The Most Heartbreaking, Soul Crushing, NFL Playoff Losses 

The Bills and Vikings with the pain-off of the century

Perna: No Superbowls in this video Falcons fans: phew

I will never forget the trauma I experienced as a Bills fan during 13 seconds. When Gabe scored the go ahead touchdown, what I felt could only be described as unbridled happiness and joy that I had yet to experience in my life as a sports fan. That feeling would then be followed but the most intense stabbing loss I’ve ever felt. I proceeded to black out on my couch and woke up at 3 am still reeling.

The Bills' four straight Super Bowl losses has got to be the cruelest thing I've ever seen in sports, and I used to be a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs. It boggles the mind that a team could make the final round for four straight years and lose *all* of them.

Honorable mention to Seahawks @ Vikings 2015, a terrible missed kick from Minnesota in the waning seconds of the Wild Card round. Mind you, the kicker was the only reason they put points up the entire game! When this happened, I was in the 8th grade and had a really great Science teacher. He was funny and wicked smart, and he'd start the day with news roundups and a bit of football talk. He's also a massive Vikings fan, and this year, he was excited. Of course, being in the Bay Area, he'd remind us that the Niners and Raiders were in the mix, but no one doubted his alliegance. He knew this team could do it this year. On the drive to school, I heard the playcall on the morning radio, and my heart sank. Literally the entire day he had people telling him they were so sorry, that was a terrible miss, they had nothing but empathy for him. But he smiled, said "we've been here before", and kept on trucking. To this day I am a Vikings fan for him and him alone. A cursed team. A team that cannot have nice things. But the team I want to see win it all regardless.

Not having the Bengals - Steelers 2015 playoff game on here is insane. As a Bengals fan it was the worst night of my life watching the first playoff win in 30 years slip away... I still think about it.

as a Saints fan I ain't watching this. I look away every time they show the Minneapolis Miracle, and it's literally every. single. season. multiple times per season, and before every playoff game.

Thank you Perna, as a Vikings fan I was feeling a little too good today. I needed this to remind me that my life sucks.

As a jags fan, the loss in the AFC Championship to the Pats in 2018 was gut wrenching

As a Saints fan, having to go through heartbreaking playoffs losses is terrible but I could take that over blowing a big lead in the Super Bowl. Hi Atlanta.

Im a Raiders fan and i swear to god The Tuck Rule feels like it Cursed the Franchise and is one of the biggest episodes of the NFL rules having no consistency.

The Vikings are heartbreak. They are the cruelty of hope. The Lions make you depressed, the Browns make you sad, the Jets make you laugh through tears. But the Vikings ... they make you believe. They make you open yourself to them. They will take you to the greatest height, and right when you finally start to believe, they will kick you off without a parachute. The Vikings are ranked near the top in all-time playoff appearances and division titles. They are remarkably consistent, having produced Super Bowl contenders every decade. Their players litter the Hall of Fame like stars in the sky. By almost every metric, the Vikings are one of the most successful teams in NFL history ... except in Super Bowl rings. Because cruelty, thy name is the Vikings.

You missed the Double Doink on Bears vs Eagles and Matt Walsh miss a 9 yard field goal vs Seattle. That's a heartbreaking moment

Yes the Divisional Round has historically had some truly heartbreaking losses

Tyler bass dodged a bullet with this release date

Scott Norwood wide right, 3 blowout Super Bowl loses, the Music City Miracle and 13 seconds will forever be seared into my brain. These experiences prepared me to always expect suffering in life.

As an a lifelong Eagles fan right after the historic 2023 Historic Collapse, this video essay feels like an icy cold ice pack being applied to a burn. Phenomenal work here Mr. Perna as usual, really, really such a nice piece for people to enjoy forever.

That damn tuck rule still haunts me to this day. Was only a child when this happened but still remember every moment from it.

"If this one does numbers, Will, Johnny and I will hit you with a Superbowl heartbreaker episode." Seahawk fan: ...Please don't.

As a bills fan, that 13 second game still haunts me and makes me sick to this day.

Thank you for bringing up 13 seconds again right before we face them on Sunday. I'm sure that it won't be a bad omen or anything .......

Packers fans can't think about the 2014 Seahawks game without PTSD and piercing pain throughout the body.

I'm kinda surprised the broncos playoff loss against elite flacco didn't make this list

2011 Patriots vs. Ravens has to be the most heartbreaking loss I've seen as a Ravens fan (though 2019 was close). Lee Evans dropping a go ahead TD and Billy Cundiff absolutely shanking a potentially game tying field goal within seconds.

