What Team Has the Most Depressed Fans? 2022

For those unfamiliar with the fandom depression rankings, please see last year’s inaugural article. In short, we’re checking to see if teams have made any level of the playoffs recent enough to be considered league average. Those that haven’t top our list.

This year, we’ll be using the same methodology to check up on the franchises and see how they’re holding up. New teams on a list will be bolded. Teams one year from being dropped from that list will be italicized.

Champion in the Last 32 Years

Finals in the Last 16 Years

Conference Finals in the Last 8 Years

Conference Semifinals in the Last 4 Years

Conference Quarterfinals in the Last 2 Years

One quick note is that the Seattle Kraken are brand new this year, so they haven’t made any of these playoff lists, but they haven’t been around enough to miss them. If they miss the playoffs their first two years, then I’ll figure out where to put them.

Also, I put the Rockies on the wrong list last year. That’s been corrected now.

The Movers

Biggest Improvers

The Bucks were the only team to take home the hardware that hadn’t done so in the previous 31 years. The Suns and Bengals are arguably more impressive, since they leapt up to league runner-up from the abject squalor they’d inhabited the previous year.

Along with the Suns and Bengals, the Raiders, Florida Panthers, Wild, and Knicks all managed to sneak in the playoffs, so they’re safe from the worst of the melancholy, at least for another year.

Biggest Slippers

The Athletics and Flames had their distant championships fall out of the time frame, so they slipped down several lists. Luckily, they each had a recent playoff appearance to stunt their free fall. Without a playoff run this year, the Flames will fall off and join our most depressed teams. How the mighty have fallen.

On the bright side, there were zero teams who fell into our top depressed teams. But for the teams who remained, things only got worse.

The Pit of Despair

Here, we find the nine teams unlucky enough to not make any of the above lists, ranked by Misery Factor.

#9 – Pittsburgh Pirates – 1.34

Won 1979 World Series

The Pirates did not do a lot to inspire hope this season, notching 101 losses. They did manage two All-Stars in Adam Frazier and Bryan Reynolds, so maybe things are looking up? I mean, probably not, but I’m trying to throw them a bone.

There aren’t that many baseball teams this far down in the dumps, with 60% winning a championship in the time frame and another 20% making the World Series. However, they could be joined next year by the Reds, who had the best record in the AL to not make the playoffs, and the Orioles, who had the worst record in the AL. I will note that if the strike prevents the season from being played, these teams will fall by default, since seasons not played count as every team missing the playoffs. This may seem unfair, but to me, those fans are even more depressed not being able to see their team play at all. No matter how mediocrely.

#8 – Buffalo Sabres – 1.44

Lost 1999 Stanley Cup Finals

The Sabres nab the distinction of having the most depressed hockey fans, on account of being the only team not on a list. The other hockey teams that cracked our top fifteen last year took it as a kick in the pants and made the playoffs, but not the Sabres. They managed the worst record in the league. This year, at the time of writing, they’re merely seventh in their division of eight, so maybe they’re a couple seasons of linear improvement away? Maybe?

#7 – New York Jets – 1.5

Lost 2010 AFC Championship Game

Welcome to the Zach Wilson Era. His year was headlined by more interceptions than touchdowns, and while some of that can be attributed to injury-riddled teammates, some re-draft rankings have him as the worst of last year’s first rounders.

This year, they’ve got four picks in the first two rounds, including two picks in the top ten, so they might want to get some help for that #28 offense. I say “might” because they also happen to have the #32 defense. Of 32. They’re gonna need a lot of help.

#6 – Miami Dolphins – 1.53

Won 1974 Super Bowl

This was really a tale of two seasons. The Dolphins lost seven of their first eight, then won eight of their last nine. They didn’t quite make the playoffs, but for a team that didn’t own their own first rounder going into the draft, why wouldn’t you want a run like that?

Well, their coach was ousted anyway, and on the way out the door, leveled serious allegations of point shaving, requested by the owner himself. The tank produced the connection of Tua Tagovailoa to Jaylen Waddle, which combined for a thousand yards this year. Respectable.

