Table of Contents (spoiler alert)
Many attempts have been made to analyze the emotional turmoil that the National Football League’s thirty-two franchises have put their fans through. From the Ice Bowl in 67’ to the Buffalo Bills’ 0-4 Super Bowl run in the 90s, fans have sacrificed their money, time, and large portions of their soul, often earning nothing in return but heartbreak.
For the purposes of this list, all events before the 2000-01 NFL seasons will be excluded. For fans of the Cowboys, there is no 90s dynasty. For Patriot’s fans, no decades of embarrassment to mar the greatest run of dominance in the history of professional football. This blend of hard data and nuanced narrative attempts to quantify something previously thought too subjective to properly portray.
These are the twenty-first century NFL fan base pain rankings.
32. The New England Patriots
Thomas. Edward. Patrick. Brady.
31. The Pittsburgh Steelers
With the only top-ten draft pick the Steelers have held in the 21st century, they drafted a future Hall of Fame quarterback who would lead them to eleven playoff berths, three Super Bowl appearances, and two Super Bowl wins. Since that first day of the 2004 NFL Draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers have not ended a single season with a losing record.
While they’ve had their fair share of offensive eye candy (Jerome Bettis, Le’Veon Bell, Antonio Brown, Hines Ward), their greatest case for the number two spot on this list has been the dominance of the defense. Head and Shoulders® above the rest, the Steelers have had a top-five defense in a league-leading 11 of 22 seasons, the next closest franchise being the division-rival Ravens with eight.
Kenny Pickett’s debut season in Pitt may not have rivaled that of his predecessor, but few teams have the luxury of landing a serviceable rookie quarterback in their first attempt.
Steelers fans stared down a 3-7 record in late November of 2022, ready to see the NFL’s longest winning-record streak come to a bitter end. Of course their Hall of Fame-bound head coach, rookie-filled offense, and an injury-plagued but dominant T.J. Watt managed a 6-1 record down the stretch, landing them a 9-8 record and keeping the Pittsburgh faithful in their comfort zone.
30. The New York Giants
Nineteen teams hold a better regular season record than the Giants since the year 2000. Their years with a top five offense/defense (three combined) rank bottom ten in the league. Former Franchise QB Eli Manning helped them win two Super Bowls, even earning SB MVP honors once, but his lackluster regular season resume (a statistically improbable 118-118 all-time record) only places him in fringe HOF territory entering year four of retirement. Rationalizing their placement on this list begins with the greatest underdog story in the history of American sports, the toppling of the undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
The first five seasons of the Brady era produced a 70-26 regular season record and three Lombardi Trophies. Despite making deep playoff runs in 05’ and 06’, the Patriots felt the lack of talent in the receiving corps. Halfway through the 2007 NFL Draft, they acquired WR Randy Moss from the Raiders in exchange for a fourth-round pick.
Wasting no time, Moss pulled in an NFL record-setting 23 touchdown receptions in his first season with Brady. Eli Manning threw 23 touchdowns total in 2007 (with 20 interceptions to boot). When the 18-0 Patriots claimed their spot in the Super Bowl, Vegas didn’t hesitate to name them the heaviest Super Bowl favorites since Super Bowl III (-14).
Down four points with just over a minute on the clock, Eli Manning bobbed, weaved, and performed something just short of a pirouette before gathering his composure and heaving the ball forty yards downfield onto the waiting helmet of David Tyree. No words could ever fully encapsulate what will forever be remembered as one of the most athletic, improbable, reality-shattering plays in NFL history. The play, commentated by Joe Buck with a level of enthusiasm matched only by the teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, is linked here.
A fade to Plaxico Burress four plays later put the Giants ahead 17-14, which would become the final score after a Patriots rebuttal that consisted of a sack and three incomplete passes.
Then, twisting the dagger even harder, the 9-7 Giants took down the 13-3 Patriots four years later in Super Bowl XLVI.
In 2021, Brady said that he would give up two Super Bowl wins in exchange for the 19-0 season.
29. The Kansas City Chiefs
In perhaps the greatest argument for not red-shirting first round quarterbacks through their freshman year, Patrick Mahomes spent a year on the sideline watching Alex Smith pilot the team to a Wildcard exit in 2017.
It can be questioned whether Mahomes even knew during that time how quickly he would turn the NFL on its head. In his first year as the Chief’s starter, he became the third quarterback to throw 50+ touchdowns in a season. There are more than a handful of rookie QB records that would’ve been shattered had he been a true NFL freshman in 2018.
The chemistry with Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill showed up immediately, catapulting the team to the AFC Championship game against the New England Patriots.
On a weekend that was supposed to contain two great games deciding the Super Bowl matchup, the refs managed to crawl into the spotlight and make a collection of mind-numbingly poor calls across both the AFC and NFC Championship games to round out the 2018 season.
In a uniquely objective way, the referees placed the Patriots and Rams into the Super Bowl, depriving America of a Mahomes vs Brees Super Bowl.
The Result was a violently forgettable 13-3 Patriots win in Atlanta for Super Bowl LIII.
No surprise, the Chiefs were back in their rightful Super Bowl spot a year later, where they staved off Jimmy G and the 49ers with an electric fourth quarter comeback win. They found themselves back in the big game a year later but were absolutely crushed by Tampa Tom in his first season with the Buccaneers.
After losing their number one receiver ahead of the 2022 season, the Chiefs were still considered one of the league’s very best, but it felt as if the best years of the Reid-Mahomes-Kelce era may have passed them by. Instead, Chiefs fans were rewarded with the first seed in the AFC, another MVP season for Mahomes, and a Super Bowl title. As for their sixty-four-year-old HC Andy Reid, who was rumored to retire if the Chiefs managed to take down the Eagles, “If they’ll have me, I’ll stick around.”
While it took until the late 2010’s for the Chiefs to find postseason success, they did have an early 2000’s era filled with offensive superstars. Running back Priest Holmes rushed for 56 touchdowns and just shy of 4,600 yards from 2001-2003. Tony Gonzalez established himself as one of the greatest tight ends of all time and retired sixth on the all-time receiving yards list. The transition from a great regular season team to a legitimate Super Bowl contender aligned closely with the hiring of long time Eagles coach Andy Reid.
28. The Baltimore Ravens
In the mid 1990s, Art Modell decided to euthanize the nearly fifty-year old Cleveland Browns and move the franchise to the Chesapeake Bay. A nod to Baltimore’s famous poet Edgar Allen Poe, the “Raven’s” took flight for the first time in 1996. Unlike their ever-stumbling ancestors, it only took four seasons to assemble a functional team.
Head coach Brian Billick led the Hall of Famer-filled roster to a Super Bowl victory in only his second season. The young Baltimore fanbase barely had to wait a decade to return to football’s greatest stage. In the 2008 offseason, the Ravens drafted Joe Flacco and hired John Harbaugh as head coach. Just four years later, Flacco went on a playoff tear of uncharacteristic dominance that included wins over Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady. In a game that was not as close as the 34-31 final score would indicate, the Ravens took down Jim Harbaugh and the Colin Kaepernick-piloted San Francisco 49ers.
Any points they lose for having two of the more forgettable Super Bowls are gained back in regular season record (187-134), a lack of SB losses, and the early success of Lamar Jackson at quarterback.
27. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Similar to the Giants, the Buccaneers have spent much of this century on the wrong side of .500. The nearly twenty-year gap between Super Bowls was filled mostly by Josh Freeman, Mike Glennon, and Jameis Winston, the last of which threw 52 (not a typo) interceptions in two seasons before being displaced by the arrival of Tampa Tom.
For all of the struggles they faced in the regular season, they have gotten it done when it matters most. Their .66 playoff win percentage is the highest in the league since the year 2000. Most importantly, they are 2-0 in the Super Bowl with a combined forty-nine-point margin of victory.
As strange as it sounds, the Buccaneers took a genuine risk signing Brady. Multiple teams had the chance to sign the 42-year-old quarterback in the 2020 offseason. Instead of simply testing out the potentially washed veteran quarterback, they went all in, signing Antonio Brown (amid heavy controversy), Rob Gronkowski, and Jason Pierre-Paul.
Instead of subjecting the team to the infamous ‘Patriot way,’ Brady loosened up and built chemistry with teammates. From inviting a clearly lost Antonio Brown to live in his home, to tipsily tossing a Lombardi over the murky waters of the Tampa inlet, he re-invented himself and it paid off immediately.