I'm a Packers fan that lives in WI but I was born in MN to a family of deeply devoted Vikings fans. That 1998 playoff loss, the way my family went from exhilarated to crushed in a heartbeat, is why I started rooting for the Packers and to this day can't stand the Vikings. All that team does is bring sadness and heartache to that fanbase.

In all honesty, I have resigned myself to the fact that us Vikings fans don't deserve a Superbowl unless every other team wins it before us....I guess that's what happens when you're the great storyteller of the NFL. Always being groomed to make someone else look better and you're the person that they have to tell their story.....I'll still cheer this team on as I've always had since I was 4 years old, but what's the point of being hopeful for something that will inevitably crash down and will be stuck in an endless ocean?

Its Frank Wycheck, not Steve. May he rest in peace.

The Comback still still makes me cry. When you are up 35-3 with 13:00 minutes left in the third quarter, you just run the ball.

The 13 second game haunts me to this day.

You forgot my Ravens vs Pats and the Lee Evans, Billy Cundiff choke

Bro the fact that the titans was In the the wild card with a 13 and 3 record is crazy

That Seattle/GB championship game is still the most insane comeback I've seen (at least to me). Wilson went from playing the worst game of his life to suddenly the best. Unfortunately, I do believe Seattle used up all their luck in that game. Had they had the proper luck, Jermaine Kearse would have gotten up from his insane Super Bowl catch and gotten a TD right then and there.

As a life-long Bengals fan, I gotta say the worst playoff loss we ever had (not counting Super Bowls) was the Wild Card matchup against the Steelers from 2015. We had a backup QB, we weren’t favored to win, the Steelers had the 3rd best offense in the entire league that year, and it rained all night long at then-Paul Brown Stadium. You could honestly fast forward the first 3 quarters of the game, but the fourth quarter was where the game got insanely exciting! Down by 15, we rallied back to take a 1-point lead, Big Ben throws a INT with less than 2 minutes left in the game. All we have to do is just get a first down to force Pittsburgh to burn through all of their timeouts, and we win the game! Then… disaster struck! Jeremy Hill fumbles the ball! Then Burfict and Pacman happen. Oh, God! To this day, I still don’t know how or why Joey Porter didn’t get an unsportsmanlike penalty for going onto field during that whole fiasco with Pacman and the refs. Burfict and Pacman get flagged. Cool. I understand. But they’ve should flagged Porter as well to offset 15 yards of the 30 yards in penalties that were assessed to us for Burfict’s and Pacman’s fouls. Doing that, it would’ve made Boswell’s kick at the end of the game a 50-yarder instead of a 35 yarder. And, with that distance, in the rain, against the wind, Boswell probably doesn’t make that kick and we still win the game. That was an absolute devastating way to lose a playoff game! 1/19 | 5:00 p.m. | EST

2019-2020 divisional round playoff. Chiefs vs Texans. Texans ahead 27-0. And then The Chiefs pull a comeback and win the game blowing out the Texans 54-27. The Chiefs then proceed to win the superbowl. The PTSD from that was real. We are just now recovering from it

The Immaculate Reception and The Tuck Rule are draped over the shoulders of Raider Nation like twin shrouds.

Patrick mahomes has erased the generational trauma of chiefs fans. But between Len Eliot, "Marty ball", the "no punt " game, Mariota competing a td to himself, Jamal Charles concussion game; there were quite a few terrible playoff losses.

I love how the commanders are left out of this...... Because being a commanders fan is pain.

It was the drive and the fumble to the older generation, now it's the no call helmet-to-helmet 💀

My biggest heartbreak as a Bengals fan was when Ja’Marr made Ramsey fall over on the route and was wide open for a walk off TD in the SB… but we decided not to block Aaron Donald and we lost 😭😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔💔

The Steelers walkoff Troy Polamalu INT against a rookie Joe and rookie Harbaugh was so rough

The Bills managed to continue their streak with another heartbreaker for the fans who now wish all their misery on kicker Tyler Bass. So close. Ouch.

It baffles me how franchises are so quick to blame the coach for any mistake and fire them. Even though they led the team to amazing records

re: Bills Oilers, my sister had several friends and family members over to watch this game. In the third quarter everyone got up (except my sister and sister in law) and went to the racetrack. Haha, they missed the greatest comeback in Bills history. What a great job Brandon on getting and narrating all these highlights. Loved it.

This channel matching up with “A Closer Look”. So well done Perna. Love it!!!!

