NFL
Which team has the longest NFL playoff drought?
With the regular season coming to an end, teams are now focused on the playoffs. But who has the longest postseason drought?
After five months of competition, the NFL regular season has finished. 18 weeks of action that have shown who has real chances of getting to the Super Bowl and who could be the darkhorse of the tournament.
Those teams who have been caught between the devil and the deep blue sea in the last games will have the opportunity of finally becoming a playoff team in the wildcard weekend.
Other ones, though, have been less lucky and have been eliminated earlier than expected, saying goodbye to any postseason hope after not having a good campaign.
Some of the favorites before the start of the season have had little trouble when trying to book a spot in the playoffs, like the San Francisco 49ers.
Who has the longest NFL playoff drought?
While there are some sides whose performances may change depending on their season, there are others that seem to be stuck in the same situation in every term.
Teams like the Green Bay Packers, the Cowboys, the Pittsburgh Steelers, or the New York Giants use to be among the best 14 teams of the competition regularly once the regular season comes to an end, but some others like the Carolina Panthers, the Jacksonville Jaguars or the Houston Texans that have struggled way more historically to get to that stage of the competition.
While being eliminated from the playoffs is a bitter pill to swallow, not making it to the postseason may even be more frustrating, as it’s something teams work on for several weeks.
If there’s a team that can relate to that situation, that’s the New York Jets, as they have the longest playoff drought, with 13 seasons. Moreover, they haven’t won a championship since the 1968 campaign.
This season, they finished third in the AFC East division after 18 weeks of action. With a record of seven wind and 10 defeats, they weren’t able to give the Miami Dolphins and the Buffalo Bills a proper fight.
However, the longest all-time NFL playoffs drought is shared by the St. Louis Cardinals and the Washington Redskins. Both sides went 25 consecutive seasons without making the playoffs.