It happens every year.

Team realizes it's hosting the Super Bowl. Team licks its chops at having home-field advantage in the Super Bowl. Anvil falls on Team, which doesn't get near the Super Bowl.

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Kerry Collins Associated Press

The great Super Bowl-hosting hex continues. This is the 39th season in which the Super Bowl will be held in an NFL team's home venue—Indianapolis's Lucas Oil Stadium—and it will almost certainly be the 39th straight time that the host has missed out. (The Colts are 0-7.)

The NFL is short on ancient jinxes and curses, having not been around as long as Major League Baseball, but this is starting to qualify as one. How is it that Indianapolis, which has never hosted the Super Bowl, happened to get it the one year that quarterback Peyton Manning—who had never missed a start in 13 years—got hurt?

Super Bowl hosts haven't just missed out; they've missed by miles. Last year's Cowboys, considered a contender before the season, started 1-4, lost quarterback Tony Romo to injury and went 6-10. The 2009 Dolphins were coming off of an AFC East title the year before, but went 7-9. The last Super Bowl host to make the playoffs was Tampa Bay in 2000.

Of course, two local teams have played in the Super Bowl: the 1979 Rams (XIV) and the 1984 49ers (XIX). But the former game was at the Rose Bowl, not the L.A. Coliseum (the Rams' home then); the latter one was at Stanford Stadium, not the 49ers' Candlestick Park.

—Darren Everson

Some Advantage

How teams have fared the year that their stadium hosted the Super Bowl:

Number of Super Bowls held in an NFL team's home stadium 38
Hosts that made the Super Bowl 0
Hosts that made the playoffs 5
Hosts that reached a conference championship game 0
Hosts that won 12-plus games 0
Regular-season host win pct. .418
Consecutive years that the host has missed the playoffs 10

Source: WSJ research