The plague of the Championship droughts
Out in Glendale, Arizona, fans have been waiting for a championship since before the Super Bowl era. The franchise now known as the Arizona Cardinals have not won a league championship since 1947. This is one of the more surprising droughts in sports, as they have been one of football’s most consistently good teams throughout the past decade. They have appeared in the playoffs four times since 2008, including a Super Bowl appearance in 2008 that saw them come within seconds of defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers. Currently, the Cardinals remain one of the best teams in football, and will be serious contenders to finally win it all come this January and February.
Elsewhere in the National Football League, the entire history of the Detroit Lions franchise can be summed up in one word: mediocrity. Not only have they never even appeared in a Super Bowl game, but their last league championship of any kind came all the way back in 1957. Oh, and they have won a grand total of one playoff game since that title. In 2008, the Lions became the only team in league history to go 0-16 in a full season. The past few seasons brought a new era of hope to Lion fans, especially with the star play of Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson Jr., but the retirement of Johnson this past offseason has it looking like the Lions are far, far away from being able to win the final game of the entire season.
Finally, there are the Cleveland Browns. Sorry, but there is absolutely no hope for the Browns. They are currently 0-9 this season and in all likelihood they’ll finish the season at 0-16. They have few good players, if any at all, and their quarterback situation is an absolute mess. Fortunately for Cleveland fans, they have the successful Cavaliers and Indians to watch instead, because the Browns offer no hope to even the most optimistic fan. It’s only the beginning of November, but the professional football season is already over in Northeast Ohio. Their league championship drought has been unending since 1964, and is sure to continue for many, many years. They’ve also never even appeared in a Super Bowl game, and have not made the playoffs at all since 2002. In my opinion, the Cleveland Browns are the most pitiful franchise in the history of American professional sports.
More than any other professional sports league in the United States, the NBA has a severe lack of parity. Nowadays, super teams tend to dominate the league, leaving only a handful that are able to contend even before the season gets under way. However, the ineptitude of the Sacramento Kings franchise is nonetheless abysmal. They have not won a championship since 1951, when they played in Rochester, New York and were known as the Royals. Since that year, the Kings have not been able to advance to the Finals at all and have also played in three other cities in between. The closest the Kings got to achieving basketball immortality was when they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in one of the best Conference Finals series of all-time. The Kings have sat at the bottom of the Western Conference standings for most of this century, and things don’t look too bright in the near future either;they have one of the league’s brightest stars in DeMarcus Cousins, but not much else. The team just opened a brand new state-of-the-art arena this season, so that’s all this franchise really has going for them right now.
In the NBA’s Eastern Conference, the most historically morbid franchise has been the Atlanta Hawks. They have not won an NBA championship since their days in St. Louis in the 1957-58 season. They had one of the best players of all time in Dominique Wilkins, but the team as a whole did not enjoy much success. The Hawks have made the playoffs in each season since 2008, which is the longest current streak of its kind in the NBA. However, in those nine seasons, Atlanta has managed to make it into the Eastern Conference Finals only a single time, where they got swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2015. This season appears to be another playoff-bound year for the Hawks, although, based on their recent track record, it’s inevitable that they’ll be eliminated before the Eastern Conference Finals once again. The bright spot for the team this season is that they signed hometown star Dwight Howard, although he is now a shell of his former self.
Despite being one of the leagues top teams in the first 50 seasons, Toronto has not won a Stanley Cup Championship since 1967, which is a tie for the longest active drought of its kind in the sport. Ironically, the Leafs still own the second most championships for a single franchise in league history, with thirteen to their name. Nonetheless, times have certainly been tough for hockey in Canada’s most populated city. The team has won only one division championship this century but their future is definitely looking bright. They drafted Auston Matthews with the number one draft pick this past spring, and he has quickly become a rookie sensation. Leafs fans should be excited about their team’s chances at winning the Cup again in the near future.
The Indians have not suffered from any specific curse like the Cubs allegedly had endured, yet their lack of success before the midpoint of the 20th century remains unfortunate. Since their last victory, they have won four American League Pennants, but have been unable to capitalize each time. Their last two series losses, in 2016 and 1997, occurred in a heartbreaking game seven fashion. Going into 2017, the Indians will be expected to compete for another playoff berth and should perform even better than they did this season. They were without arguably their best hitter, Michael Brantley, for the majority of the season, as well as two of their important pitchers, Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar. With these pitchers back next season, as well as the continued improvement of up and coming stars such as Francisco Lindor and Jason Kipnis, the Indians will be a force to be reckoned with once play begins in April. Don’t be surprised to see The Tribe in the Fall Classic a year from now. Out of these seven historically awful sports franchises in recent years, the Cleveland Indians have by far the best chance of breaking their drought in the coming years. Unlike the other six teams, the Indians are coming off a championship series appearance and were one hit away from completely rewriting the script. Next season looks absolutely promising for Cleveland. The Lions, Kings, Hawks, and Maple Leafs, while each have some star players, are a long ways away from putting themselves back into league contention; the Cardinals are the exception here, but even they have some flaws that separate them from the likes of New England, Dallas, and Seattle in their league. And then of course there are the Browns, who don’t even deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as these other five relatively bad teams. For now though, it’s the Cubs time to celebrate the end of a curse and the start of a new era. No more is the Curse of the Billy Goat anything to be worried about. Instead, this year’s Cubs team has marked their place in baseball history. Hopefully some of the teams listed above will have breakthrough season in the near future to win a championship, ending their long droughts.
It was debatably the most famous curse in the history of American professional sports. Perhaps one of the most infamous droughts too. But in the early hours of Thursday morning in downtown Cleveland, the Cubs did the impossible. They won their first world championship since 1908, breaking a streak of 107 seasons without a World Series title, one that seemed like it would never end. Now that the Cubs have finally won it all, the team they defeated, the Cleveland Indians, is currently experiencing a championship drought themselves. They have not won the World Series since 1948, despite coming painstakingly close in game seven. Besides the Indians, what other teams are seeking their first championship in over half a century?