Worst team in NFL history: 2005 49ers

I think it's natural for a fanbase to grumble about a team in it's current state, but to appreciate this team, we should look back on the truly awful football this fanbase had to endure. Football Outsiders lists the '03-'10 Niners as the #20 "anti-dynasty" of all time, and the 2005 team as the absolute worst they've ever charted under their DVOA statistic, which tracks every play a team runs over the course of a season.

#4 worst defense and #2 worst passing offense of the last 40 years (after the '92 Seahawks) and Smith has the worst rookie passing season of any QB with at least 100 passing attempts.

I was honestly surprised that this team ranked out worse than the '04 2 win team, or the '08 Lions or '09 Rams. But I do remember how abysmal this particular Niners team was at throwing the ball. Even Rattay had a few great passing games in '04. I'm probably one of the few people who are fascinated by historic levels of awfulness, but found this too interesting not to share.

Article about the anti-dynasty 49ers: https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2021/anti-dynasty-rankings-11-20-sacksonville-jaguars

DVOA explained if anyone is interested: https://help.footballoutsiders.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045226591-DVOA-The-Short-Version

lol didn't watch
That was the year I started watching hockey and following the Sharks because anything is better than watching that 49er team. Cheeechoooo!

I was there every game ... been there through the good and bad

*fun fact, majority never liked going there and was called a dump... but now, it's Graceland

Originally posted by Bigfishrider:
I think it's natural for a fanbase to grumble about a team in it's current state, but to appreciate this team, we should look back on the truly awful football this fanbase had to endure. Football Outsiders lists the '03-'10 Niners as the #20 "anti-dynasty" of all time, and the 2005 team as the absolute worst they've ever charted under their DVOA statistic, which tracks every play a team runs over the course of a season.

#4 worst defense and #2 worst passing offense of the last 40 years (after the '92 Seahawks) and Smith has the worst rookie passing season of any QB with at least 100 passing attempts.

I was honestly surprised that this team ranked out worse than the '04 2 win team, or the '08 Lions or '09 Rams. But I do remember how abysmal this particular Niners team was at throwing the ball. Even Rattay had a few great passing games in '04. I'm probably one of the few people who are fascinated by historic levels of awfulness, but found this too interesting not to share.

Article about the anti-dynasty 49ers: https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2021/anti-dynasty-rankings-11-20-sacksonville-jaguars

DVOA explained if anyone is interested: https://help.footballoutsiders.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045226591-DVOA-The-Short-Version

I went to the first game of the season that year against the Rams which we somehow won despite not being able to really do anything on offense (I think Johnnie Morton and Arnaz Battle were our WRs for the game?)

I remember thinking afterwards that Nolan was going to be a good coach.

I lived through it. Not gonna do lame memory lane

Bad, but nowhere close to the expansion 1976 Bucs in terms of futility. Even though the scoring wasn't anything close to what we see in today's game, that TB team got shut out 4 or 5 times.

It's also funny to me that Mike McCarthy was our OC that season, lead us to one of the worst single season offensive performances of all-time and as a result was hired as the HC of the Packers.

Let's get real the 04 49ers were the worst team I've seen in team history. Two wins both versus the Cards in OT. If OT didn't exist we would have been winless. No hope either with Owens traded for a half eaten bag of doritios, a bunch of 7th round QBs, no good skill player (our best was Eric Johnson a possession TE who got hurt) our best defensive player Julian Peterson got hurt.

At least in 05 we had the promise of a new coach (as bad as you feel Nolan may have been he was better than Dennis Erickson), we had rookie Alex Smith, rookie Frank Gore, much more exciting and better year.

Eh. 2004 was still the worse team imo. It was awhile ago but remember them blowing a lot of leads in the 2nd half, while 05 just got their asses kicked every week and couldn't even put up a TD. But you can't convince me anything is worse than your only wins being against the slightly less s**tty cardinals in OT twice both scores being 31-28 or something . I remember telling my 12-year old self, "at least we got 5 Super Bowls"

Originally posted by 49erFaithful6:
Let's get real the 04 49ers were the worst team I've seen in team history. Two wins both versus the Cards in OT. If OT didn't exist we would have been winless. No hope either with Owens traded for a half eaten bag of doritios, a bunch of 7th round QBs, no good skill player (our best was Eric Johnson a possession TE who got hurt) our best defensive player Julian Peterson got hurt.

At least in 05 we had the promise of a new coach (as bad as you feel Nolan may have been he was better than Dennis Erickson), we had rookie Alex Smith, rookie Frank Gore, much more exciting and better year.

My thoughts exactly. 04 was my low as a 49er fan. It's hard to be worse than that team.

that was the year after garcia and owens left

Originally posted by 49erFaithful6:
Let's get real the 04 49ers were the worst team I've seen in team history. Two wins both versus the Cards in OT. If OT didn't exist we would have been winless. No hope either with Owens traded for a half eaten bag of doritios, a bunch of 7th round QBs, no good skill player (our best was Eric Johnson a possession TE who got hurt) our best defensive player Julian Peterson got hurt.

At least in 05 we had the promise of a new coach (as bad as you feel Nolan may have been he was better than Dennis Erickson), we had rookie Alex Smith, rookie Frank Gore, much more exciting and better year.

'04 is without a doubt the least talented Niners team ever. That roster was expansion team worthy + Bryant Young

Originally posted by DonnieDarko:
that was the year after garcia and owens left

And Garrison Hearst

Felt just like 2015 losing so many fan-favorites

I know much of this is subjective but those '77 and '78 teams were awful. GM changes. Coaching changes. QB changes. They were a bad team in an era when there were fewer teams and no salary cap. You had more draft picks every year to build with and they were still terrible. I think they were equally as bad as the 2005 or 2004 teams. The fans back then agreed since we only had about 35000 hardcore fans for each game.

Originally posted by CatchMaster80:
I know much of this is subjective but those '77 and '78 teams were awful. GM changes. Coaching changes. QB changes. They were a bad team in an era when there were fewer teams and no salary cap. You had more draft picks every year to build with and they were still terrible. I think they were equally as bad as the 2005 or 2004 teams. The fans back then agreed since we only had about 35000 hardcore fans for each game.

The '78 team committed 63 turnovers, and they fumbled 56 times, 10 of which came in a single game against the Lions. All those are still NFL records.

When you run out of quarterbacks, and are forced to line up Freddie Solomon under center in the last game of the year......yeah that's bad. Would have been interesting to watch though.

Dwight Clark said in an interview that the '79 team was the best 2-14 team ever, even though they lost a ton you could see a good offensive framework, and the players felt good things were ahead.