Well, after two hard fought conference championship games over the weekend, one decided amidst a blizzard and the other being the third in a heart-pounding trilogy, we’ve got our Super Bowl matchup for Sunday, February 8. It will be the New England Patriots, who unfortunately for humanity are good again, taking on the Seattle Seahawks, who have managed to what some said was impossible — ride Sam Darnold to a Super Bowl.
This is not the first time these two franchises have met in the Super Bowl, with New England defeating Seattle back in the 2014 season, in one of the best Super Bowls in the history of the sport, a 28-24 win secured by a Malcolm Butler interception on the goal line in the waning seconds.
Same uniforms as 2014, but totally different teams. We will have nearly two weeks to break down this matchup from an X’s and O’s perspective, and I will be in San Francisco for the week leading up to the game. For now, let’s look at the cities that did NOT make the Super Bowl this season, and ask this question — which of the remaining 30 NFL franchises are most miserable watching these two teams face off a week from Sunday?
Here are the five most miserable, in my opinion:
5. BUFFALO BILLS
The Bills and the Texans are in very similar head spaces here, as it was a cavalcade of turnovers by their starting quarterbacks that cost them a chance to get to the conference title game, and likely, the Super Bowl. Additionally, like the Texans, the Bills and their fans have to watch Stefon Diggs dance around as an AFC title winner. Not ideal! Additionally, the Bills whiffed on the one season with no Patrick Mahomes around in the playoffs, and Mahomes has been their kryptonite for years now.
4. HOUSTON TEXANS
C.J. Stroud’s four interceptions in one half of a divisional round game continue to live on via the internet. It’s been a nightmare week for the Texans’ quarterback. Making things worse, the 10-7 snow globe game played between Denver and New England had all the ear markings of a game the Texans could have easily won with their defense and a mistake free QB performance — kind of like the loss to New England! Obviously, there are no guarantees that Stroud gives the Texans the bare minimum to win a game, but the Broncos offense sure was anemic. DeMeco Ryans’ defense would have feasted.
3. MINNESOTA VIKINGS
2. NEW YORK JETS
As mentioned above, we now live in a world where Sam Darnold is not only IN the Super Bowl, but his team is the favorite to win a Super Bowl. Darnold hopped around on four different teams before landing in his QB Xanadu with Klint Kubiak as his offensive coordinator in Seattle. Of the four previous stops for Darnold, the two hurting the worst watching him are the Vikings and Jets. The Vikings let him walk after 14 wins in 2024 and replaced him with the only QB failure more memed on social media than Stroud, J.J. McCarthy. The Jets drafted Darnold with the third overall pick in 2018, and moved on after three seasons, in which Darnold was best known for lamenting his “seeing ghosts” in 2019 while piling up interceptions thrown.
1. TENNESSEE TITANS
Any chance we get to clown the Titans (or the Zombie Oilers, as I like to call them), we take advantage of that opportunity. For some reason, the Titans fired Mike Vrabel after the 2023 season. Two losses in three weeks top the Texans in December that year may have had something to do with it. Vrabel, of course, landed on his feet and just engineered the biggest turnaround in NFL history, inheriting a 4-13 team from 2024 and turning them into the AFC champs. Titans fans have to be on collective suicide watch.
This article appears in Private: Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2026.