It is the list of have-nots.

Indeed, it is not a list on which you want to be. It is the list of the current NFL teams that have never been to the Super Bowl since it began being played in the 1966 season.
The networks show it all the time, and they showed list again Sunday during the telecasts of the AFC and NFC championship games. It includes four teams, two old-school ones in the Browns and Detroit Lions, and two modern-era ones in the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans. The Browns joined the NFL in 1950, while the Lions began in 1930. The Jaguars started in 1995, and the Texans were born in 2002.

Interestingly enough, three of the four teams made the playoffs this year, and then other one nearly made it, getting eliminated on the last day of the regular season.

The Browns made it as a wild card in the AFC, and the Texans got in as champions of AFC South, just edging out the Jaguars. The Lions qualified as champions of the NFC North and got all the way to the conference title game, blowing a 17-point halftime lead en route to losing to the San Francisco 49ers.

The Browns have been within one win of getting to the Super Bowl on five different occasions. When they were still in the old NFL in the last years before the completion of the merger with the AFL, they played in the 1968 and ‘69 NFC Championship. They lost 34-0 to the Baltimore Colts the first year, then 27–7 to the Minnesota Vikings in the second year.

As members of the AFC since 1970, they have played in three conference title games, all against the Denver Broncos in a four-year span. They lost 23-20 in overtime in 1986, 38-33 in 1987 and 37-21 in 1989.

The Browns currently have a talented roster. If they can get health and good play from quarterback Deshaun Watson, then they might be able to get to the Super Bowl in the next several years.

Steve King