The Arizona Cardinals have the longest championship drought in professional sports, having last won an NFL championship in 1947, and it doesn’t look like that drought will end anytime soon. Since that championship win in 1947, the Cardinals have made the playoffs just eleven times in 77 years,  posting the league’s third-worst .422 all-time winning percentage.

The Cardinals endure the same cycle: long stretches of losing seasons, followed by a couple of playoff seasons, elimination in the first round, and then return to long stretches of losing seasons. Massive drafting mistakes, head coaching disasters, and playoff chokes, the Cardinals have done it all throughout their unsuccessful franchise history.  Of the mere seven Pro Bowl players of the Cardinals’ last 23 first-round draft picks, Larry Fitzgerald was the only generational talent, and the Cardinals failed to build a winning team around him.

In the past 25 years, the Cleveland Browns have had 13 head coaches, 40 starting quarterbacks, and just three winning seasons. The Browns continuously make questionable draft picks, trades, and hires, and unlike the Lions, have no immediate signs of potential success. In the 1980s, they were more successful yet still routinely lost in the playoffs. That era of Browns football included heartbreaking playoff losses such as “The Fumble”, the “Red-Right 88” interception, and allowing a 98-yard AFC-championship-winning drive to the Broncos.

In the midst of a 17-year playoff drought between 2002 and 2020, the Browns became the second NFL team to go 0-16 in 2017. Hue Jackson posted a woeful 3-36-1 record as head coach in Cleveland, and his awful tenure was not an outlier among other Browns’ head coaches. A brief playoff win in 2020 raised hopes, but the $250 million Deshaun Watson signing derailed any momentum. Heading into 2025 with 4.5 expected wins, the Browns are back to square one. That $250 million might have been better spent on their loyal, long-suffering fans.

After winning Super Bowl III in 1968, saving the AFL from irrelevancy, the Jets themselves quickly faded into irrelevancy. Following the franchise’s only Super Bowl win, the Jets didn’t win their division until 1998. From 1998 to 2010, the Jets were a consistent playoff team with a dominant defense, but they consistently lost in the playoffs. Currently, New York is in the midst of a 14-year playoff drought, the longest postseason drought in professional sports.

The Jets’ problems start in the draft, as prior to the 2012 draft, the Jets’ senior director Terry Bradway was certain that projected thrid-round pick Russell Wilson was the steal of the draft. GM Mike Tannenbaum ignored Bradway’s wishes and drafted linebacker Demario Davis instead. After blowing the chance to draft Wilson, the Jets tried drafting a QB in 2013, picking Geno Smith. Smith was a bust until he left the Jets and became a Pro Bowler in Seattle. A few years later, the Jets drafted QB Sam Darnold 3rd overall, who was a bust until he became a Pro Bowler in Minnesota. It seems like players usually improve after leaving the Jets, which shows just how dysfunctional their organization is.

In 2022, the Jets actually had a solid draft, adding franchise cornerstones such as Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson, and Breece Hall. However, the Jets wasted that talent with Zack Wilson at quarterback, and then proceeded to have a worse record with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback.

The Chargers are one of those sports teams where no matter how much talent they can amass on a single roster, they manage to underperform year after year, without fail. After the NFL-AFL merger, the Chargers didn’t make the playoffs until 1979. Being seven points short of reaching the franchise’s first Super Bowl in 1980 was the first playoff loss of many for the Chargers, with the team having an awful 12-20 all-time playoff record.

Chargers’ fans had already suffered enough before Dean Spanos moved the Chargers to Los Angeles in 2017, where the Chargers have disappeared, and the team plays 17 away games. The Chargers unsurprisingly hold the record for the largest blown lead in the playoffs, surrendering a 27-0 lead to the Jaguars in the 2022 Divisional Round, losing 31-30. Heading into 2025, the Chargers are projected to win 10.5 games and potentially go on a deep playoff run, but we’ve seen this movie before.

There are franchises like the Chargers, who consistently underperform despite having Super Bowl-caliber teams on paper, and then there are teams like the Lions, who don’t underperform because there was never any hope to begin with. While you can’t disregard their recent success of back-to-back double-digit wins seasons, a loaded roster, and elite coaching, that is an exception, not the norm.

Detroit has only made the playoffs 14 times in 54 years, with multiple droughts of over 10 years, and are one of four NFL teams to never appear in a Super Bowl. The Lions have been one of the least popular destinations for NFL players, with their awful coaching and player development leading to the early exits of Calvin Johnson, Barry Sanders, and Matthew Stafford. And you can’t discuss the Lions’ as one of the NFL’s worst franchises without mentioning their 0-16 season in 2008.