The Pittsburgh Steelers were blown out yet again in the postseason, marking their fifth consecutive playoff defeat going back to 2016. They have the second-longest active postseason losing streak now behind only the Miami Dolphins, who just lost their sixth in a row. But it is the 15th streak of five games or more in the Super Bowl era, by the 14th different team, via Stathead through Pro Football Reference.
The first extended losing streak of five or more games was by the Cleveland Browns, who lost six games in a row from 1969-85—clearly not making the playoffs terribly frequently. Next was the Colts, still in Baltimore at the time, the only franchise to lose five or more postseason games in a row multiple times. They did it from 1971-87, then again in Indianapolis from 1995 to 2002—each five losses.
In between were streaks by the Denver Broncos, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Seattle Seahawks, the Minnesota Vikings, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Detroit Lions, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Buffalo Bills. The Lions set the longest streak of nine games, going back to 1991, which they only finally broke earlier this weekend. The Chiefs ran their streak up to eight games before Patrick Mahomes came along, going back to 1994.
After winning three Super Bowls in four years, the Dallas Cowboys also went into a precipitous slide, losing six consecutive postseason games from 1996 through 2007. There are three active losing streaks of five games or more, two of those belonging to the Dolphins and now the Steelers.
The other team is the Washington Commanders, who lost their fifth consecutive postseason game in 2020, going back to 2005, but they haven’t had another chance for a victory since then. They did not qualify for the playoffs this year, but the other three teams with the longest active streaks did. The Lions broke theirs. The Steelers and Dolphins extended theirs. Remarkably, Miami’s goes back to 2000—another team that doesn’t make the postseason often.
Perhaps marginally interesting is the fact that the Steelers’ span of five losses is more compact than the others generally. That simply means that they make the playoffs more frequently, which is a good thing, but have struggled when they get there. Usually a Wild Card, that’s not a terrible surprise, their run spanning only eight seasons from 2016-23.
Not even the Cowboys mustered five losses that quickly, taking a decade from their second of six losses in 1998 until their sixth in 2007. Peyton Manning’s Colts were the exception, losing six games in the same span of eight seasons. Actually, the first two games predate Manning, those belonging to Jim Harbaugh.
The upshot is that extended losing streaks end at some point as have 12 of the 15 of five or more games in postseason history. And sometimes spectacularly. The Colts ended their run with a Super Bowl title, and the Chiefs have won two since going two decades without a postseason win. Well…truth be told, the others didn’t do much after finally ending their streaks, at least not until years later. The Broncos did reach the Super Bowl multiple times soon after but didn’t win it all for another decade.
