(last updated on January 26, 2026)

Introduction

The National Football League has allowed “at-large” non-divisional winner to gain entrance in the conference playoff tournament since the 1970 season. When the league expanded the regular season from 14 to 16 games for each team, the amount of Wild Cards from each conference increased from one to two. In 1990, the NFL bumped that number to three from the AFC and NFC. In 2020, an additional Wild Card slot was added in each conference. Now seven teams make the postseason in each conference (four division winners and three Wild Cards). These extra entrants have come to be known as the Wild Cards, and though they are usually not the odds-on favorites of the postseason, they have the same chance that other teams in the playoffs have.

This article will examine the most successful Wild Card teams of the last half a century as they came from the bottom of the playoff seeding to win the Super Bowl.

(last updated on February 12, 2026)

Introduction: Playmaking in the Big Game

The NFL’s modern-day championship game, called the Super Bowl since the late 1960s, has become so big that it is almost a national holiday. The annual contest has the league’s best teams and some of the top players. The athleticism and talent of the players, combined with the high-pressure moments in front of a large worldwide audience, have provided some of the top plays in NFL history. Please sit back and relax as we present some of the Greatest Super Bowl Plays.