finished 25^th in points scored.