To determine the all-time most successful NFL franchise, we first need a methodology.
This methodology needs to align with the primary goal of every NFL franchise: winning the Super Bowl. The secondary and tertiary goals are to make an appearance in the Super Bowl and to claim a playoff bid, respectively.
Therefore, to truly determine the most successful NFL franchise of all time, we need to account for each of these three variables. The more interesting question is, “How do we combine these variables?”
Ranking the most successful NFL Franchise with… Mario Kart?
This is going to come out of left field, but stick with me. Imagine it’s 1996 and you and your friends are playing Mario Kart 64 while slamming Mountain Dews. At the end of every race, Mario Kart employs a point system to award and compile the score, tracking the overall leader and rankings.
Mario Kart’s scoring system is a sound method for measuring multiple iterations of a repeating event; that’s ideal for our situation! It’s surprisingly well-suited for tracking multi-season, long-term success.
Because we have only three criteria, I have adjusted the Mario Kart points (MKPs) slightly from the game version. They look like this:
Let’s try an example
The Dolphins have won the Super Bowl twice (10 MKPs), lost the Super Bowl three times (9 MKPs) and made the playoffs 23 times (23 MKPs).
They receive an overall score of 42 MKPs. But we are not done.
We also need to account for how long the team has been in the league. The Dolphins joined the NFL in 1970 (50 years!). If we divide their 42 MKPs by 50, and then multiply by 1000, we see that the Dolphins have a MK Power Ranking of 840.
Let’s expand this to the league and see who is truly the most successful NFL franchise.
Three important notes
- If a team relocates but takes their historical records with them, we will treat them as the same team. For example, the Colts are still the Colts whether they play in Baltimore or Indianapolis. The Ravens, on the other hand, will not retain any data before they left Cleveland.
- We will only look at the Super Bowl era. Anything before that will be omitted. All AFL data is also omitted.
- Any ties will be broken by the percentage of time the franchise makes the playoffs (Playoff hit rate).
So who is the all time most successful NFL franchise? Find out how your team ranks up!
The Official NFL Franchise MK Power Rankings
Click here to skip to the Top 10 most successful NFL teams
#32 – Arizona Cardinals
MKPs = 204, Playoff hit rate = 14.8%
It’s been a rough forever for the oft-relocated Cardinals. In 54 years of something that vaguely resembles football they have only made the Super Bowl once (2009) where they became the victim of Santonio Holmes’ insane TD catch.
What really hurts their ranking is that they have only made the playoffs a paltry eight times. Their playoff hit rate is by far the lowest in the league.
#31 – Detroit Lions
MKPs = 222, Playoff hit rate = 22.2%
The Lions are the only team in the NFL to have played all 54 seasons of the Super Bowl era without competing in a Super Bowl. In fact, they have only won one playoff game (1991) in all of that time.
Ouch.
#30 – Cleveland Browns
MKPs = 275, Playoff hit rate = 27.5%
It’s not easy being a Browns fan. They haven’t sniffed a Super Bowl in 51 years, winning only six playoff games total in over a half a century.
That works out to a slightly more than one playoff win per decade.
#29 – Tampa Bay Buccaneers
MKPs = 278, Playoff hit rate = 18.5%
Thanks to Brad Johnson and Jon Gruden, the Bucs do have a Super Bowl (2002) notch on their belt. The reason they appear so low on this list is that they have only made the playoffs ten times in 54 years.
The only team to make the playoffs less frequently than Tampa Bay is the Cardinals.
#28 – Jacksonville Jaguars
MKPs = 280, Playoff hit rate = 28%
Jacksonville has only been in the league for 25 years and are yet to reach a Super Bowl. They have appeared in the post-season seven times and have had reasonable success with a playoff record of .500.
The problem is that they keep running into the Patriots, who have ended four of their playoff runs.
#27 – Houston Texans
MKPs = 333, Playoff hit rate = 33.3%
The Texans have played an unremarkable 18 years of football. They haven’t competed in a Super Bowl, haven’t gotten out of their division and have only four franchise playoff wins to their name.
#26 – New York Jets
MKPs = 340, Playoff hit rate = 24%
Neil Armstrong was taking his first steps on the moon the last time the Jets reached the Super Bowl (1969). They had two good good playoff runs in 2009 and 2010 but ultimately couldn’t make it to the big dance.
Times are tough these days for Jet’s fans. They are ten years removed from a playoff appearance.
#25 – New Orleans Saints
MKPs = 340, Playoff hit rate = 24.5%
Given their recent success, it’s surprising to see the New Orleans Saints show up this early in our rankings. It’s easy to forget that it took this franchise 21 years to make a postseason and another 13 years on top of that to win a playoff game.
#24 – Los Angeles Chargers
MKPs = 340, Playoff hit rate = 28%
The Chargers have only made it to one Super Bowl. In it, Steve Young threw six touchdowns and Jerry Rice went off for 149 yards and three TDs.
That’s hardly a recipe for a Chargers win.
#23 – Atlanta Falcons
MKPs = 370, Playoff hit rate = 25.9%
While the Falcons franchise started slowly, unable to make the playoffs in their first 22 seasons, the combination of Julio Jones and Matt Ryan has been an improvement.
The Falcons are 0-2 in Super Bowls, but probably wish they were only 0-1 and could wipe Super Bowl LI from the record books.