26. The Indianapolis Colts
While the success of the Colts in the 21st century is front loaded heavily towards its first decade, the top-tier team building, offensive explosion, and heated rivalries were enough to carry them through the following decade in the wilderness. Peyton Manning’s debut season in the league resulted in little other than a new record for most interceptions by a rookie quarterback.
Instead of panicking, they started building a super team destined for championship-level greatness. The addition of Jeff Saturday (C), Dallas Clark (TE), Reggie Wayne (WR), and head coach Tony Dungy formed a core that would carry them to two Super Bowls, one loss to the Saints and one win over the Bears.
It may not be the most memorable Super Bowl of all time, but a ring won against Rex Grossman is still a ring. You can win after turning the ball over three times if the opponent turns it over five. It was ugly…
The decade following began by drafting the generational talent of Andrew Luck. It seemed for a couple years that they had the potential to repeat the same cycle, but not enough attention went to the offensive line. Just as they had let Peyton walk to Denver after suffering a career-threatening neck injury, Luck couldn’t handle the injuries and retired from the NFL before his 30th birthday.
Peyton Manning moved on to Denver where John Elway built him one of the great defenses of the modern era. He took home another Lombardi along with the all-time passing touchdown record before retiring. Colts fans watched their hero continue his rise to glory from afar, while the walls came tumbling down around them.
25. The Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles performance over the last decade aside from 2016-17 has been a haunting blend of temporary quarterbacks, inept wide receivers, and underwhelming defenses. To find an intimidating version of the Eagles, you’d need to look back to the early 2000’s, when Brian Dawkins was arguably the league’s most feared safety.
Donavan McNabb was a perennial pro-bowl QB, the defense was a regular in the top ten, and the timing of Terrell Owens arrival was enough to elevate the squad past their three-year streak of NFC Championship losses and into the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history.
The 24-21 final score doesn’t do justice to the disaster that was the Eagles first Super Bowl trip. Terrell Owens played through a broken leg in his only career Super Bowl appearance, Donavan McNabb, amidst a hattrick of interceptions, threw up on the field. The stage was too big, and their dominant 59-21 regular season half-decade run came to an abrupt, confusing end.
It wasn’t until a decade later that a savior came to Philly. Carson Wentz, the shiny second overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft brought the spotlight back to Philadelphia in his sophomore year. By week 13 he had thrown for 33 touchdowns, nearly 3,300 yards, with just seven interceptions, but a nasty leg injury sidelined him indefinitely.
Enter Nick Foles.
One of the league’s all-time great NFL anomalies was drafted by Philly in 2012 as a backup. He made a name for himself in 2013 with a record-tying seven TD passes in a dominant win over the Raiders. After running a two-year circuit through Kansas City and St. Louis Foles returned to Philly to back up rookie Carson Wentz.
The career backup inherited Wentz’ playoff-destined 11-2 squad and marched them into the playoffs as the number one seed in the NFC. Despite a crippling lack of consistency as an NFL starter before and after the 2017 playoffs, Foles showed out, averaging 323 yards per game with six touchdowns and a single interception.
In an electrifying 41-33 shootout with New England, a backup quarterback avenged the Eagles of the early 2000’s and caused permanent psychological damage to Tom Brady and Carson Wentz (admittedly, one of the two has recovered slightly).
The resurgence of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2022 ended bitterly with a 38-35 loss to their former head coach Andy Reid. The Eagles remain high on this list solely based on a promising future. They also benefit from not getting held to eight points in the Super Bowl with the single greatest offense in NFL history.
24. The Denver Broncos
Discounting everything pre-2000 (back-to-back Super Bowls 97’-98’) hurt the Broncos, but not enough to keep them out of the top ten. In fact, their two-time Super Bowl champion quarterback John Elway was the general manager who helped construct the near-dynasty 2012-2015 teams.
Similar to the Buccaneers, the Broncos chose to take a flier on a veteran quarterback rather than pursue one through the draft. In the Broncos case, Peyton Manning was coming off an intrusive neck surgery that left his playing career in limbo.
With the young core of Julius Thomas, Von Miller, and the late great Demaryius Thomas already hitting the ground running, the Broncos acquired veteran talents Demarcus Ware and Aquib Talib.
In Manning’s second year with the Broncos, he set the all-time record for most passing touchdowns in a season with fifty-five, five more than the next closest (Brady & Mahomes with 50). In both 2013 and 2015 they had a top-five defense, and both times they made a trip to the Super Bowl.
With all the momentum that comes with the league’s number one offense, the 2013 Broncos crumbled under the Seahawks and ‘legion of boom’ in a palpably embarrassing 43-8 championship. The thirty-five-point margin of defeat is the third worst in Super Bowl history, with the worst in history also being suffered by the Broncos (49ers 55 Broncos 10 in SB XXIV).
Just two seasons later, they returned to the Super Bowl with a noticeably worse all-around team but managed to upset Cam Newton and the 15-1 Carolina Panthers.
It may not be the perfect narrative, but it fully justified the gamble on Peyton, the expense of Ware and Talib, and John Elway’s existence as a general manager (at least for the time-being).
As for 2022, the Russell Wilson deal and the performance that followed was enough to drag the Broncos down past the Colts and Eagles. Despite suffering one less Super Bowl loss than Philly, they are now anchored by the weight of $124 million guaranteed to a thirty-four-year-old quarterback who threw just sixteen touchdowns in fifteen starts this year.
The NFL’s second highest paid quarterback in the league finished the 2022 season with the league’s 50th best passer rating. The list can be found here. This may take a while, as you will need to scroll past Jordan Love, Bailey Zappe, Andy Dalton, Justin Fields, Mac Jones, and many, many more.
23. The Seattle Seahawks
“Holding” at the Pittsburgh one-yard line… Malcolm Butler…
With those out of the way, it’s time to look at the brighter side of Seahawks 21st century campaign.
A losing Super Bowl record required no-less than the single most exciting defense this side of 2000 to justify their place on this list. The “Legion of Boom” (generally considered 2011-14) picked off opposing quarterbacks eighty-one times in four seasons, while allowing just sixty-six passing touchdowns. The height of the era came in Super Bowl XLVIII when then sophomore quarterback Russell Wilson and the L.O.B. utterly dismantled Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos.
A final score of 43-8 in any postseason game, much less the Super Bowl, is generally astonishing. In the Seahawks’ case, this final score came against an offense that had broken the record for most passing yards and passing touchdowns in a single season in NFL history.
It’s rare for a Super Bowl matchup to include the undisputed best offense vs the best defense. The Seahawks seized the opportunity with total dominance.
The path to the Super Bowl also included the conclusion of the Seahawks vs. 49ers rivalry with Kaepernick and Wilson at the helm of their respective teams.
In the final seconds of the NFC Championship game, Richard Sherman batted a ball away from 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree into the waiting arms of LB Malcolm Smith to send the Seahawks to the Super Bowl. Sherman, the leader of the NFL’s best defense at the time, was approached after the game by Erin Andrews for comment. The absurdity and wonder of the moment is best left to video.
Most members of the squad returned to the Super Bowl two years later to take on Tom Brady and the Patriots, but this time they would leave the game with a bitter taste in their mouth. Down four with under a minute left in the game, Russell Wilson was picked off at the goal line, and nothing has been the same for Seattle since.
22. The Green Bay Packers
Only two teams in all of the National Football League have managed to lose fourteen playoff games in the 21st century: The Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers.
The Packers have more Conference Championship losses (five) than twenty-five NFL franchises have appearances in the 21st century. Their lone win came on the road against the division rival Chicago Bears in the 2010 postseason. If a young Aaron Rodgers and the sixth seed Packers hadn’t managed to upset the second seed Pittsburgh Steelers, Rodgers may have been remembered more as Marino, Rivers, or Romo.
Instead, arguably the worst iteration of the Rodgers-led NFC Championship teams, got the job done and started the “greatest QB of all-time” debate early in his career.
It may not be fair to say that it’s all been downhill for Packers fans since, as Rodgers has raked in four league MVP trophies and helped the Packers remain the third-most winning regular season team of the 21st century, but the Postseason has been a nothing short of a recurring nightmare for the Packers faithful.
Their placement relative to the Seahawks hinges on two distinct and iconic postseason moments:
The First: Matt Hasselback’s ill-fated claim to the referees, the Packers captains, and all of football America after the overtime coin toss in the Wildcard Round.
