Surprisingly, the 2024 Minnesota Vikings do not have the best record for a team that did not win their division. That record belongs to the 1967 Baltimore Colts

A lot of attention has been paid to the Vikings having the best record ever for a Wild Card team at 14-3. While that is true, they actually do not have the best record for a team to not win their division. That record is 57 years old, and probably will never be broken.

The 1967 Baltimore Colts were a juggernaut. Coached by HOF Don Shula and led by MVP Johnny Unitas, the Colts compiled an 11-1-2 record while out-scoring their opponents by an average score of 28-14. Because ties did not count toward records back then, the Colts finished with a winning percentage of 0.917. Even with the ties, their winning percentage is 0.857, higher than the 2024 Vikings WP of 0.824.

Despite this incredible team, the Colts were also incredibly unlucky. In 1967, the NFL had expanded to 16 teams, with two conferences (Eastern and Western) and two divisions per conference. The Colts, for some reason, had been placed in the Coastal Division of the Western Conference. Also in this division were the Los Angeles Rams, who had an incredible team of their own. Led by their defensive line, the Fearsome Foursome (specifically HOFs Deacon Jones and Merlin Olsen), the Rams were able to keep pace with the Colts for the division title, including a tie in Baltimore.

The result was going into the last game of the season, the 11-0-2 Colts played the 10-1-2 Rams in Los Angeles in a winner take all game. The Rams would win convincingly, 34-10, resulting in both teams finishing 11-1-2 but with the Rams holding the tiebreaker (which, funnily enough, wasn’t win percentage, but total points combined in the two games).

Despite this setback, you might be wondering how the Colts did as a wild card. Well, about that. When the NFL set up their new playoff system with 16 teams, they decided only the four division winners would advance to the playoffs. The NFL had not taken into account the possibility of the two best teams playing in the same division, and did not include a wild card. As a result, while the 9-5 Cowboys, 9-5 Browns, and 9-4-1 Packers made the playoffs by being division winners, the 11-1-2 Colts did not.

The Colts, despite not losing a game until the last week of the season, missed the playoffs. Thanks to the Wild Card, this almost certainly will never happen again.

On a side note, you would think the Rams, after holding off the Colts in probably the most competitive division race ever, enjoyed all the perks of the best record in the field. Well, once again, the system screwed over the 11 win team. Back then, the NFL’s playoff game hosts were determined by rotation, not record. As such, that season the Coastal Division champion was hosted by the Central Division champion. In other words, the Rams had to go on the road to play the Packers (in Milwaukee). Playing in the cold weather, and exhausted by their division race, the Rams lost, 28-7. The Packers would go on to win the Ice Bowl and Super Bowl II in Vince Lombardi’s last hurrah.

TLDR edition: The 1967 Baltimore Colts had an incredible team, went 11-1-2, didn’t lose until the last week of the season, and missed the playoffs due to an incredibly flawed postseason system