Raiders’ AFC West rivals are the chokingest teams in the NFL

A recent study by Deadspin yielded some interesting results. It was a study of which teams have choked away games the most in recent times.

The impetus for the study was the Chargers choke job against the Chiefs in the season opener in which they led by as much as 21 points only to lose to the Chiefs.

The Chiefs know a thing or two about choking. They choked their way out of the playoffs in the first round after the 2013 season. They led the Colts by a score of 38-10 in the third quarter only to lose 45-44 (cough, cough).

Back to the study.

What Magary did was use a 17-point lead — which is the lowest three-score advantage — to see which NFL teams choked the most.

The results show that it was not the Chargers who were the chokingest team int he league — that’s the Texans who have choked six times since 2000.

The Chargers weren’t even the chokingest team in the division. That belongs to those dern Chiefs, who were tied with the 49ers and Falcons with five chokes since 2000.

THEN it’s the Chargers with the next most chokes at four along with four other teams.

Next in line is the Broncos with three chokes, tied with seven other teams.

That puts the Chiefs, Chargers, and Broncos among 17 NFL teams with the most chokes.

And finally it’s the Raiders with two chokes, tied with 11 other teams.

The only teams that have few than two are the Ravens and Washington with one and the Steelers with none.

The one thing this study is missing, however, is a ratio. That being how many times have these teams actually held a 17-point lead or more over the past 16 seasons? When you think of how bad the Raiders were for a solid decade plus, they didn’t have a lot of big leads to choke away.

But this is fun anyway.