Lambeau Field
Green Bay, Wisconsin
January 4, 2004
“We’ll take the ball, and we’re gonna score.” The Seahawks got the ball back after trading 3 & outs with the Packers. After converting just a single first down, Hasselback and company found themselves in 3rd and long near midfield.
A quick curl attempt to Alex Bannister, a third-year receiver with seven career receptions, was jumped by Al Harris and returned for a game-winning touchdown. As icing on the cake, Harris ran the ball back right in front of Mike Holmgren, who had coached the Packers to two Super Bowls in the 90s before taking the job in Seattle for more money just three years earlier.
&
The Second: A seemingly impossible series of offensive and special teams’ mistakes send league MVP Aaron Rodgers and the #1 offense home in overtime.
Century Link Stadium
Seattle, Washington
January 18, 2015
League MVP Aaron Rodgers and the number one rated offense found themselves ahead 16-0 with just under twenty minutes of game time left. Four Russell Wilson interceptions were enough to cover two from Rodgers until late in the third quarter when the Seahawks lined up for a field goal attempt.
On 4th & 10, nobody was expecting the punter John Ryan to take the snap, roll out to the left, and find a wide-open offensive lineman for a touchdown.
The momentum had shifted, but the Packers still had the game well in hand just before the two-minute mark in the fourth quarter when Steven Hauschka and the Seahawks lined up for an onside kick.
Packers tight end Brandon Bostic leapt into the air, directly in front of Jordy Nelson, and proceeded to fumble the ball directly into the hands of a waiting Seahawk. This led to a Seahawks touchdown, a tying Pack field goal, and overtime, where the latter of two consecutive 35-yard completions found Jermaine Kearse in the end zone for a walk off touchdown.
Packersnews.com
Rodgers has been purposefully mysterious in regard to his 2023 plans, announcing publicly that he is embarking on a four-day offseason “darkness retreat.” In an attempt to induce hallucinations and escape reality, he will seal himself off completely from the light and noise of the outside world. Coincidentally, this is how his fans usually spend their Mondays in mid-late January.
While some may call it a silly superstition, sources close to Rodgers say that if he sees his own shadow when emerging from the darkness, we get eight more weeks of tiresome trade/retirement rumors – fingers crossed!
21. The New Orleans Saints
From the inception of the Saints in 1967 through the turn of the century, fans could count their franchise’s seasons with a winning record on just one hand. The long-suffering south Louisiana natives were the laughingstock of professional football in a way that not even the Browns (who had five winning seasons from 1967-1972 alone) or Lions could rival.
The turn of the century brought an immediate shift for the Saints, as they reached the Divisional Round for the first time in franchise history in the 2000 season. A fanbase made famous for donning brown paper bags on their heads in disgust has now seen their team hoist the Lombardi trophy and win more regular season games than twenty-four teams.
Their 1-0 Super Bowl record made them hard to separate from the Packers in terms of pain, and while the Packers have suffered six more playoff defeats, the Saints had a Super Bowl taken from them by no fault of their own in the 2018 NFC Championship game.
Tied 20-20 with under two minutes left in the game, Drew Brees sailed a perfect ball down the sideline to receiver Tommylee Lewis. With the trajectory of the ball, Lewis was in the perfect position to either walk into the end zone for a touchdown or catch the ball, slide down, and run the clock under five seconds to kick a game winning field goal.
Instead, Rams defender Nickell Robey-Coleman slammed his helmet directly into the head of the Saints receiver, sending him flying onto the sideline. Robey-Coleman immediately started looking for a flag, turning his head right and left twice to double-check before high fiving his teammates.
No flag.
It is incredibly rare for NFL fans to agree on any topic, but the entirety of the football viewing public immediately voiced total and genuine confusion, especially since a referee was standing ten yards away and watched the entire event play out.
Joe Buck and Troy Aikman both voiced immediately (and after watching extensive replays from different angles) that the refs had made a clear mistake.
The no-call was so bad that it actually led to the NFL making pass interference reviewable before the 2019 season kicked off.
Sean Payton received an apology from the NFL offices directly after the game, something utterly useless to a fanbase, coach, and organization that deserved to see their team go to the Super Bowl.
In some form of cosmic justice, the Rams put up the fewest points in the history of the Super Bowl two weeks later in an impressively boring 13-3 loss to the Patriots.
From the “Minneapolis Miracle” to “Bountygate,” Saints fans have experienced their fair share of embarrassing and frustrating moments in the 21st century, but few teams can honestly say that the NFL’s incompetence removed their team from the Super Bowl.
20. The St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams
These days when the Rams are mentioned, images of palm trees, sunshine, and Sean McVay’s hair gel are top of mind, but we’re not too far removed from the beige, seven-win, forgettable St. Louis Rams.
The Rams are hurt more than any team by this list being 21st century only, as they were Super Bowl Champions in 1999. Kurt Warner, Isaac Bruce, and Marshall Faulk lived up to their “Greatest Show on Turf” nickname for two more seasons before being upset by Tom Brady in his first ever Super Bowl in 2001.
The pain of losing the Super Bowl at the end of a dominant regular season is far different from the pain of total irrelevancy, but the Rams have managed to experience the fullest version of both in recent years. The Ram’s superstars faded quickly and by 2004 they were in the throes of a decade in which the team failed to win more than eight games a single time.
Seven head coaches, five starting quarterbacks, and over a hundred losses later, the state of the Rams in 2015 was so grim that they decided to pack up their wagons and journey west in search of a better life for themselves and their children.
Just two seasons after arriving in Los Angeles, and a year after hiring Sean McVay as head coach, the Rams had their first winning season since 2003. Just a year later in 2018, the Rams made it to the Super Bowl, and while they may have lost in humiliating fashion, the dark ages were over.
The Rams reloaded ahead of the 2021 season, sending Jared Goff and a couple first round draft picks to Detroit in return for Matthew Stafford. The all-in move paid off in glorious fashion as the Rams became the first NFL team in Los Angeles to win the Super Bowl since the Los Angeles Raiders in 1983.
The Rams find themselves at the bottom of the Super Bowl winning teams due mostly to the pain caused by leaving millions of loyal fans behind and moving about as far as geographically possible within the mainland United States, though the two crushing Super Bowl losses did carry some weight.
— The Super Bowl Divide —
19. The San Francisco 49ers
Bay area natives may be shocked to find their team in the upper half of this list, but the 49ers have been a truly dominant and entertaining franchise since the year 2000. Unlike most of the teams lower on this list, the 49ers don’t get knocked out of the playoffs in early rounds.
After two uninspired playoff pushes in 2001-02, they have reached the Super Bowl or NFC Championship in their last six playoff berths.
At 12-7, they have a better playoff win percentage than every team in the NFL except for the Patriots, Giants, Buccaneers, and Rams.
Ultimately, fanbases on this side of the Super Bowl divide can hope only for relevance, excitement, and hope for the future. Outside of some dark days in the early 2000’s, the 49ers have had these luxuries in most seasons since the turn of the century.
Injuries have cost them some of their most promising playoff runs, including the most recent, but it is far easier to live with a loss as a result of injury than it is of poor play from the team you love. It is certainly easier than living with a loss at the hands of referees.
Only the Ravens and Steelers have finished more seasons with a top five defense. The front office has proven their competence with regularity through the draft, free agency, and trade market.
18. The Cincinnati Bengals
If Bengals fans are alarmed to find themselves here, they can rest assured that the last two seasons alone have catapulted them no less than ten spaces.
The Bengals may have had an argument for a top five spot on this list, and if it were expanded to include the previous handful of decades, their 0-3 Super Bowl record would more than cement that position, but 2021 and 2022 were wildly transformative.
Just a handful of years before the arrival of Joe Burrow, Zac Taylor, and the rest of the star-studded roster rolled into Cincinnati, they had experienced a statistically improbable and devastating run of playoff trips:
In the eleven seasons from 2005-2015, the Bengals went to the playoffs seven times, an accomplishment that most football fans could only dream of, but the result of every single trip was a loss in the Wildcard Round.
Perhaps even more remarkable, the Bengals retained the same head coach through the entire span.
It took three consecutive losing seasons after this streak for the Bengals to move on from Marvin Lewis and hire Zac Taylor as HC. The first year of the Taylor era brought the Bengals their worst regular season record in franchise history at 2-14, but this disaster of a season allowed them to select Joe Burrow with the first overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.
