Searching For the Worst American Sports Team

There are 124 teams that collectively make up the big four American sports leagues. Among MLB, the NBA, the NFL, and the NHL, certain franchises have experienced multiple championships, winning records, and Hall of Fame players that have marked their teams as being some of the greatest in American sports. This makes for an interesting question about which team could be considered the best out of all of them.

It's a fun discussion, but what about the other side of the coin? While some teams have been historically great, other teams have been drowning in sadness and irrelevance. These teams have had too many losing seasons, too few playoff appearances, and practically zero trophies to display.

And that's what I'm interested in. There are 124 teams, and one of them has to be the worst. This is my search for the worst American sports team.

[Music] Now, examining each team individually would be a waste of time. Some teams have just been way too good for them to ever be considered the worst. Is it worth asking if the Yankees and Patriots could be considered as the worst team ever?

No, because they've won multiple championships and some of the best players in their sports were on their teams. This means I had to shrink the number of teams down that were considered with a rough goal of around five or so teams that could be argued as the worst. In order to eliminate some teams, there were two qualifications that I've decided on.

Any team that's won multiple championships or has a win loss record above 500 would not be considered. This made sense to me. For a team to win multiple championships, that means that they were the best team in their league at least two separate times.

And for a team to have a win loss record above 500, that means that they win more games than they lose, which at least means they're decent. This got rid of a lot of teams. 84 of them fit into one of these two categories.

And a lot of them fit into both because as it turns out, when a team wins multiple championships, that means they're also probably winning a lot of games. Unless you're the Buccaneers or the Marlins, who have the worst win loss records in their leagues, but they've each won two championships. Sports can be weird.

This meant there were 39 teams left to be examined, which was still way too many to look at individually. The next factor that I decided on was to eliminate any team that has won only one championship, but at least has made multiple appearances in the championship. This only got rid of six teams.

So, I decided to just eliminate any team that has at least won a championship, even if they've only had that one appearance. This shrunk the number down to 28. Now, you may ask why I didn't just eliminate every championship winning team sooner.

Wouldn't that criteria obviously exclude any team from being the worst? And my answer to that is very [Music] simple. If depression was a football team, it would probably manifest as the New York Jets.

Their win loss record is 437, which is the sixth worst in the league. The team has only made the playoffs 14 times, which is the fifth lowest in the NFL. For a team that was created in 1959, that makes this number look even worse.

Often, the Jets serve as the punching bag for the other teams in their division, and they're better known for their embarrassing moments than any sort of success. [Music] The only real moment of success for the Jets was in Super Bowl 3 in which quarterback Joe Nameoth guaranteed they would beat the Baltimore Colts. His guarantee held true and they went on to win the only Super Bowl that they've appeared in.

The closest they've been to returning was when they made back-to-back appearances in the AFC Championship in the early 2010s. However, both times the Jets could not get it done. And since losing that game to the Steelers, the Jets have not returned to the playoffs once.

14 years have gone by and not a single playoff game has had the Jets in them. But even still, the Jets did win that Super Bowl. It may have been in a time that most people don't remember, but they at least have won a championship of four.

There are way more teams that qualify as being the worst. In order to truly find the worst sports team, I had to look way, way [Music] lower. At this point, my job was to separate the bad teams from the absolutely terrible teams.

This was not easy. All the remaining teams have not won a championship and have lost most of the games that they play. Still, some teams had to be eliminated.

The next factor that I considered was any team that has not won a championship but has at the very least made multiple appearances. The logic behind this was simple. Any team that makes the playoffs can luck their way into making the championship.

Doing this multiple times is either extreme luck or the team has had repeated success that just fell short. This got rid of some known chokers, most prominently the Buffalo Bills and the Vancouver Conucks, and shrunk the number of teams down to 19. But at this point, I was lost for what to do next.

There were still 19 teams left, all of which were worthy contenders. In order to shrink the number down even more, I decided that a combination of four factors would determine which teams I would consider for the worst. Conference championship appearances.

All of these teams practically never play in the championship game, but some of these teams have had multiple appearances in their conferences championship. If a team has many conference championship appearances, that at least means they are sometimes making deep playoff runs. Playoff record.