If their coach had obliged and tanked a little harder, they might’ve been able to secure the other headline passer-receiver duo of the last two years: Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. These two managed over fourteen-hundred yards this year, on the way to the Offensive Rookie of the Year, Comeback Player of the Year, and a Super Bowl berth. But the Dolphins kept their integrity… kind of.

#5 – Minnesota Timberwolves – 2

Lost 2018 First Round

The Timberwolves had a rough year last year, finishing ten games out of the play-in. Beyond that, their former player Zach LaVine had a breakout year. He was traded because the team wanted Jimmy Butler, who forced his way out soon after, and because the team wanted to keep Andrew Wiggins. It now seemed apparent that they made the wrong call in choosing Wiggins over LaVine.

That is until they traded Wiggins and he became an All-Star starter this year. Some of this can be attributed to his K-Pop fandom (I don’t even know.), but he sincerely has improved a ton as a player in Golden State.

The commonality of the breakouts is clear: they left the Wolves. Is Karl-Anthony Towns a trade away from an MVP award? Will he leave like Kevins Garnett and Love before him? Or is he doomed to stay?

#4 – Detroit Lions – 2.03

Won 1957 NFL Championship Game

You know, I thought the rankings looked a little odd last year with the Bengals as the most disappointing football franchise. With Cincinnati’s run, the Lions have taken back their place as kings of football’s worst jungle. That’s better.

The Lions managed to stay winless into the month of December, which is quite the feat, then managed to win enough games to lose themselves the top pick in the draft, equally impressive.

The brightest spot of the season for Lions fans had to do with another team entirely. Matthew Stafford, longtime Lions signal caller, was traded before the season and immediately led the Rams to a Super Bowl. I’m sure most Lions fans were cheering him along, but on some level, it has to hurt that he couldn’t bring it home to Detroit. But I don’t think that’s his fault. It’s more of an immutable law that Lions fans can’t have nice things.

#3 – Sacramento Kings – 2.22

Won 1951 NBA Finals

The Kings did something weird last year for them: they drafted a great young player in Tyrese Haliburton. Even weirder, he seemed like he genuinely wanted to be in Sacramento and wanted to be the guy that revived them.

Then this year, at a record of 20-35, the Kings decided it was time to cash their chips in. The rebuild is over, it’s time to shift into win-now mode. They made a trade centered around trading Haliburton for Domantas Sabonis.

Now to be fair, Sabonis is a 25-year-old two time All-Star, and he’s a better fit next to De’Aaron Fox than Haliburton was, but I don’t think Fox and Sabonis has the West exactly shaking in their boots. Haliburton plays a winning style of basketball and he may be a terrific player one day, perhaps better than Fox or Sabonis. It just won’t be for the Kings.

#2 – Seattle Mariners – 2.63

Lost 2001 ALCS

The Mariners made a real push this year. The AL Wild Card race was the hottest Wild Card race in history. The Mariners won eleven of thirteen going into the final game of the season, still alive. They along with the Blue Jays, Yankees, and Red Sox were all in the Wild Card hunt on the very last day of the season. There was a real chance they could all end up tied. The tiebreak scenarios were numerous and fascinating.

With a real shot to force a tiebreak and the Pacific Northwest full-throatedly behind them, they lost 7-3 at home to a long-since eliminated Angels team.

I would usually say that this seems like it would predict success to come, but their point differential was solidly negative, more akin to that of a team that finishes ten games below .500. Also, I think betting on the Mariners to turn things around might be one of the most reliable ways around to go broke.

#1 – Charlotte Hornets – 3

Lost 2016 First Round

The Hornets make me sad.

When fans talk about mismanaged front-offices, the Hornets aren’t usually at the top of the list. There’s no long list of Hornets greats who wasted their careers there. No heyday. Saying they’re the third most popular basketball team in their state would be generous, and I’m sure some NC State fans could make a good case why it’s not true.

Last year, they probably had the worst best player in the league. This year, LaMelo Ball has taken another step and even made the All-Star game. They made a couple trades at the deadline and are currently sitting at .500, in play-in contention, but I have no faith in them to win a do-or-die game. It would be one thing if they had a history of doing, but they’ve barely gotten the chance to die.

If someday the Hornets escape from this list, I will know it will only be temporary. They’ll be back again soon, where they belong.