Best NFL Teams to Miss the Super Bowl, Ranked by DVOA
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- Baltimore Ravens earned the top two spots in DVOA among Super Bowl misses, with the 2023 squad (44.4%) losing the AFC Championship 17-10 to the Chiefs after Zay Flowers fumbled at the goal line, and the 2024 squad (40.9%) falling 27-25 to the Bills when Mark Andrews dropped a 2-point conversion with 1:33 left.
- 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers ranked second at 44.3% estimated DVOA — the Steel Curtain posted five shutouts in their final nine regular-season games (winning 211-28 combined) before injuries to Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier led to a 24-7 AFC Championship loss to the Raiders.
- 2010 New England Patriots placed third at 42.4% DVOA, fielding what DVOA rates as the most efficient offense in NFL history; they went 14-2 but lost 28-21 to the Jets in the divisional round after a botched fake punt to safety Patrick Chung.
- 1987 San Francisco 49ers (36.5% DVOA) lost 36-24 to the Vikings in one of the NFL's greatest playoff upsets, with Anthony Carter setting a then-playoff record with 227 receiving yards — complicated by the players' strike that season.
- 2022 Buffalo Bills (36.3% DVOA) became the only team in DVOA history to finish top-two in all three phases of the game (second on offense and defense, first on special teams), but were blown out 27-10 by the Bengals.
- 1973 Los Angeles Rams (37.6% DVOA) lost 27-16 to the Cowboys on an 83-yard Drew Pearson touchdown after two Rams defensive backs collided trying to tackle him, part of a 1970s streak in which the Rams went 10-4 or better every year without reaching the Super Bowl until a 9-7 season in 1979.
- 2025 Los Angeles Rams (36.2% DVOA) and the Seahawks were the NFL's two best teams for most of the season before meeting in the NFC Championship, where the Seahawks took a 17-13 lead just before halftime on the way to a 31-27 win.
Why it matters: DVOA measures efficiency rather than record, so this ranking reframes which near-miss teams were truly dominant — the 2023 Ravens become the greatest team to never reach a Super Bowl by that metric, and several of these squads (1968 Cowboys, 2010 Patriots) had won or would win championships in other years with the same core, underscoring how thin the margin is between dynasty and footnote.
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