Docs Website

54 Years Strong! A Trusted Leader In Sports Picks, Best Bets and Predictions Since 1971.

Main Menu

The Most Cursed Franchises in NFL History

by Jeremy Block - 9/22/2026

Most cursed franchises in NFL history Deshaun Watson Cleveland Browns

Most NFL fan bases make peace with losing eventually. Bad teams rebuild, hit on a quarterback, and work their way back into the hunt. But a handful of franchises have suffered so much that their fans stopped blaming the coaching staff decades ago and started blaming actual curses. 

Twelve teams in the NFL have never won a Super Bowl, and four of them have never even played in one, though some of those droughts sting a lot more than others. Missed field goals, massive leads that vanished in the second half, and an owner who moved the whole team to another state have all done their part; some teams have dealt with it all. Let's count down the NFL six franchises that could never catch a break.

Doc’s Sports offers NFL expert picks for every game on our NFL predictions page.

6. Cincinnati Bengals

For a franchise that has reached three Super Bowls, the Bengals have little to show for it besides a round of applause for getting that far. Cincinnati is 0-3 on the biggest stage and went 31 years without winning a single playoff game, from January 1991 until January 2022.

To make things even better, the 49ers handed the Bengals their first two Super Bowl losses, 26-21 after the 1981 season and 20-16 after the 1988 season, when Joe Montana led a 92-yard drive for the winning touchdown with 34 seconds left. The one time the drought looked ready to end for Cincy fans, Carson Palmer tore his ACL on his first pass of the 2005 wild card round against the Pittsburgh Steelers. We all know how that game ended.

The 2020s have brought a bit of hope, with Joe Burrow dragging the franchise back into the postseason and onto the Super Bowl radar, but the curse came along as well, with the Rams taking Super Bowl LVI 23-20 on a late touchdown drive. Since then, Cincinnati has now missed the playoffs three straight seasons since its 2022 AFC Championship run.

5. Los Angeles Chargers

Bad luck has followed the Chargers from San Diego to Los Angeles. And more than six decades in, the franchise still does not have a title. Its only Super Bowl trip ended in a 49-26 beating from the 49ers after the 1994 season, and the playoff collapses since have become so run of the mill that fans came up with a word for them: Chargering.

Surprisingly, the Chargers have always put together good offenses, and the kicker still found a way to ruin it. Nate Kaeding missed a 40-yarder in overtime of a January 2005 playoff loss to the Jets, which would have been bad enough on its own. Five years later he led the entire league with 32 made field goals, matched up with the Jets in the playoffs again, and missed three kicks in a 17-14 loss. Somewhere in New Jersey, there is probably still a thank-you card with his name on it. 

The January 2023 wild card game took the cake, though. Los Angeles picked off Trevor Lawrence four times and led Jacksonville 27-0 late in the first half, then lost 31-30 on a field goal as time expired, the third-largest comeback in playoff history, keeping the Chargers' curse alive and well and giving fans false hope once again.

4. Atlanta Falcons

Very little has gone Atlanta's way since the Falcons joined the league in 1966, and 60 seasons later the franchise is still waiting on its first title. Both trips to the Super Bowl ended in losses, and the Falcons have now gone eight straight seasons without making the playoffs, the second-longest drought in the league.

The first trip set the tone. Atlanta went 14-2 in 1998 and knocked off a 15-1 Minnesota team in overtime just to get there, then ran into John Elway in the final game of his career and lost Super Bowl XXXIII 34-19.

The second trip somehow went even worse. Atlanta steamrolled through the regular season, and it really looked like the Super Bowl was there for the taking, since there did not seem to be a team anywhere that could stop the Matt Ryan and Julio Jones duo.

The Falcons led New England 28-3 midway through the third quarter of Super Bowl LI, then watched Tom Brady remind them who sits at the head of the table, racking up 31 straight points to win 34-28 in the first overtime game in Super Bowl history. Nine years later, “28-3” is still the go-to insult for any blown lead in any sport, and Falcons fans have heard every version of the joke.

3. Detroit Lions

Entire generations of Detroit fans went their whole lives without seeing the Lions win a playoff game, let alone make a deep run, and the franchise still has never played in a Super Bowl. After winning the 1957 NFL title, Detroit won exactly one playoff game between then and January 2024, and in 2008 it became the first team in league history to finish 0-16.

To add onto the pile of misfortune, losing the best player in franchise history did not help. Barry Sanders faxed his retirement to a newspaper in Wichita in 1999, walking away at 30 with less than 1,500 yards between him and the all-time rushing record, which set the Lions back years without their best player suiting up.

Fast forward to the 2020’s, and the Dan Campbell era finally turned things around somewhat, and even that came with a catch. Detroit blew a 24-7 halftime lead to San Francisco in the 2023 NFC Championship, then went 15-2 as the top seed in 2024 and lost its first playoff game to Washington. It has been an uphill climb for the Lions, and they still cannot seem to cross the finish line.

2. New York Jets

With all the money and talent in New York, you'd think the Jets would be a contender every single season, and yet the franchise ranks as one of the two most cursed teams to ever step on the turf.

Most of the last five decades have been one rebuild after another for the Jets, who have not reached a Super Bowl since Joe Namath carried the team to one in 1969. The franchise has not made the playoffs since the 2010 season, either, which is the longest active drought in the NFL at 15 seasons.

The closest thing to hope Jets fans had was with Mark Sanchez, who took the team to back-to-back AFC Championship games in 2009 and ‘10. Of course, New York lost both, to Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, and has not played a single postseason game since, leaving those two runs as the last bit of January football anybody in green and white has had. 

1. Cleveland Browns

It should come as no surprise that the Cleveland Browns are by far the most cursed franchise in NFL history. Eight championships between 1946 and 1964 made the Browns one of pro football's first powerhouses, and everything since has been one disaster after another. Cleveland has never played in a Super Bowl and has won just one playoff game since 1994.

The closest the Browns ever got came in the late 1980s, when they reached three AFC Championship games in four years and lost all three to the Denver Broncos. A few years later, owner Art Modell moved the team's players and front office to Baltimore after the 1995 season, where they became the Ravens and have since won two Super Bowls.

Cleveland got football back with an expansion team in 1999, name and history intact, and it did not take long for things to go right back to normal, which in Cleveland means losing. The revolving door at quarterback has spun so fast that Browns fans started printing every starter's name on the back of a single jersey. And when the 2017 team went 0-16, they threw a parade through downtown. Sixty-one seasons without a title, and it’s safe to say that nobody in Cleveland needs a lecture on curses.

Get NFL picks on every single game, or if you want our very best bets by the experts, sign up for your free $60 account with a guarantee.

Most Recent NFL Handicapping

One E-mail A Week Is All You Need!
Our weekly newsletter is loaded with exclusive free picks,insight and advice from our expert handicappers