Dude the irony of the OT change rule in the playoffs for the Bills then led to the chiefs being able to respond in the SB is kind of crazy

That cardiac arrest line about the bills was something else lol

What about the Jakobi Jones game vs the broncos

Oh my gosh, I love these "history lessons"! Please make more of it❤ I'm from Germany, and I have been following the NFL since around 1996, 1997, but never that closely. So this kind of content is perfect for me to catch up 😊

Such a good topic. Love your humor dude. And your chest hair, lmao.

Perna, great video and hey, thanks for showing the Tebow game to put another dagger in the hearts of us Steelers fans. You truly are a cruel and bitter Broncos fan.

Those were painful. Even the ones where teams I didn't like were involved. All that hard work all season down the drain in seconds. And you are so witty and energetic that one has to watch the whole thing. Thanks.

Love you BP, keep up the fantastic content!

I think the Music City miracle was flagged for illegal forward pass, but they reviewed and determined it wasn't. He throws the ball in front of the line and it ends up on it

As a Saints fan i can understand the pain of playoff losses and thanks for reminding me of the last time we actually had a chance to get Drew another ring. Besides i needed a reason to drink today and you gave me that

Those logos just get better and better. That girl has the ability to draw them as horribly as possible, and yet still capture the essence of the team while being identifiable. That will never be a playoff heartbreaking loss.

I love this channel ! It’s so entertaining and informative

Don't forget the other controversy around the Music City Miracle... benching Doug Flutie, their starter all year who got them there, in favor of backup Rob Johnson 😂

As a Bills fan the thumbnail gave me PTSD

Great work as always🎉

Ill never forget watching the Seattle/Green Bay comeback. Seeing the fake field goal pass to Gillium, standing up and cheering screaming 'WHO?!?!'

man them saints back to back loses broke my heart 😭😭😭

"No Super Bowls" Oh, so we don't get to watch the highlights of the time the Seahawks crushed the soul from the Broncos in the Super Bowl? Or when the Patriots broke the Hawks the following year? Or the infamous 28-3 for the Falcons? *sigh* You're no fun sometimes Perna.

I forgot the details of so many of these. What a wild reel!

I am a long time Chiefs fan. So I remember pre Mahomes years. 50 of them. 50 years of hell. 50 years of pain. So right now is fantastic.

how as a broncos fan could you forget about the mile high miracle when the ravens went on to win the superbowl?

The recent success of the Chiefs gives some recency bias, but boy oh boy, before 2019 we were a TORTURED fan base let me tell ya. So many playoff heartbreaks they each have a name. The no-punt game. 38-10. The no-TD game. Forward Progress game aka Marcus Mariota game. Dee Ford Offsides game. Lin Elliott game. etc. Winning that 2019 Super Bowl and that playoff run was like exorcising a lifetime's worth of demons as a Chiefs fan.

Great list. My most heartbreaking playoff experience as a Jets fan was the 2010 AFC Championship against the Steelers. I don't remember much about the game per se, but I remember it being my freshman year of college in Western New York, prime Bills country, and just being mocked by Bills and Steelers fans for the next month. People even threw Steelers terrible towels at me. It was infuriating and I just told myself "No big deal, this team looks so close to going all the way. We got to the championship two years in a row." And the Jets have never made it back to the playoffs since. 13 seasons have passed. I've gone from an 18 year old to a 31 year old. I am in pain. And every passing year makes the memory of the 2009-2010 seasons that much more bittersweet. A close second would be the 1998 AFC Championship when the Broncos beat the Jets. I don't remember much about that, I was only 6 and not paying attention, but the Broncos made my mom cry and I hated them more than any other team for a while after that. It speaks volumes about how great of a content creator Perna is to make me follow his content in spite of being a Broncos fan. (Joking of course, I've got nothing against the Broncos so long as the Bills, Dolphins, and Pats exist).

For every tear of pain, there is screams of joy.

Falcon fan here..... Don't know if I need to watch this one haha

Tebow beating the Steelers hurts me more than anything. True pain in steeler country

The Vikings loss in the 98 championship game scarred me for life. Absolutely sick to my stomach and, to this day when I’m reminded of it, those feelings come back fresh.. Good Gawd that was the worst..

I was in middle school for the 2006 Cowboys/Seahawks game. The amount of swearing my family tossed at the tv after Romo's fumble will be engrained in my head.

You can add new chapters to the packers and bills.. after this weekend

Youse kids is ALL wrong.....the Rodger Craig Fumble of 1990, with Niners leading the hated Giants 13-12 late, kept the Niners from three-peating and thus becoming inarguably the greatest franchise in NFL history. That one still hurts.

