It seems to me that the Wild Card teams in the NFL playoffs seem, more often than not, beat the division winners in round 2 (witness last weekend, when three out of four did).
Does anyone know of any stats that show that to be the case, generally, and the possible effect the one-week layoff has on the division leaders?

Since the Wild-Card System began in 1970, nine wild-card teams have advanced all the way to the Super Bowl. Of those, five won the Super Bowl. Only three of those wild-card teams , New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers, and New York Giants ,won three games on the road to make it to the Super Bowl.

By contrast ,only one #1 seed has won the super bowl since 2000.The 2003 Patriots were the only top-seeded team this decade to win the Super Bowl.

This year the top 3 seeds in the NFC have been eliminated . Pittsburg Steelers ,the AFC #2 team has a chance to advance. But there is a chance that a wild card from both divisions could advance to the Superbowl.

Sort of bears out the point about that one-week layoff.


Yes but that wasn't always the case. I am frankly perplexed about it. In theory 2 weeks to plan ;get healthy ,and motivated is a plus. There used to be a tremendous advantage to being the #1 seed when you considered the home field advantage.

My best guess is that the coaching is not as good as in the days of Landry ;Shula ,Lombardi , Knoll ,Parcells ,Walsh etc.

My other guess is that players were more motivated to get that extra playoff $$$ before the days of free agency.

Also consider that league parity is at an all-time high, so the gap between #1 and #6 isn't what it used to be. Sometimes a layoff can be a momentum killer rather than an advantage, and being favored to win comes with more pressure to win.