Is it okay to say that the NFL postseason has been a bit of a bummer so far? I don’t mean that it hasn’t been exciting: It has been taut and thrilling, with a cavalcade of dramatic moments. The wild-card round featured Eagles fans threatening to tear apart their own stadium, an incredible Bears comeback that felt papally ordained, and a brutal end to Aaron Rodgers’s season — and possibly career — that briefly made you wonder if there might be some justice in the world. Then, the Divisional round had multiple games in the snow (always enjoyable), a late-game call so controversial that tennis players in Australia were vandalizing camera equipment in protest, and a last-second throw from Bears quarterback Caleb Williams that was one of the most jaw-dropping things I’ve ever seen on a football field. That hurl into the end zone capped the most batshit moment for the Bears in a season full of them.

But in the end, the Bears ended up losing, going down in overtime in front of a roaring and freezing Soldier Field crowd. In fact, all the fun teams ended up losing. The Bills fell short once again, even in a season where their nemeses, the Chiefs, had been safely sidelined. The Texans and Jaguars, the only teams in the playoffs never to reach the Super Bowl, are gone. The fun underdog stories have all been extinguished.

The four teams left have all won the Super Bowl in the last 12 years, and three of them have won multiple Super Bowls in the last 25 years. In a sport constructed for parity and to boost the underdog, they’re all Goliaths. None of these teams’ fans have suffered enough to really get behind. That’s a particular shame because this has been such a bizarre season — the Chiefs didn’t even make the playoffs! — that there was........

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