Being a sports fan can feel like more of a burden than a pleasure a lot of the time. Unless you’re lucky enough to follow a team that is consistently strong, you know all too well how it feels to miss the postseason multiple years in a row.
Take it from a long-suffering Blue Jays fan: sometimes you can go literal decades without so much as even sniffing the playoffs.
Of course, some teams have languished more than others, and with that, we wanted to share in the misery by observing the longest current postseason droughts across the four major North American leagues: NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL.
Are any of your favorite teams present on this list? Would you like to see us add any other leagues into the mix? Who is your most hated team in sports, and why is it the Los Angeles Dodgers? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!
* Please note that these figures are all correct as of the date of publishing, March 21, 2026.
NFL: New York Jets (15 seasons)
A far cry from Joe Namath’s glitzy underdogs of yesteryear, the New York Jets have been mired in the basement of the National Football League for quite some time now.
Their last playoff run was in 2010, when a feisty Mark Sanchez led them to their second straight AFC Championship game. They fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers 19-24 after coming back from a 24 point deficit, and they’ve bounced between competitive to middling to downright dreadful in the years since.
It’s really saying something when the mediocre Giants aren’t even the biggest laughingstock in town, and the 2025-26 season was amongst the worst yet. Former Jets ballhawk Aaron Glenn went 3-14 in his first season as head coach, while beleaguered QB Justin Fields was one-and-done after an injury-shortened season.
Considering their 0-7 start with Fields under center, that may have been for the best, anyway. Take it from Jets fans themselves: to be a member of Gang Green is to know true misery and woe.
Runners-up: Atlanta Falcons (eight seasons), New Orleans Saints / Indianapolis Colts (five seasons)
Longest ever playoff drought: Chicago / St. Louis Cardinals / Washington Redskins: 25 seasons
MLB: Los Angeles Angels (11 seasons)
When you have talent like Albert Pujols, Mike Trout, and Shohei Ohtani, you should theoretically have an automatic path to the postseason. Despite this, the Los Angeles Angels weren’t able to qualify for the playoffs even once with this talented trio — and in fact, have never escaped the regular season since rebranding from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim a decade ago.
More an example of mismanagement than poor on-field play, the Angels’ last taste of playoff baseball in 2014 was a particularly bitter one. Despite being the top seed in the AL with a glistening 98-64 record, they were swept in three games by the 4th seed Kansas City Royals.
Perhaps the Royals robbed the Angels of their soul that day, because the team has hovered near the bottom of the standings for the AL West ever since. 2025 saw a surprisingly strong pitching effort squandered by an anaemic offense, limping to the finish line with a 72-90 record.
On the plus side, they were 4th place in dingers. On the negative side, their 1,627 strikeouts were the second most in MLB history. On the absolute nadir side, they have had to suffer through Ohtani claiming World Series wins with the hated Dodgers two years in a row.
It’s like when your ex gets married, except the ex is also getting paid $700 million. Ouch.
Runners-up: Pittsburgh Pirates (10 seasons), Colorado Rockies (seven seasons)
Longest ever playoff drought: Montreal Expos / Washington Nationals (30 seasons)
NBA: Charlotte Hornets (9 seasons)
While the Charlotte Hornets’ nine year-playoff drought hasn’t been fun for its fans, they can at least take solace in knowing that it’s the shortest amongst the four major leagues. Better still, the race for the East is a tight one this season, so they have a solid chance to bring this inglorious streak to an end — and no, the play-ins don’t count… we’re talking about playoffs, here!
The one-time Charlotte Bobcats (proud owners of the worst single season win/loss record in NBA history) haven’t done much since their reintroduction in 2004, managing only three playoff appearances in that time.
Sometimes they’re awful — as they were in the 2024-25 season with a dismal record of 19-63 — but much of the time they’re just sort of… there, on the outside of the postseason window looking in.
Their current campaign sees them hovering around the familiar .500 mark, boasting a who’s who lineup of literally, “who’s who?” to the casual fan, outside of LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, and rookie sensation Kon Knueppel. And yet, they have a net rating near the top 10, showing their potential to turn things around once and for all.
It helps that Knueppel is the real deal, averaging over 19 points a game to lead the polls for rookie of the year. This is especially impressive when you consider that Cooper Flagg is also putting together quite the tidy season himself.
Elsewhere, the team with the second longest playoff drought (the San Antonio Spurs) have already punched their ticket to the 2025-26 postseason. Technically, we should therefore remove them from the runner-ups, but who knows what’ll transpire in the meantime.
Maybe they’ll be disqualified when it’s revealed that Victor Wembanyama was in fact created in a laboratory somewhere in rural France. …Hey, it could happen!
Runners-up: San Antonio Spurs (six seasons), Portland Trail Blazers / Washington Wizards (four seasons)
Longest ever playoff drought: Sacramento Kings (16 seasons)
NHL: Buffalo Sabres (14 seasons)
Can we take a moment to pour one out for Buffalo sports fans? Having to constantly suffer through the perennial bridesmaid Bills is one thing, but things have been even worse on the ice.
Absent from the NHL playoffs since losing in the Conference Quarter-Finals for 2010-11, it has been 14 agonizing seasons since the Sabres have basked in postseason glory.
Incidentally, this makes the Sabres part of NHL history: the present drought is the longest since the league’s inception in 1917. If you’re going to fail, you may as fail to a historic degree.
There’s no point in diving too far into their history of woe, however, as the 2025-26 season has them positioned to right the wrongs of yesteryear. Currently sitting atop the Atlantic Division, their magic number is under 20, and thanks to their combination of elite scoring and dominant goaltending over the last few months, it would be hard to imagine them falling apart before the finish line.
For now, we can look forward to when we have to update this article to lament the fortunes of the Detroit Red Wings, who are presently making a late season push in the wrong direction.
Runners-up: Detroit Red Wings (nine seasons), Anaheim Ducks (seven seasons)
Longest ever playoff drought: Buffalo Sabres (14 seasons)