NFL History: Ranking the 30 best wild card teams in NFL history

Wild Cards go all the way back to the AFL-NFL merger from 1970. However, back on March 29, 1978, well before most of the readers here were born or too young to remember the ins and outs of sports, a major change came to the NFL. They adopted a 16-game schedule for the first time, a schedule that would last all the way until the 2021 season. They also added a second Wild Card team, something that would drive how we look at those teams today.

Now, the NFL allows three Wild Card teams to make the postseason in each conference. That change came in the 2020 season to add another game. It made winning the conference even more important since only one team out of 16 would get a first-round bye.

The history of the Wild Card in the NFL is interesting. Obviously, they aren’t even the best team in the division, so often they aren’t considered one of the best teams in the NFL. It doesn’t help that the Wild Card team very rarely (if ever) gets a home game. That leads to most teams losing their first game and appreciating the fact that they made the playoffs at all.

That first weekend of the NFL playoffs can be a lot of fun. The way the seeding works out can provide awesome matchups. Teams that were fighting for their playoff lives one week ago are now facing the division winners that might have been sitting on their division lead for three weeks. This leads to upsets and legendary performances. Speaking of legendary performances, let’s get right into our 30th-best Wild Card team in the history of the NFL.