As a browns fan, i was curious to see your perspective on the 80’s losses. My mom always tells me stories about how she hate the broncos and the ravens with every fiber in her being. Good analysis.

Great narration.

Aaaaand u can add tonights game to the list.

2:19 As a Seahawks fan, I thank you for delaying my inevitable SB49 pain.

You're the only sports talk I watch or listen to.

For Montreal Canadian, its a slow, long and painful bandaid removal. Being from the most dominant and legendary franchise in Hockey history to never even getting close to gain the cup ever again. With the 2020-2021 playoff run, that just rubbing it even further. With Price out of comission and the Tank Bowl ongoing, being a Habs fan is rough nowdays.

As a Pats fan, we broke a lot of teams hearts especially in SB but to be humble SB42 really hurts and there's ridiculous LUCK on the Giants final drive

Bills will get their revenge!!! Buffalo all the way this time!!!

I saw most of those games live. It is interesting that no games from the 60s and 70s made this clip, which might have been worthy of this feature. Highlight: Seeing Moon lose to the Bills since I was on the reverse end of the outcome when Moon was winning CFL championships in the 80s. Lowlight: Having started to follow the Raiders (as a 2nd team) since my Bengals were always out of the playoffs in the 90s and early 2000s, the Raiders loss to NE was a lowlight. Great work Perna!

Rewatching and have shared with friends because id love to see a superbowl version!!

Man i was so happy you did this. I put off watching it till i got my food cooked and sat down with the headphones on just enjoying everyones pain n misery while reliving the moments i watched then BAM! Hit me with the Oiler game 😢🤦😭 EVERY year before my sons football season I made him watch that game! Yes, sadly Years ago right here in Houston, Tx Walmart had that damn game on VHS and I bought it! It should be required watching for every coach/player before every season! NEVER GIVE UP AND NEVER CELEBRATE TOO EARLY😢😂

Great video other than the 2011 Tebow upset 😢 Watched all the games live except the 'Music City Miracle' which BTW it's Frank Wycheck not Steve Wycheck. I was a Browns fan before I learned my entire family were Steelers fans but i remember being pretty upset when 'The Drive' happened and then 'The Fumble' was just painful. Thanks for the upload

Keep up the good work

Long before Russell Wilson's goal line interception, Matt Hasselback gave us the absolute gem of, "We want the ball, we're gonna score" minutes before throwing a pick six in overtime.

I clicked this as a Vikings fan knowing it would be nothing but pain. But god damnit I love your videos, Perna, so I’ll suffer through it.

this video is the first time I've watched highlights from the 13 seconds game. As a Bills fan in his early 30s, that's still the most painful loss

The insane thing about that Bills comeback vs. the Oilers is that it was complete within 1qtr. They trailed 35-3 going into the 3rd qtr and by the beginning of the 4th qtr. they were up 38-35. 5 td in roughly 15 minutes. Thats what was possible with that hurry up offense that they mastered.

First full season watching brandon, not looking forward to the offseason ive loved this content

I was waiting for the part where we talk about Gary Anderson. Sucks that had to happen when Cunnigham was there man. I NEED that superbowl and Dallas video Brandon.

The Music City Miracle was a lateral, not a forward pass. The position of the two players on the field makes it seem like it was a forward pass, but when you factor in Wychek’s throwing motion and where Dyson caught the ball relative to his (Dyson’s) body, it went slightly backward. It was the right call. Anyway, going back further, the 1971 AFC Divisional playoff game between the Dolphins and Chiefs had to sting the Chiefs because it was a double overtime loss. But fate turned on the Dolphins 11 years later when they lost to the Air Coryell Chargers nearly 14 minutes into overtime. The game in Miami had been an absolute slugfest in searing heat, too. One player said after the game that it was the closest to death he’d ever felt.

The Music City Miracle + Kevin Dysons 1 yard short...hooked me in for life

Saints at 49ers Alex smith to Davis was amazing & Seahawks at Vikings 16 yard chip shot field goal & he shanked it.

2002 NFC Wildcard Giants 38 49ers 14 with 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. As a 49er fan one of my absolute favorite games.

As a Seahawks fan- love your vids Perna, but I gotta sit this one out lmfao

Not sure if it’s an all timer, but thanks for leaving the Double Doink off this list

Brandon I like to watch your videos while running on the treadmill during this treacherous weather. Ran 8 miles while watching this + your old videos. The jokes are so good 😂