Devion

Eight seasons, zero rings, three runner-up trophies gathering dust — that's the Devion story in a nutshell. From "Issa Team" in 2017 to "Slime SZN" ever since, this is a franchise that has spent nearly a decade knocking on the door of a championship and somehow never once getting invited inside. 2017, 2020, 2023 — three separate trips to the title game, three separate gut-punches. At some point "so close" stops being a compliment and starts being a nickname.

The valley came fast and ugly in 2021: a 4-10 collapse, dead-last seed, and a Week 14 disaster that still lives in the record books — a 95-point beatdown at the hands of Meek that also happens to be the single worst week Devion has ever posted (14.0 points, an all-time low). That week is basically the horror movie this franchise doesn't talk about at parties. Compare that to 2018 Week 4, when Devion did the exact same thing to DT — a 95.8-margin annihilation that stands as the biggest win in franchise history. Same weapon, different end of the barrel.

Statistically, this has been one of the most consistently good rosters in the league — a 72-61 all-time record, 134.1 points per game, and a Week 16 explosion in 2023 (215.2 points) that reminded everyone why Slime SZN is never safe to overlook in the playoffs. The luck numbers back it up too: an all-play record of 666-531 and an expected-wins tally of 74 against an actual 72 says this team has been legitimately good, not lucky — if anything, just a hair short of what the numbers say it deserved.

The signature names tell the tale of a roster built to win now — Josh Jacobs and Joe Mixon splitting workhorse duty, Amon-Ra St. Brown as the security blanket alpha, and a QB carousel of Joe Burrow and Kyler Murray slinging it. This wasn't a rebuild-forever roster; this was a perennial contender that just kept running into a locked door.

The rivalry column is where it gets spicy: France is the one that got away, a 1-2 nemesis record that stings more than it should. But Tyler (5-1) and Crock (10-4) have essentially been standing punching bags, and Dez (7-2) hasn't fared much better. Right now, Devion sits in league lore as the most dangerous team to never actually win the thing — the bridesmaid with the receipts, still chasing that one Sunday in December that finally turns silver into gold.