Over the last 10 years, the New England Patriots played in a staggering seven AFC Championship Games and competed in football's biggest game three times. Two years ago, they lifted the Lombardi Trophy as champions of the NFL.
During that same 10-year span, the Seattle Seahawks made the playoffs seven times. They played in a pair of Super Bowls, losing in thrilling fashion to the Patriots and blowing out the Denver Broncos, who themselves won the Super Bowl last year.
They are the NFL's most successful teams. The most popular teams. The league's most talked-about teams.
There's a flip side to that coin, however. The NFL has 32 teams, many of which haven't sniffed the playoffs—much less the Super Bowl—in years. Teams for whom a winning season would be cause for a citywide celebration.
They are the NFL's cellar-dwellers.
Bleacher Report recently spoke to the men and women who cover the NFL's most beleaguered franchises about those struggles, why they continue and how those teams might finally make their way out of the NFL's basement.
In doing so, two themes came to the forefront repeatedly—failure, just like success, starts at the top. And if your NFL franchise can't answer the quarterback conundrum, it's going to be headed nowhere fast.
When you look the NFL's most consistently successful franchises, a common thread runs through them. The Pittsburgh Steelers have had three head coaches since Chuck Noll took the reins back in 1969. Bill Belichick has prowled the sidelines in Beantown since 2000. There's continuity both among the coaching staff and the front office.
In the city where Belichick got his start as a head coach, however, it's been another story altogether. In roughly the same time frame (since 1999), the Cleveland Browns have had nine head coaches and almost as many general managers.
Dennis Manoloff, who has written about the Browns for the Cleveland Plain Dealer since the early 1990s, believes that carousel has played a large part in Cleveland's woeful 51-120 record over the past 10-plus seasons—including 0-11 in 2016.
"I think with the Browns specifically, the problem has been impatience from the top," Manoloff told Bleacher Report. "Where ownership tasks a group of people with running the team and then the losing occurs. Panic sets in and they feel there's a need for a change. That constant change has really crippled this franchise since 1999."
"You get the cycle of poverty with these bad teams," he continued. "They say they want to rebuild and everything sounds great in the beginning. And then as soon as the losing starts, panic sets in and there goes the so-called 'commitment to rebuild.' You're back starting all over again with another regime. It's certainly been the case with Cleveland."
It's not a problem unique to Cleveland, either. Up the shores of Lake Erie sits the city of Buffalo, home of the longest current playoff drought in the National Football League. Since the Bills last made the postseason in 1999, they've had eight head coaches.
Joe Buscaglia of WKBW, who has covered the Bills since 2010, sees the problems of the past as having started even higher up the food chain.
"It's a lot to do with who they put in charge," Buscaglia said. "At one point, this Bills team had Marv Levy as their GM. Marv Levy was a really good coach for the Bills for a long time, but he had no experience doing that. He wasn't the GM by name, but (then-team president) Russ Brandon—who's more of a business guy—kind of put on the GM hat for a little bit."
"It's tough for a losing organization to get someone to come in and coach the team," Buscaglia said. "I remember there were some high hopes when they were trying to hire someone in 2010, and they end up with Chan Gailey (who had not been a head coach in quite some time). Fast-forward to Doug Marrone, who they built up as their top candidate. But he went to the Pinstripe Bowl at Syracuse for two years—he turned the program around a little bit, but not in an overwhelming sense."
"The Bills at least wanted to talk to Chip Kelly that year, but they couldn't get the time of day," he continued. "Same deal with Ken Whisenhunt and guys like that."
Since the departure of Jon Gruden in 2008, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers haven't kept a coach for more than three years. They went 58-102 from 2006-2015 and haven't made the postseason since Gruden left.
Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times blames the merry-go-round for much of the misery.
"Ownership sets the tone," Stroud said. "I think you see good organizations usually win and continue to win even if there's a turnover in coaches and players, which is inevitable. Certainly continuity especially in your coaching staff is important, but again, a lot of that has to do with ownership."
