Lions

Detroit competes in the NFC North, and the wait that once defined this franchise has become the club's own running story: since the merger era began, the Lions are the only side to have played every Super Bowl season without ever reaching one.

The name is newer than the team. Ohio gave the franchise its start in 1928 as the Portsmouth Spartans, and the club carried that identity into the NFL two years later before a move to Detroit in 1934 brought the rebrand to Lions. What followed was a run of success that now reads as ancient history: four NFL Championships between 1935 and 1957.

Between those years and now sits Barry Sanders.

The rivalry with the Chicago Bears predates most of the club's championships and is treated in Detroit as the oldest grudge on the schedule, ahead of the newer friction with the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers.

Honolulu blue has stayed the club's signature colour since Detroit, paired now with silver under the roof at Ford Field, where 65,000 seats fill for a fan base that has learned patience the hard way and still turns up wanting to see the drought finally broken.