NFL franchises still pining for Super seasons

Since there are no football games worth noting this week, I thought I’d touch on a topic of mild interest to me. Whether the Seattle Seahawks win the Super Bowl or not, they can at least boast of having been there not once, but twice. They certainly have more to talk about than, say, the Seattle Mariners, who along with the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals are the only franchises in baseball never to advance to the World Series. In the NFL, four teams can lay claim to never advancing to football’s penultimate game, although two have won titles in the pre-Super Bowl era.  The Houston Texans are one team that failed to make it, but they have only been in the league since 2002; the following three are more noteworthy in their absence:

Cleveland Browns: During the 1940s and 50s the Browns were one of the most dominate teams the NFL had seen up to that point. The Browns won four straight championships in the upstart AAFC, and after it and two other teams—the San Francisco 49ers, and the Baltimore Colts in its first life—merged with the NFL in 1950,  the complacent older league was stunned when the Browns played in 7 NFL title games in the next 8 years, winning three times. In 1964 the Browns defeated the Colts 27-0 for its fourth NFL title. But that success seems really ancient history now.  The Browns have not had a winning season since 2007, and even then failed to make the playoffs. In the last 24 seasons they have reached .500 or better just three times. The team’s last playoff appearance was in 2002, and its last playoff win came in 1994 when Bill Belichick was coach.

But during a four year stretch under coach Marty Schottenheimer the Browns did play in three AFC championship games. On January 11, 1987, Browns lost in overtime to the Denver Broncos 23-20 after blowing a 20-13 fourth quarter lead when John Elway drove the Broncos 98 yards for the tying score late in the game.  On January 17, 1988 against the Broncos, the Browns rallied from a 21-3 halftime deficit to tie the game at 31 early in the fourth quarter, only to fall 38-33 after the infamous “The Fumble” when Earnest Byner lost the football as he was running in for the tying score. On January 14, 1990 the Browns again faced-off against the Broncos. The Browns fell behind 24-7, rallied to within a field goal before losing going away 37-21. Interestingly, the Broncos went on to drubbings in the Super Bowl following each of those games.

Jacksonville Jaguars: Before he coached the New York Giants to two improbable Super Bowl victories over the heavily favored New England Patriots, Tom Coughlin led the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars to two AFC championship games in its first five seasons. On January 12, 1997, the Jaguars lost 20-6 to the Bill Parcells-coached New England Patriots, who went on to lose to Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl. In 1999, the Jaguars had a surprising 14-2 season in which they completely stumped the Vegas line, going on to crush the Miami Dolphins 62-7 in the most lopsided playoff game in the Super Bowl era. But on January 23, 2000 the Jaguars were themselves beaten by the Tennessee Titans 33-14 in a sloppy game that featured 10 turnovers.  The Jaguars have made the playoffs only twice since then.

Detroit Lions: When it comes right down to it, the Lions are the most hapless team in the league. “Boasting” the “title” as the only team in NFL history to lose 16 games in a season, no other team in the league at the moment has had a worse run of ineptitude—and we are talking about the Wild Card playoff era. To be fair, the Lions are one of the oldest franchises in the NFL, dating back to 1930, and were NFL champs four times—the last in 1957 following a 31-27 playoff victory over San Francisco after trailing 27-7. In the championship game, Tobin Rote completed 12 of 19 passes for 280 yards and four touchdowns as the Lions throttled the Cleveland Browns 59-14, whose rookie sensation Jim Brown was held to 69 yards rushing on 20 carries.

But since then the Lions have been in the dumper, winning just one playoff game in 11 tries; that last playoff victory was on January 5, 1992 when they humiliated Jimmy Johnson’s Dallas Cowboys, 38-6, before that team went on to win three Super Bowls in four seasons. The Lions would advance to their only NFC championship game, only to be thrashed 41-10 by the Washington Redskins, who went on to beat Buffalo in the Super Bowl.