The NFL isn’t nicknamed the Not For Long league for nothing. The moniker is especially true when it comes to the annual turnover among playoff teams.
In the 18 seasons since the league’s first full campaign with four eight-team divisions (2002), there have been a total of 109 new playoff teams from one year to the next for an average of 6.1 per season.
Over the last five seasons, that average has jumped to 6.8, including a 2000s record-matching eight in 2017 and seven last season, when there already was a built-in head start of two with the league adding a seventh playoff berth in each conference.
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Still, there are outliers who have defied the trend.
Eight NFL franchises enter 2021 with playoff droughts of at least four seasons, starting with the New York Jets, whose last playoff appearance came back in the Rex Ryan/Mark Sanchez heydays of 2010. That’s a full five seasons longer than any other team.
The other seven in this fallen-on-hard-times contingent are the Arizona Cardinals (last made postseason in 2015), Cincinnati Bengals (2015), Denver Broncos (2015), Detroit Lions (2016), Las Vegas Raiders (2016), Miami Dolphins (2016) and New York Giants (2016).
So which of these eight teams are the best bets to find their way out of the desert and quench their playoff thirst this coming season?
Below, we’ll rank the eight NFL teams in order of least to most likely to end their playoff droughts in 2021, along with their respective odds of making the postseason; be sure to check out the rest of our NFL picks, predictions and best bets.
Odds via Tipico Sportsbook; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Monday, Aug. 16.
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