Is it possible for an NFL team to go 20-0?

NO, 3 teams can't go 16-0 in a conference.

Each division in a conference plays all of the teams in their own division twice, another division in their conference, and the other two teams that finished in the same spot as them the prior year.

This means that at maximum the highest number of teams that can go 16-0 in a conference is 2. Say you have four teams that win all of their games except games head to head against another team in the group. Each is a team from the East, West, North and South, they manage some good luck and none of them play each other as their same position game. Say for this year the East plays the West and the North plays the South. Only two of the teams in this group will be 16-0 at years end as there will be 2 head to head games among the 4 teams that only lose to teams in the group.

Until the 2020 season it was impossible for an NFL team to go 20-0. But as of 2020 it is possible!

This is because starting with the 2020-21 season the playoffs have been exapnded by 2 teams to 14 teams, and so as a result the second seed in each conference doesn't get a bye week during the wild card weekend anymore.

The NFL schedule hasn't changed, and teams will still play 16 weeks (for now) as follows:

• Case 1: 6 games against divisional rivals: 3 at home, 3 away
• Case 2: 4 games against teams on another division in the same conference
• Case 3: 4 games against teams on another division in the other conference
• Case 4: 2 games against the other two teams in the same conference that finished on the same spot within their respective division (that is all teams that finished 3rd in their divisions in NFC last season not covered by case 2 will plays each other this season)

This allows for 2 teams per conference to go undefeated during the regular season. We'll see how next.

Without loss of generality, let's label the 4 divisions in each conference A, B, C, and D. It's possible for the 4 cases above to happen as follows:

• Case 1: Each team plays divisional rivals
• Case 2: Teams in division A play against team in division B in the same conference. Same for divisions C & D
• Case 3: Teams in division A play against teams in division B in the other conference. Same for division C & D

So far we can see that top teams in divisions A & C haven't played each other and can both be undefeated

• Case 4: Top Seeds in divisions A & C beat 2 other teams that have already been defeated

Hence top seeds of divisions A & C in BOTH conferences now have 16-0 record. So far nothing has changed since before the 2020 season. Image below visualizes the above schedule with cases 2 and 3 marked on it. Divisions A & C are displayed in red as they have undefeated champions.

Let's denote winners of division A and C as A_w and C_w respectively, and assume A_w owns the tie break over C_w. So on the wild card weekend, C_w plays the bottom wild card while A_w has a bye. Note that C_w didn't have to play a game on wild card weekend before the 2020 season. With a win, C_w earns an extra win compared to A_w.

Both A_w and C_w win their next games, and meet in the conference finals. A_w has a record of 17-0 and C_w 18-0. Consider the case both C_w teams win their conferences. Now two 19-0 teams face off in the Super Bowl, leaving a 20-0 team as the Super Bowl champions.

It can hypothetically but its extremely unlikely that they wont play each other.

First its extremly hard to go 16-0 anyway.(also ussually if ur 14-2 u will not play your starters)

Then you have to be really lucky to also not play each other

And also winning all the games in the playoffs BUT Thanks to 2020 playoffs its possible now: https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/eagles/nfl-playoff-format-changed-2020-season

EDIT:here is the way 2 teams get 16-0(because 3 teams is impossible): Lets say from the nfc west a team defeats every team in their own division and a team in the nfc east. Now the same thing happens with a team in the NFC North. Those teams have 2 more games to play so they have to hope they dont face each other.Then if all goes well The number 1 and 2 seed will both be 16-0 and 1st seed will have a bye and 2nd seed will play in wildcard. Then the wildcard 16-0 team wins every playoff game. 20-0 ()