This went off of each team's playoff series record. Sure, a team making the playoffs all the time might seem like a good thing, but what's the point if they're always losing in the first round, playoff appearance percentage. Even though I said it's not good for a team to always lose in the first round of the playoffs, making the playoffs is still important.

Now, I admit this factor heavily weighs against MLB teams since their postseason used to have only eight and sometimes only four teams that made it, whereas the NBA has always had 16 teams that make the playoffs. And finally, win loss record. When all else fails, is the team even winning games?

None of these teams win a lot, but some of them do win a lot more often than others. With all these factors considered, I ranked all the remaining 19 teams for the four different categories, and I took their average ranks and sorted them. What I got was not all that surprising.

The Titans and Chargers were towards the top of the list, which made sense considering they've had their moments but just haven't been able to ever fully put it together. Some of the expansion era NBA teams were towards the bottom, which again made sense considering these teams have accomplished basically nothing. But hang on a second, why are the Browns at the top?

And the Lions aren't in the worst spot either? Don't both these teams suck? Why are they not at the [Music] bottom?

The NFL has been around for a long time. The first season began all the way back in 1920, and the Lions have been around since almost the beginning, being created in 1929. The Browns would join later in 1944, but are still considered one of the legacy teams of the NFL.

If you're like me and you're a nerd about NFL history, you might have been a little confused that I didn't already eliminate these teams from consideration because both the Lions and the Browns have won NFL championships before. Both teams won four NFL championships and were easily some of the best teams of the 1950s. But that's not what their legacy is.

In 1967, the first Super Bowl game was played, which created the now established Super Bowl era and left the NFL championship era to be mostly forgotten. The Super Bowl era has not been kind to either of these teams. The Browns and the Lions are the only teams to finish a season 0 and 16.

Not a single Super Bowl game has had either the Browns or the Lions in it. Neither team makes the playoffs very often, and when they do, it's often short-lived. That's not to say that there's never been promise for these teams.

The Lions were able to win 15 games in 2024, the most in franchise history. The Browns might be rebuilding right now, but they did have promise for their future just a few years ago. Time will tell if either of these teams will ever win a championship again.

If you want to base this solely on the Super Bowl era, then there's a case to be made for both of these teams to be the worst sports teams in America. But to me, it doesn't seem completely fair to disregard the multiple championships that both the Lions and the Browns won. Which is why I am deciding now that the Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns will not be considered for the title of worst American sports [Music] team.

I didn't want to look just at the rankings that I created and decide objectively which team was the worst. It would be pretty boring if I did that. And again, my ranking system is not perfect.

Instead, I wanted to use it as a guideline for eliminating some other teams. I already eliminated the Browns and Lions, and there are a few more teams that I want to get rid of. The Houston Texans have not seen much success since their first season in 2002.

They have not made the Super Bowl and they usually don't win many games, but even with the little amount of success that they've had, they've still accomplished more since joining in 2002 than other teams have in that time frame. So, they will not be considered. The Grizzlies and Pelicans are historically not good NBA teams.

However, both of these teams make the playoffs more often than other NBA teams that are left. Neither of these teams will be considered. The Arizona Coyotes had a case as the worst team in NHL.

the key word being had because now Arizona doesn't have a hockey team. Instead, it's the Utah hockey club. For that reason alone, I feel like giving them sympathy and not considering them for the worst.

I won't go into reasons for all of the teams that I decided to not consider. Instead, I have four teams left that I'm going to make a case for being the worst in American sports. But before I name the worst teams, I want to give a quick disclaimer.

These teams are objectively bad teams. And at the end of the day, deciding on which team is the worst out of all of them is my opinion. You can make a case for any of the remaining teams to be the worst.

And I really wouldn't argue against you. And if any of these teams that I name wins a championship in the next couple of years, this video will become pretty dated quickly. But that's enough rambling for me.

Without further ado, let's begin with the first team. [Music] When you think about sports in the city of Columbus, you're probably going to think about Ohio State football before you even consider the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Blue Jackets played their first season in 2001 and finished with only 71 points and 28 wins.

A team struggling in their first season is not uncommon, but the Blue Jackets would remain bad for years. They put together their first winning season and made the playoffs in 2009, 8 years after they first joined the NHL. But their moment of success was short-lived after getting swept by the Red Wings in the first round.