An injury sidelined Burrow for almost half of his rookie year, but the historically great college quarterback only managed two wins in the ten games he started. Thankfully for Burrow and all of Bengals nation, the front office finally invested in a huge free agent class that included Trey Hendrickson, Chidobe Awuzie, Eli Apple, Riley Reiff, Larry Ogunjobi, and more.
They drew criticism by drafting Burrow’s former LSU teammate Jamar Chase instead of an offensive lineman to protect Burrow. These critics were nowhere to be found months later when the Bengals had their first winning season in six years before shredding their way through the AFC and into the Super Bowl.
In just three seasons, Burrow took the Bengals 21st century playoff record from a league worst 0-7 to 5-9, more playoff wins than twelve other teams have managed in the past twenty-three seasons.
Importantly, Burrow is 3-1 against the Chiefs, including a road win against them in the 2021 AFC Championship game. The one loss was by three points in this year’s AFC Championship game. Burrow and the Bengals have proven themselves to be no less than the AFC’s second-best team in two straight seasons and will have most of their key players returning for the 2023 season.
17. The Carolina Panthers
For a franchise that was created just five years before the turn of the century, the Panthers have been remarkably relevant. While it doesn’t count towards this list, they reached the NFC Championship game in just their second year as a franchise.
Their first trip to the Super Bowl was a nail-biter against Tom Brady and the Patriots. After scoring a touchdown with just over a minute left to tie the game, Panthers fans watched Brady connect on a 17-yard corner route to set up a game-winning field goal.
After selecting Cam Newton with the first overall pick of the 2011 NFL Draft and hiring Ron Rivera as HC, the Panthers made a trip to the playoffs in four of the next eight seasons. The height of the Newton era was the 2015 season, where he took home MVP honors after a 45 touchdown (35 passing, 10 rushing) season.
After going 14-0, the Panthers took one loss to the Falcons in week sixteen in an attempt to break the 2007 Patriots curse, but it didn’t pay off. They tore through their two NFC playoff games with a +41 point differential but met their match against the Denver Broncos defense.
Down 16-10 with just four minutes left, the Panthers had the ball with a chance to drive the length of the field and win the game, potentially correcting the mistake of their first Super Bowl by taking the clock down the zeros.
Instead, Cam Newton melted under the pressure. On 3rd & 9 on the Panthers 25-yard line, Von Miller tore around the tackle and stripped the ball from Newton.
In a replay that haunts Panthers fans to this day, Newton hovered above the ball, seemingly waiting for someone else to pick it up instead of just diving on it himself. His hesitance cost them the ball, which in turn cost them the Super Bowl.
While this was excruciating, twelve of the remaining teams have not had the delight of even reaching a Super Bowl. Some would argue that reaching a Super Bowl and losing is more painful than never reaching one. To those people, a refrain from Alfred Tennyson, “Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.”
However, for the love of all that is good in this world, don’t drop that line on a Falcons fan.
16. The Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings are the only franchise in the NFL to reach three Conference Championship games in the 21st century without reaching the Super Bowl. This accomplishment is especially impressive considering their total playoff record is 4-8. All three trips to the NFC Championship came after securing the first or second seed.
In line with the division-rival Packers, they have been severely outscored in the Conference Title Game, with two of the three being decided by over thirty points (combined 110-35).
While they haven’t reached the Super Bowl, they have been a consistent contender for the NFC North, even while dealing with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers twice a year.
Perhaps more than numbers and figures, the Vikings have spent nearly half of the 21st century with some of the best skill players in the league on their team in Randy Moss 2000-04 and Adrian Peterson from 2007-2015.
Kirk Cousins may be a confusing quarterback, but he’s been good enough to show off Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and Stefon Diggs over the past half-decade.
Of the teams that share such total inability to function in the postseason, the Vikings are one of the least embarrassing.
15. The Buffalo Bills
Similar to the Bengals, almost everything keeping the Bills this high on the list had occurred within the last four or five years. In the Bills case, however, the postseason success has not come easy. After earning forty-seven regular season wins in just the last four seasons, they’re left with only a 4-4 playoff record.
After decades of mediocrity, Buffalo now has a franchise quarterback in Josh Allen, a top five receiver in Stefon Diggs, and a defense that has ranked either first or second in the league over the past four years.
In the 2021 postseason, they were losing half of one of the greatest playoff games in NFL history against the Chiefs in Arrowhead Stadium. The league’s highest graded defense allowed the Chiefs to go from their own twenty-five to field goal range in just two plays to force overtime as time expired.
Though the loss was gutting, they earned the respect of the entire league, becoming the betting favorite to win the Super Bowl in 2022. A dominant 13-3 regular season earned the Bills the #2 seed, but Joe Burrow and the Bengals dismantled the home team Bills 27-10 in a snowstorm.
In a way that can’t be said for much of the league, the years in the desert were worth it, and the Bills window for success is wide open.
14. The Arizona Cardinals
Super Bowl XLIII was one of the more iconic games of the 21st century. While it has since been surpassed, it set the record for most television viewers at nearly 99 million, and held the nation captive for a final five minutes of game clock that managed to contain a safety, a sixty-four yard touchdown bomb from Kurt Warner to Larry Fitzgerald, one of the best toe-tap catches in NFL history from Roethlisberger to Holmes for a touchdown, and a game ending sack fumble on Warner with just seconds left to end the game.
As a 9-7 team, the Cardinals were the perfect scrappy underdogs, and while they may have lost, they did so with dignity. They pushed the ceiling and provided Kurt Warner with one last moment in the sun before retiring.
Between Warner, Palmer, and the potential of Kyler Murray, the Cardinals have had good-great starting quarterbacks for most of the twenty-first century. Additionally, fans were able to watch Larry Fitzgerald’s Hall of Fame career unfold from start to finish.
13. The Tennessee Titans
Only eight running backs in the history of the NFL have rushed for 2,000+ yards in a season.
Two of those eight have been Titans running backs in the 21st century.
Chris Johnson compiled 2,006 rushing yards, 503 receiving yards, and 16 total touchdowns in the 2009 regular season. Unfortunately, the all-pro performance was wasted on an 8-8 record that kicked off an eight-year playoff drought, tied for the longest in Titans franchise history.
Just over a decade later, Derrick Henry broke Johnson’s franchise yardage record with a 2,027-yard, 17 touchdown performance. This time rushing dominance did translate to a playoff berth, but it was quickly stunted in a 13-20 Wildcard loss to Lamar Jackson’s Ravens.
Somehow, it can be argued that neither of these backs were even the best to suit up for the Titans in the 21st century, as Eddie George’s over 10,000 rushing yard career in Tennessee stretched into 2003.
While no other team can claim a better assortment of running backs, they have not been able to replicate their success at the quarterback position. This has resulted in a number of promising playoff teams fading down the stretch without a superstar under center.
Their truly devastating playoff losses, of which there are many, took place mostly in the 80s and 90s.
12. The San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers
There has not been a single season since 2001 that the Chargers have spent without a franchise quarterback. Fans watched as their front office seamlessly transitioned directly from Drew Brees to a fourteen-year starter in Phillip Rivers. Even when they tried to have a rebuild year with Tyrod Taylor in 2020, their first-round rookie Justin Herbert took the field just two weeks into the season after a member of the Chargers medical staff accidentally injured Taylor in the hours leading up to kickoff.
The Chargers missed the playoffs at 7-9, but it was clear that the Chargers had found their franchise player after the 4,300-yard, 36 total touchdown season that earned Herbert Offensive Rookie of the Year honors.
Not only have Chargers fans not spent a year without a high-level quarterback in two decades, they have also been able to witness one of the greatest running backs of all-time in LaDainian Tomlinson, including his record-shattering 31 total touchdown season in 2006.
The only real pain for Chargers fans has come from underperforming in the postseason and, of course, the move from San Diego to Los Angeles in 2017. The move has done little more than highlight how few fans the Chargers have. In pursuit of a larger market, they left their small-loyal fanbase and moved in with the Rams at Sofi Stadium.
If not for the large lightning bolt on the 50-yard-line, Chargers home games would be entirely indistinguishable from their road games. Still, fans that have been with the team since 2000 have enjoyed some deep playoff runs and consistent greatness on offense.
