Even Super Bowl berths and victory parades have eluded certain teams despite their best efforts. For a variety of reasons, including unexpected injuries, unfavorable situations, and several other causes, many NFL teams’ plans have not fulfilled expectations. These are the greatest of those attempts from the time of the Super Bowl.
1980 Seattle Seahawks
We are not yet at the possible champions sector of the list, but the Chuck Knox/Steve Largent Seahawks factored into the AFC’s 1980s contention mix. Their 9-7 1983 team derailed the Broncos and Dolphins in John Elway and Dan Marino’s rookie years to qualify for their first AFC title game (a Raiders rout). Seattle avenged that defeat a year later in the wild-card round after a 12-4 season but could not keep up with Marino in his record-setting form. However, the Seahawks interrupted Elway’s AFC West reign in 1988 and totaled four playoff berths in six years under Knox.
Early 1970s Cincinnati Bengals
Boasting quality teams in one of the two most challenging eras to be an AFC contender, Paul Brown’s Bengals made the four-team playoff bracket three times from 1970-75. Led by offenses Bill Walsh helped design, one featuring a young Ken Anderson, the Bengals won the AFC Central in 1970 and ’73. Cincinnati held off dynasty-in-waiting Pittsburgh in the latter year. These Bengals did not win a playoff game, coming closest in a 31-28 loss in Oakland in an 11-3 1975 season, but faced some dominant opposition — including a stacked 1973 Dolphins squad. Promoting Bill Johnson over Walsh after Brown’s 1976 retirement looms as this franchise’s biggest “what if?”
Dome patrol New Orleans saints
Like the NBA’s Pacers in LeBron’s East years, these Saints crested at a bad time — as Joe Montana and Steve Young thrived. Anchored by their Dome Patrol linebacker quartet — Hall of Famers Rickey Jackson and Sam Mills, 1991 Defensive Player of the Year Pat Swilling, and Vaughan Johnson — that saw its members combine for 19 Pro Bowl nods, the Saints booked four playoff spots from 1987-92. They twice won 12 games (their 12-3 1987 team’s DVOA ranked behind only the 49ers), won the NFC West in 1991, and led the NFL in scoring defense in ’91 and ’92. Unfortunately, Jim Mora’s teams did not win a postseason game and came close only once.
Post John elway Denver Broncos
Roads through Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were treacherous for other AFC threats, but the Broncos nearly broke through. Built around defense and myriad 1,000-yard rushers, the Broncos made the playoffs four times from 2000-05. The Ravens and Manning, respectively, shellacked three Mike Shanahan teams in Round 1. But Shanahan’s 2005 squad became the first to oust Brady in the playoffs. Led by Champ Bailey (eight INTs, two TDs), the 13-3 Broncos ranked second in ’05 DVOA but fell short of Super Bowl XL when the Steelers upset them in Denver. A Jake Plummer-to-Jay Cutler 2006 pivot preceded a five-year playoff drought.
Mike Zimmer Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings ranked in the top 10 defensively from 2015-19. Zimmer’s teams made the playoffs with three QBs — Teddy Bridgewater, Case Keenum, Kirk Cousins — and won 10-plus games in each of those slates. Minnesota used the 2012, ’13, ’14, and ’15 drafts to assemble its defensive nucleus, which backed Keenum in a 13-3 2017 season and Cousins in an 11-5 ’19 campaign. The Vikings beat the Saints twice in the playoffs under Zimmer despite having the inferior passer — once on perhaps the play of the 2010s — and were a 27-yard field goal from edging the 2015 Seahawks. While they were blown out after each postseason win, these Vikes showed some staying power.
Early 1990s Miami dolphins
Don Shula’s final seasons produced some forgotten contenders (or Dan Marino-propped-up lineups). Miami failed to provide its icon with much help, defensively or on the ground but made four postseasons in the final five Marino-Shula years. Three Bills teams eliminated the Dolphins; the 1992 AFC championship game was in Miami but non-competitive. Miami would have gone to the ’94 title game (in a Bills-less bracket) had Pete Stoyanovich made a 48-yard game-winning field goal try in San Diego. Fun fact: The Dolphins had one 1,000-yard rushing season during Marino’s 17-year career (Karim Abdul-Jabbar, 1996).