"What happens to these bad teams—and it happened to the Bucs for years—is that you run into a cycle of 'change the coach, change the quarterback,'" Stroud continued. "When Lovie Smith got here, in two years there was a 75 percent turnover in the roster. So when you're constantly doing that, there's no continuity in schemes, personnel and/or coaching. And that's how you run into the abyss, so to speak."
The Bucs haven't cornered the market on Florida futility. Since 2006, the Jacksonville Jaguars have one playoff appearance and a 60-110 record. As Ryan O'Halloran of the Florida Times-Union told Bleacher Report, the Jaguars have checked off just about every box in what not to do as a franchise over that span.
"They draft poorly, they don't have a rebuilding plan, they have had poor coaching and they have bad luck," O'Halloran said. "A combination of all those in the last decade have put the Jaguars in their current state."
"Drafting Luke Joeckel instead of Ziggy Ansah with the No. 2 pick in 2013," he went on. "Drafting Ace Sanders and Denard Robinson in the middle rounds of that draft. Gus Bradley's first two coordinator hires—Jedd Fisch (offense) and Bob Babich (defense). Cutting linebacker Brandon Marshall after the 2013 preseason. Not signing free-agent center Alex Mack this past offseason. The list goes on and on."
It's a hamster wheel. If the team doesn't have success, fans put pressure on ownership to make a change for change's sake. But in making those changes, teams stay stuck in place—constantly turning over the roster and staff.
Of course, it doesn't help if losing teams continually whiff on high draft picks—something the Browns have raised from science to bizarre art form in recent years.
"One of the main reasons the Browns have floundered since 1999—the overarching point—is that their drafting has been terrible," Manoloff said. "There's no sugarcoating how bad their drafts have been. With all the opportunities that they have had at the top of the first round, to miss so many times and at so many positions is a huge part of it."
Missing on any high draft pick is bad. But there's one position where finding a quality starter can be the difference between being a perennial contender or a perpetual pretender.
Quarterback.
It would appear that a couple of NFC East teams found their signal-callers of the future in the 2016 NFL draft in Dak Prescott and Carson Wentz. The Eagles drafted Wentz with the No. 2 overall pick this year—a pick they acquired from the Browns.
For Marla Ridenour of the Akron Beacon Journal, who has covered the Browns for 30 years, that move is emblematic of Cleveland's futility since rejoining the NFL in 1999.
"I think maybe they don't really know how to interview players in the predraft process," she told Bleacher Report. "It's been killing me with the Wentz thing. I really don't know if they dig enough, and I think there's too many knee-jerk reactions. They never put the players in a position to succeed. They just haven't done everything in the organization's power to prop up the guy they pick."
"One of the biggest weaknesses of the expansion era isn't just the talent acquisition," Ridenour went on. "It's the lack of continuity. They're just making massively bad decisions on draft day."
As Darryl Slater of NJ.com, who has covered the New York Jets the past four years, pointed out, the quarterback question has dogged Gang Green for decades.
"You need a quarterback to win in the NFL," Slater said. "If you're one of the teams that doesn't have a quarterback, you're not going to win consistently. The Jets just have not been able to find a quarterback dating all the way back to Joe Namath, really. I mean they had [Vinny] Testaverde and [Chad] Pennington, and those guys did it for stretches—but no really elite franchise quarterback. So that made it hard on them. That's been the biggest hurdle. We will see if they can get one of these guys to work out for them at some point."
Slater has his doubts about the young quarterbacks on the roster. "I don't know—I mean, Christian Hackenberg didn't look like it. He looked very much like a project and not an Andrew Luck type. We'll see—maybe he's the guy. But there are reasons for people to be skeptical about that. I have doubts about [Bryce] Petty based on what we've seen of him."
The Chicago Bears are in a similar boat as the Jets—suffering through another down year with a veteran quarterback on the roster in Jay Cutler who clearly isn't the answer to their problems at football's most important position. According to Bleacher Report's Dan Pompei, who has covered the Bears since their glory days of the 1980s, the Bears have been in the QB wilderness for a long time, just like the Jets.
