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NFL

Which NFL team has never made the playoffs?

With the 2022 playoffs upon us, we look back at the history of the National Football League postseason, and those who’ve never made it.

Update:
With the 2022 playoffs upon us, we look back at the history of the National Football League postseason, and those who’ve never made it.
Christian PetersenAFP

As we reach the end of another gruelling, exciting, heroic, disappointing (select/add the adjective of your choice) regular season in the National Football League, the playoffs are now taking our full attention. The teams that have made it are readying themselves for the next challenge while the rest reflect on what could have been en route to the drawing board.

So, out of the 32 teams that make up the league -- which as you know since 2002 has been divided into two conferences of 16 teams in the AFC, American Football Conference, and the NFC, National Football Conference -- how many have never reached the postseason? The answer says a lot about how the draft system balances things out over the years.

Every current NFL team has reached playoffs

Seven teams from each of the NFL’s two conferences qualify for the playoffs, and a tie-breaking procedure is used when required to ensure we end up with a total of 14. And as it turns out, all 32 active NFL teams have qualified for and even won a game in the playoffs.

There are only three teams that have not made it to double figures in playoff appearances, namely, the Carolina Panthers (8), the Jacksonville Jaguars (7) and the Houston Texans (6). At the other end, those with the most times in postseason are the Green Bay Packers (35), Dallas Cowboys (34), Pittsburgh Steelers (33) and the New York Giants (32).

What is the longest playoff drought?

OK, so we now know that there is not an active NFL teams that have never made it to the playoffs ever since the AFL and the NFL merged, there are a few teams who have really struggled in recent years to make it past the regular season, never mind getting all the way to the Super Bowl. Here is a list of those teams with rather frustrated fans:

TeamLast appearance in post-seasonSeasons
New York Jets2010 AFC championship12
Denver Broncos2015 Super Bowl 507
Detroit Lions2016 NFC wild card6
Carolina Panthers2017 NFC wild card5
Atlanta Falcons2017 NFC divisional5

Which NFL team has never played in the Super Bowl?

The Detroit Lions came so, so close to reaching the playoffs this year with a Week 18 victory over the Green Bay Packers. Yet, it wasn’t to be, and they are actually the oldest NFL team never to have appeared in a Super Bowl and the only franchise from the NFC to have never played for the trophy. Their last playoff victory came in 1992.

Which NFL teams have never won the Super Bowl?

In all, there are 12 teams who are yet to win the Super Bowl. They are as follows:

  • Atlanta Falcons
  • Arizona Cardinals
  • Buffalo Bills
  • Carolina Panthers
  • Cincinnati Bengals
  • Cleveland Browns
  • Detroit Lions
  • Houston Texans
  • Jacksonville Jaguars
  • Los Angeles Chargers
  • Minnesota Vikings
  • Tennessee Titans