No NFL expansion teams have ever come close to the Vegas Golden Knights’ ridiculous success

What the Vegas Golden Knights are doing to the NHL right now is nearly unprecedented in major sports. The brand new franchise, made up of the players other rosters couldn’t protect in last year’s expansion draft, has earned a bid in the Stanley Cup Final in its first season of existence after winning the Pacific Division. It’s only the second time in the modern era of the big four North American sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL) any expansion team has advanced to a league finals and the first time since 1968.

That makes the Knights a major outlier, especially compared to their NFL brethren. Expansion teams have typically struggled after being introduced to the league, often taking several years to find their footing. While AFL crossovers like the Dolphins, Raiders, and Chiefs were able to compete thanks to the combination of prior success and a blossoming league, more modern additions to the NFL’s portfolio have typically languished, sometimes for decades, before fighting their way to the Super Bowl.

Only two of the six franchises that joined the league after starting from scratch after 1970 have raised the Lombardi Trophy. Standouts of the NFL’s expansion in the 60s had better luck thanks to the fortunes of the Cowboys and, more recently, the Saints and Falcons. So which of the non-AFL debutantes was the most Golden Knight-esque in the years immediately following their arrivals? And which were a helpless little fawns left to navigate an unfriendly forest on their own?

The (relatively) fast risers:

Carolina Panthers

Inaugural season record: 7-9
All-time record: 183-184-1 (49.7%)
Time between inaugural season and first Super Bowl appearance: 8 years
Playoff appearances, first 10 seasons: 2

Carolina got off to a hot start after joining the league in 1995, winning the NFC West in its second season and advancing all the way to the conference championship before falling to Brett Favre and the Packers. A Super Bowl appearance followed after the 2003 season, but the club’s ascendance would be curtailed by New England’s budding dynasty. The Panthers have been all over the map in their 23 years as a team, going everywhere from 1-15 to 15-1 while landing at just about .500 in their franchise history.

Dallas Cowboys

Inaugural season record: 0-11-1
All-time record: 502-374-6 (56.9%)
Time between inaugural season and first Super Bowl appearance: 11 years
Playoff appearances, first 10 seasons: 4

Founded in 1960, Dallas failed to win a game in its first season in the NFL and didn’t have a winning record until 1966, but success soon followed. Don Meredith led the team to the NFC title game in ‘66 and ‘67. 15 more playoff berths in the next 16 seasons followed, including five Super Bowl appearances and two NFL titles.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Inaugural season record: 4-12
All-time record: 166-203 (45%)
Time between inaugural season and first Super Bowl appearance: 23 years (ongoing)
Playoff appearances, first 10 seasons: 4

Like the Panthers, it took just two years before the Jaguars were playing for a conference title, falling to the Patriots in the 1996 AFC Championship Game. Mark Brunell led Jacksonville to immediate success and four postseason berths in the team’s first five seasons, but then the lean years came. In the 18 years that followed, the Jaguars only qualified for the playoffs three times — though last year’s AFC South championship is reason for optimism in 2018 and beyond.

Minnesota Vikings

Inaugural season record: 3-11
All-time record: 470-390-10 (54%)
Time between inaugural season and first Super Bowl appearance: 9 years
Playoff appearances, first 10 seasons: 3

The Vikings only won five games their first two seasons in the league combined, but rebounded to become one of the NFL’s most consistent performers. Between 1968 and 1982, Minnesota made a dozen playoff appearances, advancing to the Super Bowl four times but never winning.

Seattle Seahawks

Inaugural season record: 2-12
All-time record: 334-325-1 (50.6%)
Time between inaugural season and first Super Bowl appearance: 29 years
Playoff appearances, first 10 seasons: 2

It only took Seattle three seasons to post a winning record, although back-to-back nine-win seasons in 1978 and 1979 weren’t enough to break through to the postseason. That had to wait until year eight of the Pacific Northwest football experiment, when another nine-win season and impressive playoff run brought the team to the AFC title game. Though some lean years followed, the Seahawks were one of the leagues more consistent teams in the late 80s, recording six straight seasons of non-losing records and four postseason appearances.

The...late bloomers:

Atlanta Falcons

Inaugural season record: 3-11
All-time record: 351-443-6 (43.9%)
Time between inaugural season and first Super Bowl appearance: 32 years
Playoff appearances, first 10 seasons: 0

The Falcons entered the league in 1966 and were mostly a blight on the NFL in their formative years. Atlanta won six games in its first three seasons behind the forgettable quarterback duo of Randy Johnson (not that one) and Bob Berry, the latter of whom got a pity Pro Bowl invite for throwing for 1,042 yards in 1969. In the franchise’s first 23 seasons, it only made it to the playoffs three times.

Cleveland Browns (1999-on)

Inaugural season record: 2-14
All-time record: 88-216 (28.9%)
Time between inaugural season and first Super Bowl appearance: 19 years (ongoing)
Playoff appearances, first 10 seasons: 1

It’s a testament to how good the Browns of the past were that the franchise still has an all-time winning record despite a grim present. Cleveland has had just two winning seasons since being reborn in 1999 and a single playoff appearance — a 33-36 Wild Card loss to division rival Pittsburgh back in 2002. Last year’s 0-16 campaign was just the cherry on top of Ohio’s misery sundae.

Houston Texans

Inaugural season record: 4-12
All-time record: 110-146 (43%)
Time between inaugural season and first Super Bowl appearance: 16 years (ongoing)
Playoff appearances, first 10 seasons: 1

A dominant defense and a weak AFC South have helped dig the Texans out of a hole in recent years, but the first decade of Houston’s NFL revival went poorly. The team shined brightest with Matt Schaub behind center, but the hope now is Deshaun Watson can be the homegrown cornerstone quarterback the franchise has lacked throughout its existence.

New Orleans Saints

Inaugural season record: 3-11
All-time record: 349-432-5 (44.4%)
Time between inaugural season and first Super Bowl appearance: 42 years
Playoff appearances, first 10 seasons: 0

Sure, the Saints are respectable now, but the origin of football in the Big Easy doesn’t feature many happy stories. The club played its first official game in 1967, but failed to see the playoffs without buying a ticket until 1987 — a season that gets its own asterisk in the record books thanks to a players’ strike that meant three games were played by non-union replacement athletes. New Orleans’ first postseason win didn’t come until 2000.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Inaugural season record: 0-14
All-time record: 255-404-1 (38.6%)
Time between inaugural season and first Super Bowl appearance: 26 years
Playoff appearances, first 10 seasons: 3

Tampa Bay somehow embodies both the good and bad of NFL expansion, all in the span of four seasons. The Buccaneers recorded the league’s first 0-14 season in their 1976 debut, but found themselves playing for the NFC title three years later after a 10-6 regular season campaign that led to the team’s first NFC Central title. A Super Bowl berth eventually followed -- more than two decades later.