Most Successful NFL Teams of All Time: Packers Lead With 13 Titles

Super Bowl Wins, Championships and Winning Percentage Put the NFL’s Elite in Perspective — Most Successful NFL Teams of All Time

Ask which NFL franchise has been the most successful and you’ll get different answers depending on how the question is framed. Measured strictly by Super Bowl wins, the Patriots and Steelers sit atop the league with six apiece. But stretch the lens back to include the NFL’s pre-Super Bowl championship era, and an entirely different franchise claims the top spot: the Green Bay Packers, with 13 total league championships, more than any team in NFL history. Understanding “most successful” requires looking at both eras, and at more than just championship counts.

The All-Time Championship Leader: Green Bay Packers, 13 Titles

The Packers’ 13 championships break down into nine NFL titles won before the Super Bowl era began in 1967, plus four Super Bowl victories (Super Bowls I, II, XXXI and XLV). Green Bay is also the only franchise to win three consecutive league championships twice — once from 1929 to 1931 and again from 1965 to 1967 under Vince Lombardi. The Chicago Bears sit second on the all-time list with nine total championships, and the New York Giants rank third with eight, both franchises whose dominant stretches predate the Super Bowl era almost entirely.

This distinction matters because it’s frequently lost in casual conversation. When people ask “who has the most Super Bowls,” the answer is the Patriots and Steelers. When people ask “who has won the most championships in NFL history,” the answer is the Packers, and it isn’t particularly close.

Most Successful by Regular-Season Winning Percentage

Championships aren’t the only lens worth applying. By all-time regular-season winning percentage, the Dallas Cowboys hold a narrow edge over the Packers, a reflection of the Cowboys’ remarkable sustained competitiveness — the franchise had 20 consecutive winning seasons from 1966 to 1985, a run unmatched by almost any team in any major North American sport. The Packers, meanwhile, hold the record for most all-time wins, both in the regular season and combined with the postseason, a byproduct of being one of the oldest continuously operating franchises in the league, founded in 1919.

Most Successful in the Modern Era

If the conversation narrows specifically to sustained success since the turn of the millennium, the picture shifts again. The Patriots’ run under Tom Brady and Bill Belichick from 2001 through 2019 produced six Super Bowl titles and a record 11 Super Bowl appearances, a level of consistent contention that no other franchise has matched over a comparable stretch. The Kansas City Chiefs have emerged as the closest thing to a modern rival to that standard, reaching multiple Super Bowls and winning several since Patrick Mahomes took over as starting quarterback, positioning the franchise as one of the sport’s dominant forces of the 2020s.

Comparing the League’s Most Decorated Franchises

Here’s how the most successful franchises stack up across the two most commonly cited measures:

Most total league championships (all eras):

1. Green Bay Packers — 13
2. Chicago Bears — 9
3. New York Giants — 8

Most Super Bowl wins (Super Bowl era only, since 1967):

1. New England Patriots — 6
2. Pittsburgh Steelers — 6
3. San Francisco 49ers — 5
4. Dallas Cowboys — 5

Most Super Bowl appearances:

1. New England Patriots — 11

Why “Most Successful” Depends on the Question You’re Asking

Part of what makes this debate genuinely interesting rather than simply a matter of counting is that different measures reward different kinds of success. Total championships rewards longevity and era-spanning excellence, which favors the league’s oldest franchises. Super Bowl wins specifically rewards modern-era dominance, since it excludes nearly half a century of pre-Super Bowl NFL history. Winning percentage rewards sustained regular-season competitiveness over spectacular but shorter championship windows. And a “most successful era” argument, like the Patriots’ 2001–2019 run, rewards a concentrated stretch of dominance that might not extend across a franchise’s full history.

None of these framings is more “correct” than the others — they’re simply answering different questions, which is why fans of different franchises can make legitimate, well-supported cases for their team depending on which measure they emphasize.

Honorable Mention: The 49ers’ Efficiency

It’s worth noting the San Francisco 49ers’ case separately, since it doesn’t fit neatly into either the “total championships” or “modern dynasty” categories. The 49ers won five Super Bowls between 1981 and 1994, all under a stretch of two head coaches, Bill Walsh and George Seifert, and all without ever needing the volume of appearances the Patriots required to reach the same win total. San Francisco also holds the record for most all-time playoff wins of any franchise, a testament to sustained postseason success that outpaces even the highest-profile Super Bowl-era dynasties by that particular measure.

The Bottom Line

There’s no single, universally agreed-upon answer to which NFL franchise has been the most successful — the Packers’ 13 total championships, the Patriots’ and Steelers’ six Super Bowl titles, and the Cowboys’ all-time winning percentage each represent a legitimate claim depending on how the question is framed. What’s clear is that a small handful of franchises — Green Bay, Pittsburgh, New England, Dallas and San Francisco — have combined to define what sustained excellence in the NFL actually looks like, whether measured across a full century of football or a single, unmatched two-decade dynasty.