"Through the years, this has been the biggest issue with this franchise," Pompei said. "They have one Hall of Fame quarterback in nearly 100 years. And they haven't had many Pro Bowlers either. They have some interesting young players they have added in recent years, but without that quarterback, nothing else really matters."
The Bills, meanwhile, enter this week's action a .500 football team on the fringe of the playoff chase. And while Buscaglia isn't necessarily sold on Tyrod Taylor as the long-term solution under center, he was quick to point out it's absolutely a step in the right direction relative to the team's recent history at the position.
"It's basically everything," Buscaglia said. "This is a team that has been searching and yearning for a quarterback since Jim Kelly. They wanted Ben Roethlisberger [in 2004], but Pittsburgh was two picks ahead of them, so the Bills wound up taking Lee Evans and trading back into the first to take J.P. Losman."
Cue groans from Western New York.
"The Bills could have had Russell Wilson [in 2012]," Buscaglia continued. "They liked him and they had the pick ahead of Seattle. But [GM] Buddy Nix said it was too early to take Wilson at that point in the draft so they traded ahead of Jacksonville to pick [wide receiver] T.J. Graham because they were worried Jacksonville was going to take him."
Cue those groans turning to deep, wracking sobs.
Jacksonville has their own problems under center given Blake Bortles' struggles under center in 2016.
"They need to hit on the quarterback, period," O'Halloran said. "Blake Bortles has to be the franchise guy for them to have any sustained success, because if they get to a point where they need to redraft that position, it will also mean a new regime is in place and the Jaguars would again be starting over."
Down the road in Tampa, the Buccaneers sit a game out of first place in the NFC South after last week's huge win in Kansas City, due in no small part to them seemingly finding their franchise guy in 2015 No. 1 overall pick Jameis Winston.
"I think the Bucs believe they found their franchise quarterback," Stroud said of the second-year pro. "He has a sort of natural charisma, leadership and competitiveness to him that is uncommon, and certainly if you can get it at that position, it sets the tone for your whole franchise. He's the first guy in [and] the last guy to go home and really cares about being great. I think he has a really good chance."
It's something of a Catch-22. In order for struggling franchises to climb from the basement and enjoy any sort of consistent success, they have to hit on a quarterback and enjoy some semblance of continuity in the coaching staff and front office. But in order to get that continuity at the top, teams need the success that brings with it some measure of job security.
It can be done, though. The Oakland Raiders lost 110 of 160 games from 2006-15 and haven't been to the playoffs since getting pummeled by the Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII. In 2016, however, the Raiders are an 8-2 team in first place in the AFC West and on a collision course with a return to the postseason.
Much of their success this year can be credited to third-year quarterback Derek Carr, who has emerged as a legitimate contender to win MVP honors this year. But as Jerry McDonald of the Bay Area News Group (who has covered the Silver and Black for 20 years) told Bleacher Report, the real key was having a plan and sticking to it.
"[General manager] Reggie McKenzie came in with a plan, essentially gutted the roster, and then, most important, made the correct decisions with regard to stocking the roster with talent," McDonald said. "And plenty of people wanted him out when they were 11-37 after three seasons. The Raiders had to fire McKenzie's first choice as coach—Dennis Allen—but appear to have gotten it right this time around with Jack Del Rio. Although it's fair to note Del Rio has far more talent than Allen ever had."
Every writer Bleacher Report spoke to was honest about the failings of the teams they cover. But they all pointed for reasons for optimism about the future as well. Buscaglia, O'Halloran and Slater each mentioned the work of Doug Whaley, Dave Caldwell and Mike Maccagnan, respectively, as general manager. Manoloff and Ridenour both believe the Browns have a keeper in head coach Hue Jackson, although they expressed concern as to whether he'll be given time to turn things around.
When it comes to losing NFL teams, the old saying about it being darkest before the dawn holds true.
When I asked Ridenour, the longest-tenured scribe of this group, what the low point was of her time covering the Browns, she quipped, "We're getting there."
Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter: @IDPSharks.