11. The New York Jets
In a manner rivaled only by the Browns and Lions, the Jets have put on a parade of total incompetence and misery for their fanbase in almost every season since their inception in 1960.
What makes the Jets unique from their brothers in arms at the bottom is their total inability to draft or trade for a franchise quarterback.
Jets fans will tell you today, with sincerity, that Joe Namath is the team’s most recent franchise quarterback. As crazy as the idea seems, they may very well be right.
Since Kickoff of the 2000 season, the Jets have kicked the tires on ten different starting quarterbacks including Brett Favre after he was good and Geno Smith before he was good. The ability to pick up quarterbacks for the worst portion of their career certainly pushes the mathematical boundaries of coincidence.
One of the rare cases where the Jets had a quarterback during his prime was Mark Sanchez.
The Sanchez era, in which the former USC quarterback averaged 3,000 passing yards, 17 touchdowns, and 17 interceptions per season, crumbled after four seasons, but its peak is still higher than most teams remaining on this list.
The Jets reached the AFC Championship game in two straight years from 2009-10 in a playoff tear that included wins over:
2009 Philip Rivers, LaDainian Tomlinson, and the 13-3 Chargers
2009 Prime Tom Brady and the 14-2 Patriots
2010 Peyton Manning and the Colts, who the Jets had lost to in the 2009 AFC Championship
While they lost both of the title games, they kept their arch nemesis from reaching another Super Bowl and gave themselves a better playoff win percentage than 75% of the league in the 21st century.
The Jets have not reached the playoffs since the 2010 postseason, the longest active playoff drought in the NFL, but this is the reality that the fans are used to. When the bar is this low, you can either complain or play limbo.
For now, Jets fans await the outcome of Aaron Rodger’s darkness retreat.
10. The Chicago Bears
Sure, there were technically nine teams that passed on Patrick Mahomes in the 2017 NFL Draft, but history will remember that only one team traded away four draft picks to move up a single spot and draft Mitch Trubisky 2nd overall.
Being in the same division as Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers for twenty-three consecutive seasons would do a number on most NFL franchises. All things considered; the Bears have handled the situation fairly well. They haven’t found a long-term answer at quarterback (fingers crossed on Justin Fields), but their defense has been fun to watch for most of the 2000s.
Brian Urlacher and the 2001 Chicago Bears allowed their opponents to score just 12.7 points per game. They beat this tally again in 2005, allowing 12.6 ppg, giving them two of the top six defensive seasons in the NFL since 2000.
The Bears lone Super Bowl appearance in the same span came in the 2006 season against Peyton Manning and the Colts. In the pouring rain, Bears receiver and return specialist Devin Hester returned the opening kickoff for the first kick return TD in Super Bowl History.
The rest of the game was highly unremarkable, sparing Bears fans from being reminded of their heartbreaking defeat for years to come.
Bears fans have experienced a handful of postseason heartbreaks since, the most noteworthy being the infamous “Double Doink.”
Infamously, the Bears selected QB Mitch Trubisky ahead of Mahomes in the 2017 Draft. Both quarterbacks found themselves in the playoffs in their sophomore seasons. While it was already clear that the Bears had made the wrong choice, Trubisky had not yet revealed himself as a bust, leading the Bears to a division-winning 12-4.
The 9-7 Eagles visited Chicago in the Wildcard Round. In a low-scoring affair, Nick Foles found Golden Tate in the end zone with just a minute left, putting the Bears down 16-15. After a failed two-point conversion, the Bears and their single timeout took the field in an attempt to reach field goal range and put the game away.
Starting with good field position, a few quick completions placed the Bears in range for a forty-three-yard attempt.
Chicago kicker Cody Parkey trotted out for a career defining kick. Following a good snap and hold, Parkey sent the ball flying. The arch curved left, hitting the left upright, then the crossbar, and eventually came to rest on the ground in front of the posts.
The Trubisky era would last just two more seasons after back-to-back 8-8 records.
The future is unknown for the Bears, but Justin Fields had one of the quietest 1,000-yard quarterback rushing seasons in NFL history and they hold the #1 overall pick in the 2023 Draft.
9. The Houston Texans
The NFL’s most recent expansion team has played thirty-two less games than the rest of the league since being added ahead of the 2002 season. The addition of the Texans allowed the NFL to create the wonderfully symmetrical and divisible four-team division structure.
The “central” divisions were dissolved and replaced by south and north divisions in each conference. To the benefit of the young Houston fanbase, the Texans were placed in the new AFC South alongside the Jaguars, Titans and Colts. This collection of teams, as of 2023, has fewer wins than any other division in the NFL with a record of 644-706-2.
This meant that the Texans were thrown into the ring with a near-dynasty level Colts team, whose 2002-2012 seasons alone account for more than 1/6 of the AFC South’s wins since 2002.
In the 2003 NFL Draft they selected wide receiver Andre Johnson, who quickly became a fan favorite. Johnson averaged over 1,100 yards per season in his twelve years in Houston, becoming the first inductee into the Texans ring of honor in 2017. Johnson’s 14,185 yards place him just one spot outside of the top ten for career receiving yards in NFL history.
As soon as they moved on from Johnson, they drafted Deandre Hopkins who matched Johnson’s average in a seven-year stint with the team.
While they never struggled to find top-five receiver talent, it took them fifteen years to find a reliable franchise quarterback, selecting Deshaun Watson out of Clemson with the twelfth overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.
The Watson to Hopkins connection immediately clicked, resulting in three consecutive first-team all-pro selections for Hopkins from 2017-2019 and two straight playoff berths in from 2018-19.
Texans fans would only get to enjoy four seasons with a franchise quarterback, as Watson demanded a trade amidst a hailstorm of sexual assault and misconduct allegations in 2020. Hopkins was traded away to the Cardinals in the same offseason, and Houston has yet to find a replacement for their two best players.
The post-Watson Houston Texans could not be less recognizable from the team that took home four AFC South titles in five seasons from 2015-2019. Their 2021 and 2022 teams have ranked in the bottom five in both offensive and defensive statistics across the NFL. The last time they achieved this improbable benchmark was in the first two years after their creation in 2002.
8. The Atlanta Falcons
It takes fewer characters to ruin a Falcons fan day than any other fanbase in the National Football League.
“Malcolm Butler at the goal line”
“Dez caught it”
“Caught! Diggs! Sideline! Touchdown!”
But for the Falcons faithful, the fans who celebrated at halftime, the ones who popped the champagne just a quarter too early, a simple “28-3” is as devastating as it gets.
Unless you’re an overly avid fan of a different NFC South team, you were rooting for the Falcons in Super Bowl LI. The league’s best offense managed to maintain an underdog charm, even after dismantling Aaron Rodgers and the Packers in the NFC Championship game.
In many cases, an argument can be made that a bad call or a single player’s performance is the reason why a team lost. In Super Bowl LI, it took a team effort to blow twenty-five points in just eighteen minutes of game clock.
While it’s hard to hand out blame to specific people, why Dan Quinn and Kyle Shanahan were still passing the ball late in the third quarter instead of running out the clock is a question Falcons fans have been rifling with for years.
The Patriots used just two minutes on their game-tying drive in the final moments. If the Falcons had run the ball and let the clock run as much as possible on every offensive snap of the second half, they could have won by a comfortable margin.
Instead, the coaches pushed the envelope, and the resulting handful of sacks, incompletions, and penalties gave Tom Brady everything he needed to shock the world and hand the Falcons one of the single worst losses in the history of professional sports.
The rest of the Falcons twenty-first century experience seems insignificant by comparison, but they have consistently fielded an electric offense and have the luxury of playing in one of the nicest (if not the nicest) stadiums in the country.
In terms of regular season fan experience, there have only been three seasons since 2000 that the Falcons have spent without a franchise quarterback.
Falcons fans were also able to watch Michael Vick’s emergence as he revolutionized the quarterback position and took the team on two playoff runs. The arrest of Vick was crushing for the city of Atlanta and his loving fans.
Thankfully, Vick has been incredibly outspoken in contrition for his crimes, not making excuses and eventually reviving his career with other teams.
By the time Vick made his way back to the NFL, the Matt Ryan experience was already well underway in Atlanta. Four playoff trips in Ryan’s first five seasons culminated in the 2012 NFC Championship game, where the Falcons blew a seventeen-point lead in Atlanta.
