1944 NFL season

The 1944 NFL season was the 25th regular season of the National Football League. The Boston Yanks joined the league as an expansion team. Also, the Triangles-Dodgers franchise changed their name to the Brooklyn Tigers for this one season before merging with the aforementioned Yanks the following year. Meanwhile, both the Cleveland Rams and the Philadelphia Eagles resumed their traditional operations, while the Pittsburgh Steelers merged with the Chicago Cardinals for this one season due to player shortages as a result of World War II. The combined team, known as Card-Pitt, played three home games in Pittsburgh and two in Chicago, and set the 20th century record for lowest punting average by an NFL team with 32.7 yards per punt.

The season is notable in that it featured two winless teams, the only such case in NFL history since 1935 (when the league stabilized from its early years of Revolving door membership, when winless teams were much more common) as both Brooklyn and Card-Pitt finished 0–10.

Since 1944, only five teams have had winless seasons in the NFL: the 1960 Dallas Cowboys (0–11–1), the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0–14), the 1982 Baltimore Colts (0–8–1) the 2008 Detroit Lions (0–16), and the 2017 Cleveland Browns (0–16). In the case of the Colts, the season was shortened due to a league-wide players strike, while the Cowboys and Buccaneers were both expansion teams.

The season ended when the Green Bay Packers defeated the New York Giants in the NFL Championship Game.