Curated playlist
NFL teams
- New York JetsThe New York Jets have won exactly one Super Bowl in their entire history, and they won it the hard way. In January 1969, facing an NFL team widely expected to demolish them, the Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts 16-7 in Super Bowl III. It…
- Tennessee TitansThe Tennessee Titans trace their roots to a single phone call that never came. In 1959, Houston oil tycoon Bud Adams had tried and failed to land an NFL expansion franchise for his city. When the established league passed him over, Adams…
- Dallas CowboysThe Dallas Cowboys have never been modest about what they are. In 2015, they became the first sports franchise anywhere in the world to be valued at $4 billion, and by late 2025, that figure had climbed to roughly $13 billion. Those…
- New England PatriotsThe New England Patriots were born on the 16th of November, 1959, when Boston business executive Billy Sullivan was handed the eighth and final franchise of the fledgling American Football League. For the next four decades, they were a…
- Buffalo BillsThe Buffalo Bills have appeared in four consecutive Super Bowls and lost every single one. No other franchise in NFL history has reached that peak that many times without winning it, a record they share only with the Minnesota Vikings. But…
- Houston TexansThe Houston Texans entered the NFL on the 8th of September 2002, and did something no expansion team had managed since 1961: they won their opening game. Their opponent that day was the Dallas Cowboys, and before a crowd at the newly…
- Indianapolis ColtsThe Indianapolis Colts have been playing professional football since 1953, first in Baltimore and then, after a midnight move in 1984, in Indiana. Forty-five million people watched their 1958 championship game, then the largest television…
- Jacksonville JaguarsThe Jacksonville Jaguars arrived in the NFL not with a whimper but with a logo dispute. The day after the league awarded Jacksonville its expansion franchise, owner Wayne Weaver held up a silver helmet and a teal jersey at an NFL owners'…
- Miami DolphinsThe Miami Dolphins have played exactly one perfect season in NFL history, finishing 17-0 in 1972 and winning the Super Bowl. No team has matched that record since. But the story of the franchise is bigger than one magical year. It starts…
- Baltimore RavensThe Baltimore Ravens were born from a betrayal. In November 1995, Art Modell announced he was taking the Cleveland Browns, one of the most storied franchises in professional football, and moving it to Baltimore. The city of Cleveland was…
- Pittsburgh SteelersThe Pittsburgh Steelers kicked off their first NFL game on the 20th of September 1933, and lost 23-2 to the New York Giants. That result felt like a prophecy. For nearly four decades, the team that Art Rooney built from a $2,500 franchise…
- Las Vegas RaidersThe Las Vegas Raiders were nearly called the Oakland Señors. On the 4th of April 1960, that was the name announced as the winner of a naming contest run by the Oakland Tribune. After a few days of local ridicule and accusations that the…
- New Orleans SaintsThe New Orleans Saints took the field for the first time on the 17th of September, 1967, at Tulane Stadium, and on the opening kickoff, receiver John Gilliam ran it back 94 yards for a touchdown. The crowd of more than 80,000 roared. Then…
- Minnesota VikingsThe Minnesota Vikings have played in more Super Bowls than all but a handful of franchises in NFL history, yet they have never won one. Four trips to the championship game, four defeats. And those losses are not the whole story. Their NFC…
- Green Bay PackersThe Green Bay Packers hold more victories than any other team in NFL history, and they do it from a city of just over 107,000 people. Green Bay, Wisconsin is the smallest major league professional sports market in North America by a wide…
- Atlanta FalconsAtlanta Falcons football exists because a rival league blinked first. When NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle heard that the upstart American Football League was closing in on Atlanta in 1965, he did not deliberate. He boarded the next plane to…
- Carolina PanthersThe Carolina Panthers paid $206 million in 1993 for the right to exist. That was the price Jerry Richardson and his partners paid for an NFL expansion franchise in a region that had never had one. Richardson was not a billionaire…
- Chicago BearsThe Chicago Bears were born from a phone call. In March of 1920, George Chamberlain, general superintendent of the A. E. Staley Company, telephoned a man named George Halas. Chamberlain's offer was straightforward: come to Decatur,…
- Cincinnati BengalsPaul Brown founded the Cincinnati Bengals in 1967 with ten million dollars and a grudge. "I didn't pay ten million dollars to be in the AFL," he once said. Brown had been dismissed as Cleveland Browns head coach in January by Art Modell,…
- Los Angeles ChargersThe Los Angeles Chargers have spent their entire existence chasing a city that never quite claimed them. Founded in 1959 and born into the American Football League, the team has called Los Angeles home twice, San Diego for 56 years in…
- Los Angeles RamsThe Los Angeles Rams are the only franchise in NFL history to win championships representing three different cities: Cleveland in 1945, St. Louis in 1999, and Los Angeles in 1951 and 2021. That distinction alone hints at a restless,…
- San Francisco 49ersThe San Francisco 49ers take their name from the prospectors who flooded California in search of gold, and for much of the franchise's history, the team itself seemed to be on a perpetual hunt for something extraordinary. Founded in 1946…
- Seattle SeahawksThe Seattle Seahawks were born from a public naming contest that drew more than 20,000 entries. Thousands of suggestions poured in: Skippers, Pioneers, Lumberjacks. The winning name, chosen on the 17th of June 1975, referred to the osprey,…
- Tampa Bay BuccaneersThe Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost their first 26 games in franchise history. Not just the first season, but the entire first season plus the first twelve games of the second. They were so bad that late-night television comedians used them as a…
- Washington CommandersThe Washington Commanders have been playing professional football since 1932, making them one of the oldest franchises in American professional sports. But the path from their founding in Boston to their current identity in the Washington…
- Cleveland BrownsThe Cleveland Browns carry the only bare helmet in the National Football League. No logo, no mascot, just a solid burnt orange shell that has served as their primary trademark for most of their history. The franchise was founded in 1944…
- Philadelphia EaglesThe Philadelphia Eagles took the field for the first time on the 15th of October 1933, at the Polo Grounds in New York City, and lost to the Giants 56-0. It was a beginning that nobody would have chosen. Yet that same franchise, born from…
- Arizona CardinalsThe Arizona Cardinals are the oldest continuously run professional football franchise in the United States, a distinction they carry alongside a championship drought that, as of 2025, stretches 78 seasons - the longest active drought in…
- Denver BroncosOn the 14th of August 1959, minor league baseball owner Bob Howsam received an American Football League charter franchise for Denver. The team played its first game on the 9th of September 1960, defeating the Boston Patriots by a score of…
- Detroit LionsThe franchise began its life in Portsmouth, Ohio, as the Portsmouth Spartans in 1928. It joined the National Football League on the 12th of July 1930. Financial struggles forced a move to Detroit in 1934. Team owner George A. Richards…
- Kansas City ChiefsThe Kansas City Chiefs were not born in Kansas City. They started life in Dallas in 1960, dreamed up by a man named Lamar Hunt after the NFL refused to let him create an expansion franchise in his hometown. That refusal set off one of the…
- New York GiantsThe New York Giants were born on the 1st of August 1925, when Timothy Mara and Will Gibson paid $2,500 for a franchise in a professional football league most Americans did not take seriously. At the time, boxing, baseball, and college…