The post-Ryan era kicked off in the 2022 season, employing an ill-fated split of veteran quarterback Marcus Mariota and third-round rookie Desmond Ridder out of Cincinnati. Mariota, who left the team without warning after being benched for Ridder in December, started thirteen games totaling 2,219 yards, 15 touchdowns, and 9 interceptions.
His replacement stepped in and led the Falcons to a 2-2 record that almost earned them a playoff berth in the NFL’s worst division, but the switch was made so unnecessarily late into the season that it’s hard to tell if Ridder can be the starter in 2023.
The Falcons are one of many teams pursuing Lamar Jackson this offseason, and with Kyle Pitts, Drake London, and the second most cap space in the NFL, now could be the perfect time to go all-in on the best available player on the market.
7. The Dallas Cowboys
The Cowboys position on this list is propped clumsily under the crutch of regular season success in the 21st century. From the way the Cowboys are talked about, you would never guess that they have the eleventh most regular season wins and have had more top-five offenses than seventy-five percent of the league.
The early 2000’s Cowboys struggled for years to find any type of consistency at the quarterback position. After six consecutive seasons with a different leading passer, it was somehow the undrafted quarterback Tony Romo that finally brought Dallas back to their winning ways.
Romo carried the Cowboys to three playoff berths in his first four years as a starter, each with a uniquely tragic ending, the most noteworthy of which being the fumbled hold against Seattle in 2006.
His final playoff game was similarly a one-possession nail-biter that resulted in a Cowboys loss, but this time, the fault couldn’t be placed on the quarterback.
On a 4th and 2 from the Green Bay 32 yard-line, Romo unleashed a perfect lob to Dez Bryant streaking down the sideline. Bryant caught the ball, turned, and extended the ball towards the end zone in an attempt to score.
The refs called it a touchdown. NFL head of officiating Mike Pereira called it a touchdown. Somehow the play ended up under further review, where officials called it an incompletion. Similar to the Saints vs. Rams no call, the football public unanimously agreed afterwards, with the exception of some Packers fans, that the refs had made the wrong call.
The play was so clearly a completion that the NFL had to make an official definition of a catch in the following offseason. If you watch the play side-by-side with the NFL’s new definition of a catch, it quickly becomes clear that they used the play as the standard, as Bryant completed not one, or two, but three of the minimum requirements to be called a catch:
“Control the ball”
“Get two feet down”
“Step or reach towards the line to gain”
Again, cosmic justice would be done, as the Packers lost the next week to the Seahawks after the infamous Bostic botched onside kick recovery.
Romo would finish his career with a 2-4 playoff record.
Thankfully, the Cowboy’s beloved franchise quarterback was shewed out the door after eight seasons in order to replace him with Dak Prescott, who has now played just one less season than his predecessor.
Prescott’s playoff record? 2-4.
The two franchise quarterback’s playoff records, combined with a helpful 0-1 playoff contribution from the 2003 Cowboys, makes them one of only four NFL teams to win less than a third of their playoff games since 2000. Their real estate at the bottom of the NFL barrel is shared with the 0-3 Lions and the 1-5 Commanders and Dolphins.
Sports Illustrated
6. The Jacksonville Jaguars
Unlike their 1995 AFC South expansion counterpart in Houston, the Jaguars found near immediate success, reaching the AFC Championship game just a season after being introduced as a team. They even followed up with three more consecutive playoff berths, including another title game in the 1999 season, but their window slammed closed in line with the turning of the century.
It took the Jaguars from 2000-2022 to earn as many playoff wins (4) as they had in that four-season window in the late 90s.
The Jaguars have finished 3rd or 4th in their division in all but six seasons since 2000 and are one of only three NFL teams to have less regular season wins than the Texans, who have played thirty-two less games than every other team.
While the Jaguars are often tossed into discussion with the Lions and Browns, they have won more playoff games than the Browns or Lions have played.
Jags fans can also boast a Conference Championship appearance, something that can’t be said for six NFL teams since 2000. That AFC Title game in the 2017 postseason was a closely fought game that, in typical Patriots fashion, saw a sprinkle of vital calls go in their favor. The 10-6 Jaguars and their defensive line at least proved that they deserved to be there and outplayed the Patriots in a 24-20 defeat.
Despite finishing top five in offensive and defensive metrics in the 2017 season, the Jaguars returned straight to the bottom of the AFC South the very next year where they remained for four consecutive years.
The Urban Meyer experiment was an unprecedented disaster that produced more uniquely embarrassing headlines than wins by a significant margin. The delayed progression of first overall draft pick Trevor Lawrence is hard to pin on anything but Meyer’s frivolity and incompetence.
Lawrence stats per game with Meyer as coach: 210 YARDS | .7 TD | 1.1 INT | 70 QBR
Lawrence stats per game with Doug Peterson: 240 YARDS | 1.4 TD | .5 INT | 95.2 QBR
After a rough start to the 2022 season, the Jaguars ended up winning the AFC South and completing the third-largest playoff comeback in NFL history against the Chargers before falling to the Chiefs in Arrowhead.
Jaguars fans have had it rough, but for now they have something they haven’t had in twenty years: A true franchise quarterback and a promising future.
5. The Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders
“The Tuck Rule”
January 19, 2002
Foxboro, Mass
25 degrees Fahrenheit – 10-20 m.p.h winds – 4 inches of snow
In the midst of a blustery snowstorm, the west coast Raiders had outplayed the New England natives deep into the fourth quarter. The Patriots hadn’t led the game for a single snap, but with just over two minutes remaining, Brady and the Patriots took the field down 13-10 with a chance to go ahead or send the game into overtime.
A good punt return for the Patriots had set them up at the edge of Raiders territory at their own forty-six. After two short completions, Brady and the Patriots had made it 1st and 10 at the Raiders forty-two.
With Brady in shotgun and running back J.R. Redmond offset left, the Raiders had the Patriots totally out schemed. At the snap, Redmond checks for rushers for half a second before splitting out for a flat route. Just moments before the snap, Raiders Hall of Fame corner Charles Woodson crept up to the right side of the line.
With no tight end blocking and Redmond checking out to the left, Woodson went totally unchecked, colliding with Brady just two seconds after the ball was snapped. With his back turned to Woodson, Brady went to attempt a pass and decided better of it, bringing the ball’s momentum to a total stop. Moments later, Woodson’s collision immediately sent the ball flying from Brady’s hand into the powder where it was promptly pounced upon by Raider’s leading tackler Greg Biekert.
The Boston Herald
The Patriots had used all three timeouts on the Raiders previous drive, so if the proper call had been made, the game was over. Charles Woodson adds to his Hall of Fame resume with a strip sack in a pivotal playoff game, Tom Brady suffers the consequence of a rookie mistake in his playoff debut, and the story of the Patriot’s dynasty no longer includes three Super Bowl wins in four seasons.
Instead, the refs gathered around and decided to review the play, where they decided that the play would be called an incomplete pass. Similar to the Dez Bryant play over a decade later, the play was so clearly a fumble that the NFL created the “tuck rule” using Tom Brady’s butter fingers as a clear visual example of a fumbled ball.
In the wide and largely unstudied spectrum of fanbase pain, the 21st century Raiders are a phenomenal testcase. After experiencing the irreversible pain of incompetence driven injustice from the referees, they managed to flip the script entirely just a year later.
Less than a month after the conclusion of the “tuck rule” game, Raiders long-time owner Al Davis sent head coach John Gruden to the Buccaneers in return for two first-round and two second-round picks. From that moment on, just about everything that can go wrong for a team has happened in perpetuity for the Raiders.
Gruden immediately led the Buccaneers, who had won two playoff games in their twenty-six-year existence, to a Super Bowl in which they absolutely decimated the Oakland Raiders 48-21.
In the two decades since this Super Bowl, the Raiders have suited up for two total playoff games, both on the road, and both featuring more Raiders turnovers than touchdowns.
As for the picks that they received in exchange for Gruden, they were used to pick up two defensive linemen who totaled seven sacks, one good corner who they lost to free agency after three seasons, and a wide receiver who never took an NFL snap.
Sixteen years (and nine head coaches) after trading Gruden away, the Raiders decided to bring him back, pulling him away from a cozy TV role to coach a team that had managed just two winning seasons since his departure. The experiment was beginning to work before a series of emails featuring a starling variety of politically incorrect terms surfaced. Somehow, this was only the second most embarrassing way the Raiders have parted ways with John Gruden as head coach in the twenty-first century.