#22 – Cincinnati Bengals
MKPs = 400, Playoff hit rate = 28%
The Bengals are 0-2 in the Super Bowl as well, losing both of them in the 1980s.
Sadly, those 1981 and 1988 Super Bowl losses represent the only high-watermarks of the franchise. If we take away those two seasons, the franchise only has one other playoff win in its entire history.
It’s been 20 years since their last post-season win.
#21 – Tennessee Titans
MKPs = 420, Playoff hit rate = 36%
The Titans lost their only Super Bowl in 1999 to The Greatest Show on Turf.
To their credit, the Titans are consistently competitive. They make the playoffs at a decent rate and are impressively 9-5 (64%) lifetime in wild card games. Their Achilles heel is that they fall apart at the conference championship level, where they are 1-5 (16.6%) all time.
#20 – Chicago Bears
MKPs = 426, Playoff hit rate = 27.8%
For most of their franchise history, the Bears have been a middling NFL team. They are 1-1 in two Super Bowl appearances.
The 1985 Bears changed all of that.
During the regular season, the ’85 defense allowed only 12.4 points per game. Led by Walter Payton, the offense outscored opponents by more than 18 points per game.
It gets better.
In the three game span of their Super Bowl winning postseason, they outscored their opponents 91-10. That’s right, the 1985 Bears allowed only 3.3 points a game to the best teams in the NFL.
#19 – Buffalo Bills
MKPs = 540, Playoff hit rate = 30%
The Bills own the record for the most heartbreaking four-year run in NFL history. From 1990-1993, they lost four consecutive Super Bowls.
This may have broken the back of the franchise as well as they haven’t managed to win a playoff game in the last 25 years.
#18 – Carolina Panthers
MKPs = 560, Playoff hit rate = 32%
The Panthers joined the NFL in 1995. It is impressive that they have already played in two Super Bowls. It’s less impressive that they have lost both of them, falling victim to Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Janet Jackson’s boob.
#17 – Kansas City Chiefs
MKPs = 620, Playoff hit rate = 36%
In a statistical sense, the Chiefs are uniquely interesting. Outside of their three Super Bowl seasons, they have only five total franchise playoff wins in 50 years.
In the wild card round they are a feeble 3-8 (25%) and in divisional rounds they fare only slightly better at 4-8 (33%).
But on the bigger stages they transform! They are lifetime 3-2 in Conference championship games and boast a 2-1 Super Bowl record.
#16 – Philadelphia Eagles
MKPs = 630, Playoff hit rate = 42.6%
The Eagles may only have a 1-2 Super Bowl record, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. This team stays consistently competitive.
Since 2000, they have amassed an impressive 14 playoff victories, capped off by an unlikely, yet heroic Nick Foles performance in Super Bowl LII. Foles threw for nearly 400 yards, 3 TDs and caught the Philly Special, delivering the Eagles their only Super Bowl victory.
#15 – Seattle Seahawks
MKPs = 659, Playoff hit rate = 40.9%
The Seahawk’s first 28 years in the NFL are forgettable. In that time they only managed three playoff games. In 2005, however, something clicked.
Since then, the Seahawks have won 14 playoff games and competed in three Super Bowls, winning one of them.
They really should have won two, but… I’ll let these guys explain it:
#14 – Los Angeles Rams
MKPs = 685, Playoff hit rate = 42.6%
The Rams have relocated more than any other team in the NFL, moving from Cleveland to LA to St. Louis and finally back to LA.
They are 1-3 in the Super Bowl, but this is a team that is defined more by eras than championships. The Greatest Show on Turf and the Dickerson eras were iconic. The McVay era has just begun and he might end up leading that team for another 40 years!
#13 – New York Giants
MKPs = 722, Playoff hit rate = 29.6%
The Giants are the NFL’s premiere ‘big moment’ team. They struggle to make the playoffs, are a mediocre 6-5 in wild card games and even worse in the divisional rounds (6-8).
But living in NY must prepare them for the biggest stages as the Giants are undefeated in the conference championship round (5-0) and have gone a commanding 4-1 in the Super Bowl.
They beat the Patriots twice in the Super Bowl during the Brady era, once against the lauded 16-0 Pats team. That is undoubtedly the tallest feather in Eli’s cap.
That said, they haven’t won a playoff game in eight years since the Tyree catch.
…to be continued!
#12 – Washington Redskins
MKPs = 722, Playoff hit rate = 33.3%
Sorry to all the Redskins fans out there, but the Redskins are a franchise stuck in the past. The branding is real-life symbolism.
Anything resembling success can’t be found in the last 30 years; after their 1991 Super Bowl victory they have managed to win only three total playoff games… and don’t look like they are about to turn it around anytime soon.
In the mid-80s, however, this was not a team that you wanted to meet on the field. In a five-year span, they compiled 11 playoff wins and appeared in three Super Bowls, winning two of them.
#11 – Indianapolis Colts
MKPs = 741, Playoff hit rate = 44.4%
When the Super Bowl era kicked off in 1966, the Colts shot right out of the gate. They competed in two of the first five Super Bowls, winning one of them.
After that, the franchise experienced a sustained, 30-year lull until the day Manning arrived. With Peyton at the helm they have made it to two Super Bowls, bringing the franchise record to 2-2.
Since we are on the subject, let’s do a Peyton Manning ‘Big Game’ breakdown. In his combined four Super Bowls (two with Denver), he averages only 250 yards, less than one TD pass and two turnovers per game.
Looks like the big games are little brother’s territory!
