They say history is written by the victors, and while the two NFL teams that make it to the Super Bowl each year have a good chance of being remembered for decades to come, most fans won’t be able to recall the opponents they beat to get there in the first place.
No NFL teams have lost more time in the conference championship than these franchises
Punching your ticket to the AFC or NFC Championship Game is the sign of a pretty successful season when you consider there are only four teams in the NFL who end up earning that honor, but it’s hard not to wonder what could have been if you end up on the outside looking in when the Super Bowl showdown is finalized.
Every team but the Texans has played in at least one conference championship game since the first ones were held toward the end of the season that got underway in 1970, and no franchises have come up painfully short more than these.
Indianapolis Colts: 4
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There are five teams that currently have four losses in the penultimate round of the playoffs
We’ll kick things off with the Colts, who won the first-ever AFC Championship and earned a victory in Super Bowl V before getting their first loss in a conference game the following year.
They’d have to wait close to 25 years for their next shot before losing to the Steelers to bring the 1995 season to an end and are winless in their last two appearances since winning Super Bowl XLI.
Indianapolis is 3-4 in conference championships, which gives the team a .429 winning percentage.
New England Patriots: 4
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The Patriots trail only the 49ers (who I’ll be mentioning later on) when it comes to the most conference championship appearances in NFL history, and they’ve done pretty well in the 15 games they’ve played while posting an 11-4 record (.733).
As you can probably guess, the vast majority of those came during the Tom Brady Era, which spawned nine Super Bowl appearances and six wins in The Big Game in addition to four AFC Championships where New England failed to prevail.
New York Jets: 4
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There’s only one team on this list that has never won a single conference championship game, and as you can probably guess, it’s the Jets.
New York did win Super Bowl III but has not been back to The Big Game since then; the Jets are 0-4 overall and haven’t played in the AFC Championship since the 2010 season (a loss to the Steelers that came a year after they fell to the Colts).
Philadelphia Eagles: 4
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The Eagles are the only NFC team with exactly four conference championship losses (they have the same number of wins) and didn’t earn their first until the 2001 season (which marked the first time they’d played in one in more than two decades).
That was a very frustrating stretch for fans who watched Philadelphia lose three straight NFC Championships before finally getting over the hump on their fourth consecutive try only to lose to the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX.
Tennessee Titans: 4
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This stat includes the AFC Championship games that featured the Houston Oilers, who went 0-2 during back-to-back appearances beginning with the 1978 season and failed to get that far again before the team relocated to Nashville in 1999.
The Titans are 1-2 since the move (their first and only Super Bowl appearance transpired during their inaugural season in Tennessee) and 1-4 all-time for a .200 winning percentage.
Minnesota Vikings: 6
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The Vikings appeared in three NFC Championships in the span of four years starting with the 1973 season and won every single one of them (although they failed to get a single Super Bowl victory).
It’s been firmly downhill for Minnesota since then, as they’ve lost all six of the games they’ve appeared in (a streak stretching back to the 1977 season) and are subsequently 3-6 (.333) all-time while still in search of their first win in The Big Game.
Dallas Cowboys
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There are four teams that have six losses in the conference championship, and all of them hail from the NFC.
We’ll start with the Cowboys, who won against the 49ers in their first one before losing in the Super Bowl. However, they avenged the loss with their second straight win over San Francisco en route to winning Super Bowl VI.
Dallas has gone 8-6 in the NFC Championship (a .571 winning percentage), but the bulk of those appearances came when they made it that far 10 times in 12 years between the 1970 and 1982 seasons; next season will mark the 30th anniversary of their most recent one.
Green Bay Packers: 6
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The Packers won the first two Super Bowls ever played, but conference championships weren’t introduced until the season that preceded the fifth— and it subsequently took the team 25 years to appear in its first NFC Championship (a loss to the Cowboys during the 1995 season).
Green Bay bounced back with its first conference title and a win in the Super Bowl the following year, but the team has gone 2-5 since then and is 3-6 overall (.333) with the help of the four-game losing streak it’s currently riding.
Los Angeles Rams: 6
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The Rams got a very rude welcome to the Conference Championship Era when they played in one for the first time during the 1974 season to kick off a string of three straight appearances where they lost every single time and did so four times in the span of five years.
The team finally got its first win before advancing to Super Bowl XIV against the Steelers and has emerged victorious more often than not since then (the Rams haven’t lost either of the two NFC Championships they’ve played in since relocating to Los Angeles).
They’re 5-6 overall, which is good for a .455 winning percentage.
Las Vegas Raiders
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The Raiders have played in the AFC Championship on 11 occasions, but their performance in that game leaves a bit to be desired.
The team lost to the Colts in the first AFC Championship Game ever played to mark the first of the four times they’d make it there over the course of eight seasons—with every single one of those appearances resulting in a loss.
The 1976 season was the beginning of an impressive five-year span where the Raiders won two Super Bowls and dropped another conference championship.
They’ve only made it that far three times since then while going 1-2 and have a .364 winning percentage in a game they’ve failed to appear in since the 2002 campaign.
Pittsburgh Steelers: 8
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The Steelers earned their first appearance (and first loss) in the AFC Championship during the 1972 season, which marked the start of an impressive run where they were one of the last two teams standing six times in eight seasons; they built a dynasty by winning all four of the Super Bowls they made it to during that span.
Pittsburgh is currently 8-8 in conference championship games, and they’ll head into the 2025 season hoping to snap a drought stemming back to their most recent appearance close to a decade ago (which will end up tied for the longest one in franchise history if they fail to snap the streak).
San Francisco 49ers: 11
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It’s pretty hard to make this list in the first place unless you’ve appeared in a conference championship on more than a few occasions, and the 49ers have done so more than any other team in NFL history with 19 total appearances.
San Francisco is one of four teams that’s played in the Super Bowl eight times (the second-most behind the 11 the Patriots have racked up), but the 49ers have come up short on 11 occasions since losing to the Cowboys in the inaugural edition of the NFC Championship (the first of back-to-back defeats to Dallas) and currently boast a .421 winning percentage.
No period was more painful than the one that transpired between the 1990 and 1994 seasons, as the 49ers appeared in the NFC Championship three times in four seasons and lost every single time.
However, they were able to get over the hump in 1995 en route to winning Super Bowl XXIX.