In 2019, during the second age of Gruden, the Raiders decided to abandon their Bay Area fans and set up shop in Las Vegas, leaving one of the NFL’s most passionate fan bases with nothing but really-really sad memories.
They are also without a starting quarterback for the 2023 season, choosing to part ways with Derek Carr, their all-time leader in passing yards, touchdowns, interception percentage, completion percentage, and quarterback rating.
4. The Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins have managed to land themselves as close to the absolute median of team wins as possible in the sixteenth slot (177-193) since 2000, but they’ve done so in quite underwhelming fashion.
One of just four NFL franchises with two or less top five offensive or defensive seasons in the twenty-first century, the Dolphins have spent the past two decades in an almost invisible shade cast by the division rival Patriots.
This places Miami fans in some form of purgatory: not enough success to obtain a scrappy underdog identity but too successful to earn sympathy.
The result has been an ever-changing set of mid-range quarterbacks with occasional excitement in free agency that fizzles in time for the postseason. Before the 2022 season the Dolphins had made two trips to the playoffs resulting in five blowout losses, the worst of which a 62-7 flogging in Jacksonville.
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While the 2022 team showed some promise and made Josh Allen’s Bills sweat it out, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has been a serious injury liability. A series of concussions put Tua out for four games in 2022 and many would argue that he should have sat out longer for his own safety.
The outlook for the future is much brighter now than it was before the hiring of head coach Mike McDaniel. The first-time head coach handled the Tua situation with class and carried himself with a rare-seen air of transparency and honesty between himself, the media, and the players. This could always just be an act put on for the cameras, but players seem to follow his direction.
Regardless, it’s not common for first-time coaches to come in and have such an immediate impact. While many fans would scoff at the idea of celebrating a close first-round playoff loss, the Phins had been outscored by an alarming 166-31 across their previous five playoff losses.
The twenty-first century Dolphins fan experience has been one of constant uncertainty, fierce mediocrity, and tapered expectations. Even the promise brought by coach McDaniel is shrouded in uncertainty with the current quarterback state.
Yet, if the Dolphins are able to properly protect Tua, they no longer have to worry about Brady twice a year, and are 1-2 against the Bills, keeping all three matchups within three points this past season.
3. The Detroit Lions
In January of 1992, the Detroit Lions absolutely laid waste to the Dallas Cowboys in the Divisional Round, breaking up the Cowboys Super Bowl dynasty. The day after that game, Lions fans unknowingly entered what has become the longest active NFL playoff win drought at thirty-one years.
If the Lions make it to 2025 without breaking this streak, they will break their own franchise record of thirty-three years (1959-Dallas in 1992), giving them two of the four longest streaks in the history of the National Football League.
For a fanbase that has experienced one single playoff win in the entirety of the Super Bowl era, it’s hard to imagine that narrowing the pain to events post 2000 really changes much. Still, it hasn’t been all misery for Lions fans. The Calvin Johnson era may have ended sooner than expected, but from 2008-2015, the best receiver in the NFL resided in the Motor City.
Despite retiring at the young age of thirty, Johnson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility post retirement.
The selection of Matthew Stafford at quarterback with the first overall pick in the 2009 NFL Draft was absolutely revolutionary for the Lions fanbase and for the success of Calvin Johnson. The first overall selection had been earned after the Lions made the wrong kind of history with a 0-16 season the season prior.
Stafford would miss all but three games of his sophomore season, but by his third year he had the Lions back in the playoffs for the first time in twelve years with a 10-6 record.
The Lions returned to the postseason three total times in the Stafford/Johnson era, all Wildcard games, with only one not resulting in a blowout loss. Considering the one close game was against a post-2000 Cowboys playoff team, it might as well be considered three blowout losses.
That 2014 Cowboys vs. Lions matchup also included some referee controversy that Lions fans will still talk about to this day. A phantom offensive pass interference call late in the 4th quarter ended a Lions drive that could have potentially put them up by two possessions. Instead, Dallas got the ball back and put the game away 24-20.
Again, the NFL may not directly address and fix the abysmal quality of their officiating, but Lions fans could take crumbs of consolation watching the Cowboys lose the very next week at the hands of poor officiating.
Six seasons and another sad playoff attempt later, the Lions were forced to part ways with the best quarterback to ever put on the baby blue, sending the veteran down to Los Angeles for QB Jared Goff and multiple first, second, and third round picks. Neither team seemed to view Goff as a long-term answer at quarterback when the trade went down, but in just his second year with Detroit he managed to lead the team to a winning record and a top-five offense in 2022.
Naturally, Matthew Stafford immediately won a Super Bowl with the Rams, receiving almost exclusively love and support from his long-time fans up North.
Detroit Free Press
2. The Washington Commanders
The Washington Commanders can celebrate more name changes than playoff wins on this side of the year 2000. If they happened to change their name a third time, they would match the number of division titles they’ve won in that same span.
Since their last Divisional Round playoff win during the Bush presidency (George Bush Sr, to clarify), Washington has started thirty-four different quarterbacks. If a quarterback makes the fatal mistake of showing promise, they are quickly shown the door.
Since 2000, Washington has had just four quarterbacks with a winning record:
– Tony Banks: 8-6 | 10 TD | 10 INT | Released after one season
– Todd Collins: 3-0 | 5 TD | 0 INT | Released after four seasons as backup
– Alex Smith: 11-5 | 16 TD | 10 INT | Retired after suffering serious leg injury
– Taylor Heinicke: 12-11-1 | 33 TD | 21 INT | Benched without warning after going 5-3-1 in 2022 (other WAS quarterbacks went 3-5) before being traded to the Falcons.
One of very few other twenty-first century quarterbacks to find any level of success in burgundy in gold, Kirk Cousins, was selected in the fourth round of the 2012 NFL Draft to back up Robert Griffin III.
Washington made the shift to Cousins as their starter ahead of the 2015 season and he immediately led them to just their second NFC East title since 2000. Cousin’s three starting seasons in Washington currently rank 1st, 2nd, and 4th highest in single season passing yards in franchise history.
Cousins also holds the 2nd, 4th, and 6th best single season passer rating among Washington quarterbacks to start at least eight games. While his overall record with the team was below .500 (28-33-1), his record when he was the known starter entering the season was a remarkably better 24-23-1.
Washington ownership must have noticed this, because as soon as they were tasked with paying Cousins in the 2018 offseason, they opted to rid themselves of their most productive quarterback since Joe Theismann in the mid 1980s. Cousins landed on the Vikings where he has been selected to three pro bowls in five years, held the league’s seventh best passer rating, and became the Vikings 3rd all time passing yard leader.
Since 2018, Cousins has started 80 out of 82 games and led the Vikings to a 46-33-1 record. Washington has attempted eleven quarterbacks whose combined record is 32-49-1.
Somehow, the on-field product is not the most discouraging part of the Commander fan experience.
The few bright moments that Washington fans have been able to experience since 2000 have been quickly identified and ruined by an owner whose incompetence (evidenced by total inability and/or refusal to retain talent) and corruption (a claim supported by N.Y. Times, U.S. Congress, and many more) have done nothing but hurt the franchise since ownership papers were signed in 1999.
As assurance that the above words are not overly harsh or exaggerated, an abundance of sourced articles detailing the sexual misconduct, blackmail, bribery, and more can be found here:
Washington players call out Dan Snyder’s terrible facilities, staff in new NFLPA survey
Details emerge of 2009 sexual assault allegation against Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder
Report: Daniel Snyder believes he’s protected by dirt he has on other owners and Roger Goodell
Report: Daniel Snyder Offered Sexual Assault Accuser at Least $1M Not to Talk to NFL
As of March 2023, Snyder has yet to announce a sale of the Washington Commanders.
Sportslogos.net
1. The Cleveland Browns
This list is limited strictly to pain experienced after the year 2000, and since Browns fans would find themselves here by any measure, it feels wrong to exclude perhaps the worst thing that’s happened to an NFL fanbase in the Super Bowl era: Art Modell and the Baltimore Ravens.
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It wasn’t always like this…
In the late 1980s, the Cleveland Browns were a juggernaut of the AFC, winning the then AFC Central Division four times in five seasons. With the number one overall pick in the 1985 NFL draft, the Browns selected Bernie Kosar, a quarterback out of the University of Miami who led the Hurricanes to a college championship win in 1983 as a freshman.