The team would not make the playoffs again until 2014 in which they once again lost in the first round. The team's best run of success was in the late 2010s in which they had a stretch of four winning seasons and four playoff appearances. However, they only managed to win two playoff series during this time.

The second playoff series that they won was during the 2020 COVID season in which more teams than usual made the playoffs and it helped the Blue Jackets win a series for the second time in the franchise's history. The 2020s have not been great for the team so far. Since the co season, the Blue Jackets have had losing records and missed the playoffs in each season.

Things were a little more promising for the team in the 2025 season as they won 40 games and were very close to making it back to the playoffs. But as it stands right now, they are historically the worst team in the NHL and possibly the worst in American [Music] sports. The one thing that saves the Blue Jackets is that the team is relatively new.

Sure, they've been around for some time now, and newer teams have already shown the same or more success than Columbus. It would be much worse if they were around for over 50 years and had nothing to show for it. All while they had to watch their cross town rivals surpass them in every single [Music] way, the little brother of Los Angeles.

In 1970, the city of Buffalo was given an NBA team known then as the Buffalo Braves. The team made the playoffs a few times in the 70s, but never saw much success during this time. In 1978, the team moved from Buffalo to San Diego and rebranded themselves as the San Diego Clippers.

The team was not very successful after their initial streak of making the playoffs. In 1981, the scumbag known as Donald Sterling bought the team and forced them to move to Los Angeles. The move to LA did not help things turn around.

The team kept having losing season after losing season. It wasn't until 1992 that the team finally made the playoffs again. But they would lose in the first round and they would repeat the exact same thing the year after.

It would take until the 2006 season for the team to make the playoffs and win their first playoff series in 50 years. Throughout this time, the Clippers have had to watch as the Lakers became one of the greatest teams in the NBA. While the Lakers continued to win multiple championships in different eras of the NBA, the Clippers hadn't even made it to the conference finals once.

Things turned around for them in the early 2010s in which Chris Paul and Blake Griffin were the main stars of the team in what became known as Lob City. With Griffin and Paul, the team was consistently making the playoffs and were finally doing better than the Lakers were. But even with making the playoffs all the time, the team still did not make it to the conference finals and the Lob City era eventually faded to nothing.

In 2019, the Clippers were able to completely restart and become a contender to win the finals after superstars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George joined the team. Kawhi Leonard had just helped the Toronto Raptors win their first championship. So, the Clippers were expecting the same thing from him.

The first season under the Quai and PG era was great, but with the COVID pandemic happening, the NBA playoffs were going to be weird. At first, it didn't seem like much of a problem for them. They finished as the two seed in the playoffs and were able to keep the Mavericks from pulling off the first round upset.

In the second round, they had a 3-1 lead against the Denver Nuggets and only needed to win one more game in order to advance to the conference finals for the first time ever. But because the Clippers are a cursed team, they went on to lose the series in one of the most embarrassing playoff chokes ever. The team was finally able to make it to the conference finals the next season.

After being down 2 nothing to the Utah Jazz in the second round, the team won four straight games to make it to the conference finals for the first time ever. If there was ever a year to win a championship, it was this year. But again, because the Clippers are a cursed team, Kawhi Leonard was injured and he was not able to play in the conference finals.

and the team would end up losing to the Phoenix Suns and missed their chance on making it to the finals. Would the Clippers have won the finals that year if Kawhi Leonard wasn't injured? I don't know.

Nobody will ever know for sure. They certainly had a chance to do it. Since making the conference finals in 2021, the team has not won a playoff series.

And just recently, they lost another game seven to the Denver Nuggets. The Clippers have been a consistent standard of failure in American sports. But if we want to find one that's even more disappointing, we'll have to travel [Music] north.

The Seattle Mariners played their first season in 1977. It would take until 1995 for the team to make the postseason for the first time. Nearly 20 years passed before they ever made it to the postseason.

Part of that is with how the MLB postseason used to be structured. Until 1994, only four teams in the entire league made it to the postseason. Still, taking nearly 20 years to make it to your first postseason is pretty sad.

It's not like the Mariners had great teams that were getting screwed by the postseason format. The team only had a winning record twice before they made their first postseason appearance. It would take until the 2000s for the Mariners to become a good team.

The team made the playoffs in 2000, but lost in the ALCS to the Yankees. In 2001, the team was historically great, winning 116 games, which is a record that has not been broken since. This was their time.