Mid 1970 Baltimore Colt
Like Paul Brown’s Bengals, these Colts emerged at a bad time for AFC success outside of Pittsburgh or Oakland. A young nucleus almost entirely different from the Super Bowl V champions won three straight AFC East titles from 1975-77. The eventual champion Steelers ousted the Colts in 1975. Bert Jones won the 1976 MVP award for the best of these Colt teams — an 11-3 squad — but the best Steel Curtain edition muzzled Baltimore in Round 1 again. Dave Casper’s Ghost to the Post sequence helped the Raiders vanquish the Colts in a 1977 overtime classic. The Colts never made the playoffs again in Baltimore.
Rex Ryan New York Jets
This may be too brief to be deemed a run, but Ryan’s first two Jets teams made a strong impression before the regime’s lean years. Among the Jets’ four playoff victims during their 2009-10 mini-surge: the 13-3 Chargers and 14-2 Patriots. Peyton Manning’s final Colts game was a loss to the 2010 Jets. While the ’09 Colts and ’10 Steelers ended these defense-oriented Jet iterations’ hopes in AFC championship games, this was still the most noise Gang Green has made since the Joe Namath days. Unfortunately for the Revis Island Jets defenses, Mark Sanchez did not climb to Namath’s level, and regression followed.
Randall Cunningham Eagles Philadelphia
The Eagles paired a new-age quarterback with upper-crust defenses, opening a Super Bowl window. Buddy Ryan’s 1988 team interrupted the Giants and Washington’s NFC East reigns but lost to the Bears in the Fog Bowl. Early playoff exits followed in 1989 and ’90, leading to Ryan’s ouster. Rich Kotite’s 10-6 1991 team did not make the playoffs, losing Cunningham to an ACL tear in Week 1, but Football Outsiders called that Reggie White-led defense the best of the past 34 years. The ’92 Eagles exorcised past playoff demons by beating the Saints, but a Cowboys blowout soon confirmed Philly missed its chance.
Late 1980 Minnesota Vikings
The 1987 Vikings nearly became the only eight-win team (thanks to their scabs’ 0-3 strike work) to book a Super Bowl berth. A week before a 17-10 defeat in Washington, 8-7 Minnesota — on the strength of Anthony Carter’s 227-yard receiving performance — stunned 13-2 San Francisco (No. 1 in offense and defense that year) 36-24 in Round 2. Darrin Nelson’s goal-line drop prevented Jerry Burns’ team from forcing OT against Washington, and the Vikings’ double-digit-win teams (and No. 1 defenses) the next two years ran into 49ers Super Bowl squads. The 1989 Herschel Walker trade, which ravaged Minnesota’s draft capital, helped end this chapter.
Late 2000 San Diego Chargers
The Chargers won four AFC West titles from 2006-09 and twice earned playoff byes. They carried four top-five offenses — headlined by fantasy warlord LaDainian Tomlinson — into second-round games but played for only one AFC championship. That game featured Tomlinson injured and Philip Rivers playing on a torn ACL. The then-unbeaten Patriots eliminated the Bolts after upsetting their 14-2 team a year earlier. After the 13-3 2009 group’s upset loss to the Jets, the Charger nucleus splintered. The Bolts did not play another playoff game in San Diego, moved to Los Angeles in 2017, and won 10 games just once in Rivers’ final 10 SoCal seasons.
Killer Bs Pittsburgh Steelers
The exits of Troy Polamalu and others from Steelers Super Bowl defenses ushered in an offense-geared era. Le’Veon Bell, a top-tier offensive line, and a historically dominant wideout enabled Ben Roethlisberger to post career-best numbers from 2014-18. But the Ben-Bell-Antonio Brown Steelers ran into frequent bad breaks — from Bell or Brown playoff unavailability to the Jesse James replay review that denied them home-field advantage to Ryan Shazier’s career-ending injury that gutted their 2017 defense. The Steelers went 45-19 from 2014-17 and won three playoff games, but a Round 2 loss to the Jaguars, Bell’s holdout and Brown’s chaos defined this era more than the success.
Matt lafleur Green Bay Packers
LaFleur’s 2019 arrival is a good line of demarcation for the modern Packers. While a few Mike McCarthy teams fell just short during the mid-2010s, connective tissue remained from the Super Bowl XLV squad. LaFleur’s club booked three straight playoff byes from 2019-21, going 39-10 in that span and seeing Aaron Rodgers win two more MVPs. The Pack qualified for back-to-back NFC title games, but a blowout loss to a 49ers bunch that has dominated this rivalry and a Bucs upset — with a smattering of fans at Lambeau Field due to COVID-19 — continued a run of January misery. All-Pro left tackle David Bakhtiari’s injury issues have been a microcosm of the team’s crunch-time shortcomings during this period.
Leave a Reply