The late great head coach Marty Schottenheimer was named head coach in the same offseason, and the duo found immediate success, reaching the playoffs in their first year together. Just a year later they were back, this time winning in the Divisional Round, breaking a seventeen-year drought of playoff wins, before losing to the Broncos on the way to John Elway’s first Super Bowl appearance.
The first five years of Kosar’s career resulted in four first-place finishes in the AFC Central, five trips to the playoffs, and three gutting AFC Championship losses to the same team, the Denver Broncos. The first was settled in the first overtime in AFC Championship history. Kosar and the Browns won the toss and received but punted after a three and out. The masterful drive from Elway to force overtime was so impressive that it now owns the title of “The Drive” in the annals of NFL history.
Cleveland.com
The second loss to the Broncos was the very next season. This time, the Browns had the ball in the waning moments within the Broncos goal line after a drive that could have rivaled Elway’s from the year before. Instead, the Browns found a more appropriately tragic way to be enshrined in NFL history: “The Fumble.”
Kosar lined up under center with running back Earnest Byner lined up offset right. Byner followed his blocks power left, making a quick cut before launching with the velocity necessary to propel himself into the end zone and his team into the promised land. On a day where Byner had compiled 187 all-purpose yards and a touchdown, he is remembered for one ill-timed mistake. As he bulleted towards the end zone, a stray peanut bunch from Bronco’s corner Jeremiah Castille jarred the football loose and recovered the fumble himself.
The next time the Browns met their rival in the AFC Championship, the game wouldn’t be close enough to warrant a nickname. It would also be played with a new face on the sidelines, as Schottenheimer, despite leading the team on four straight playoff trips for the first time since the 1950s, was replaced with Bud Carson, a long-time defensive coordinator. A 37-21 blowout at the hands of their most hated rival still wasn’t dark enough to foreshadow Cleveland’s future.
Carson had the Browns back to a three-win performance just a season later, replaced just halfway through his second season. The Browns chose to take a flier on a young upstart defensive coordinator who had helped coach a dominant New York Giants to two Super Bowl wins, the first of which over a foe very familiar to the Browns, the 1986 Denver Broncos.
This new character would become a household name for his success in the twenty-first century, but not with the Browns, because halfway through Bill Belichick’s fifth season as Browns head coach, Art Modell made a big announcement.
On the morning of November 4, 1995, Cleveland fans woke up to news that their beloved Browns would be moving to Baltimore.
The details weren’t immediately known to the rightly riotous fanbase, many players and coaches would be retained, but the mascot would become the “Ravens.”
A fanbase will never appreciate their owner abandoning them, but there is a chance the move would have gone over better if not announced during the middle of a heated playoff push. The Browns were 4-4 when the news broke and 1-7 down the stretch.
Browns fans protested at their final home game by ripping benches, seats, and guard rails from their concrete constraints and tossing them onto the field. The protest was so effective that refs had to meet to determine how to play the game under the precipitation of assorted seating materials in end zone contained within the famous “Dawg Pound.”
It was decided that each team would switch directions once they reached the fifty-yard-line, staying as far from the ‘pound’ as possible. The result was the Browns only win after the announcement, a win that would remove the Ohio rival Bengals from playoff contention.
After the final whistle, Browns players ran up to the dawg pound to console and reminisce with a fanbase that had stood by them through five straight years of playoff devastation and the half-century before it before heading into the halls of old Cleveland Municipal Stadium for the last time.
Bill Belichick was not kept on with the team, taking a defensive coordinator position with the Jets for a few seasons before being hired as Patriots head coach.
The Browns would rejoin the NFL as a 1999 expansion team, and despite sharing no real DNA with the original Browns, they were welcomed with open arms by a fanbase starved of professional football for four years.
Everything since 1999 has been a waking nightmare.
2000 (two wins): Cleveland fans watch Art Modell and the Baltimore Ravens celebrate a Super Bowl win just five years after the move. The owner who made nine figures off of the Browns, watched his fans suffer one of the most gruesome half-centuries in American Sports, and left them with absolutely nothing, is rewarded with a Super Bowl.
2001 (three wins): Bill Belichick wins his first Super Bowl in New England. It’s painful to see their former head coach find such immediate success with another team. Surely, he won’t go on to become the greatest head coach in the history of professional football. That would be embarrassing, to say the absolute least.
2002 (nine wins, and a playoff berth): Now on their second head coach of the twenty-first century, it seems like the Browns may have really turned a corner. A close 36-33 road loss to the division rival Steelers in the Wildcard Round stings, but the future is bright.
2003 – 2004 (nine total wins): Belichick wins two more Super Bowls, becoming the first coach in the history of the NFL to win three in four seasons. Back in Cleveland, another coach is fired.
2005 – 2016 (avg. five wins per season): Twelve years and six head coaches later, the Browns lone season with a winning record fails to earn them a playoff berth. Players like Johnny Manziel and Josh Gordon come and go, bringing far more joy to the TMZ writing staff than their own fanbase. Two missed field goals by Chargers kicker Josh Lambo gives the Browns their only win (20-17) of the 2016 season, the worst record in a sixty-five-year franchise history. Going 1-15 may be humiliating, but at least…
2017 (zero wins): 0-16.
2018 – 2021 (avg. eight wins): For the first time in nearly thirty years, the Browns have a franchise quarterback. Baker Mayfield goes first overall in the 2018 NFL Draft, leading the Browns to a 7-8-1 record in his rookie season. Despite playing under four different head coaches in his first three seasons, Baker keeps composure and leads the Browns to eleven wins in 2020 for the first time since the Belichick (who has now won six Super Bowls, but who’s counting?) era, and their first playoff berth since 2002.
On January 10, 2021, Baker Mayfield and the Browns absolutely decimated the hated-rival Steelers in a 48-37 game that was not nearly as close as the score would indicate. Mayfield connected on three touchdown passes, didn’t turn the ball over once, and finished with a 115.2 QB rating.
The Browns wound up playing the Chiefs the following week, once again on the road. This time the turnovers would not come so easily, but Baker kept the Browns in the game with a chance to advance to the AFC Championship game. As tends to come in Arrowhead, the refs gave the Chiefs an absolutely game-altering no call late in the second half.
Down 3-16, Baker hit receiver Rashard Higgins on a twenty-four-yard completion down the Chiefs sideline. Higgins caught the ball and turned for the end zone. If Chiefs safety Daniel Sorenson had not purposefully beamed Higgins with a helmet-to-helmet hit, the Browns would have scored a touchdown. Instead, the ref watched from no more than ten feet away and didn’t throw the flag.
Much like the Rams vs. Saints game, Sorenson gets up and looks at the ref, stares for a few seconds, and then retreats to the sideline, seemingly in shock that he could get away with that clear of a hit so close to an NFL official.
As anyone who was just beamed in the side of the head at full force would, Higgins fumbled the ball, making it a touchback and giving the ball to the Chiefs.
Despite the devastating (though not shocking) incompetence from the referee crew, the Browns stayed in the game late into the fourth quarter, but eventually fell 22-17.
Baker Mayfield led the Browns to their first playoff win in twenty-five years and came just five (thank you Daniel Sorenson) points from the AFC Championship. Surely, they would extend him, even if his performance dipped while playing through multiple injuries the following season.
Nope-
They traded Mayfield to the Panthers for a conditional fourth round draft pick and sent their 2022, 2023, and 2024 first-round picks to the Texans in exchange for Deshawn Watson (and his twenty-four active sexual assault and misconduct lawsuits). They immediately signed Watson to a fully guaranteed $230 million-dollar contract, the most guaranteed money in the history of the NFL.
Watson served an eleven-week suspension before taking the field for the final six weeks. He posted the league’s single worst completion percentage among starting quarterbacks and a QBR worse than most backup quarterbacks.
The single thing that Browns’ fans could scrape joy from since their return in 99’ was their role as lovable underdog. The front office managed to rip this from the hands of Browns fans the moment they signed Deshaun Watson.
The Browns finished last in the AFC North for the first time since drafting Baker Mayfield in 2018.
Since 2000, the Patriots’ 262 regular season wins under Belichick are twenty-seven more than the next closest team. His former team sits on the very opposite end of the spectrum at 125, less than half.
There’s nothing to suggest Bill Belichick would have ever moved on from Cleveland had Modell not ripped the position out from under him.
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