All the years of losing seasons had led to this moment. They were going to go to the World Series and win it all. The Mariners won their first round matchup, and when they got to the ALCS, they lost again to the New York Yankees.

Cameron into right field. Spencer. Yankees for the fourth year in a row have a date with the fall classic.

That season must have been their one shot at glory. In the next couple of years, the team would win 93 games but miss the postseason both times. Everything would spiral down from there.

After a few years of promise, the team started losing a lot more. It would take them 20 years for them to make the postseason again, which is one of the worst droughts in MLB history. Not all hope is lost for the Mariners.

Seattle has had winning seasons for the past couple of years, even if they haven't been able to make the playoffs since 2022. The Mariners will have a good chance to make the postseason again this year. But even still, they might just be the worst sports team in America.

But there's still one more team that I think is even worse than all of the teams that I just mentioned. A team that has been so bad throughout its history that they are often ignored by everyone else. This team has the honor, or rather the disgrace, of being my pick for the worst sports team in America.

The Arizona Cardinals are a sum of all the bad parts of a sports team. If you took the bad season records of the Columbus Blue Jackets, the lack of playoff wins of the Los Angeles Clippers, and the postseason droughts of the Seattle Mariners, you would get the Arizona Cardinals. The team got a start as the Chicago Cardinals in 1920.

The team struggled to put together any sort of success. In 1943, the team went 0 and10, and they're one of the only teams in the NFL to have a season without winning a single game. The only time this team has seen any real success was when they won the NFL championship in 1947.

I can see the argument already. How can they be considered the worst team ever if they've won a championship before? You got rid of the Browns and Lions for the exact same reason.

But there's a major difference between the Browns and Lions compared to the Cardinals. The Browns and Lions were dynasties of the time with each of them winning four championships. The Arizona Cardinals only have that one championship to show for during a time in which the league had about a dozen or so teams.

After winning the championship, the team did not make the playoffs once during the 1950s. The team eventually moved to St. Louis in 1960.

Nothing changed with the move. The Cardinals continued to have losing records and missed the playoffs. It took until 1974 and 1975 for the team to make the playoffs, but both times the team lost their first playoff game.

The rest of the 70s went by without the team making it back to the playoffs. The Cardinals finally made the playoffs again in 1982, a season that saw a huge player strike, and the team finished with a record of 5 and four. They would lose.

It took until 1998 for them to make the playoffs again, in which the team finally won a playoff game. They would end up losing their next game in the divisional round. This pattern has mostly been the story for the Cardinals.

They'll go through long stretches of losing seasons, eventually have a year or two of success and make the playoffs, lose in the first or second round of the playoffs, and go back to having losing seasons. Arizona had their chance to change this narrative forever. In 2008, the team won their division with a 10-6 record and were the four seed in the playoffs.

People were expecting the usual from the Cardinals. Maybe they'll win a game, but they are definitely not contending for the Super Bowl. Well, the team won their wild card game against the Falcons and beat the Carolina Panthers in the divisional round.

And after holding off the Eagles in the NFC Championship, the team found themselves in the Super Bowl against the mighty Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers were not going to be an easy team to beat. The Cardinals found themselves down 20 to7 entering the fourth quarter and all hope looked lost.

But the team started coming back. Down by four points, quarterback Curt Warner found star wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald over the middle and Larry took off [Music] running. Call it luck, call it a great play, call it an intervention from God.

Whatever it was, the Arizona Cardinals found themselves 2 minutes and 37 seconds away from winning the Super Bowl. Decades of frustration would finally come to an end. All the Cardinals needed to do was get a stop on defense and they were champions.

But the defense wasn't stopping Pittsburgh. The Steelers were marching down the field and before you knew it, they were only 10 yardds away from scoring a touchdown. I think you all know what happened next.

The Cardinals have not made it back to the Super Bowl since. Instead of ending their legacy of failure and pain, the Super Bowl loss became their defining moment. It's hard to tell when the Cardinals will have their next shot at making the Super Bowl.

The team has struggled to make the playoffs, let alone win any sort of games in the postseason. All the losing seasons have just stacked on each other. The few playoff appearances have ended in nothing.

And when they had their one shot at glory, the team could not get it done. This is why I feel confident in saying that the Arizona Cardinals are the worst American sports team.