Twelve of the fourteen teams that qualified for the 2025 NFL Playoffs are gearing up for Wild Card Weekend. Six of them are Wild Card teams, and will operate as the betting underdogs as they make their pursuits of a Super Bowl championship.
The Vikings were the best of the bunch during the regular season, but will have to play their first game on the road despite winning 14 games. Playoff mainstays like the Steelers and Packers made the postseason without winning their divisions, with the Commanders, Chargers, and Broncos rounding out the group.
How Many NFL Wild Card Teams Have Won It All?
The odds are stacked against them, but a Wild Card team getting hot at the right time has translated into Super Bowl victories before. But how many times has it happened in the history of the NFL?
Since the Wild Card was added to the playoff format in 1970, non-division winners have won the Super Bowl just 7 times:
Oakland Raiders (1980)
Denver Broncos (1997)
Baltimore Ravens (2000)
Pittsburgh Steelers (2005)
New York Giants (2007)
Green Bay Packers (2010)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2020)
During the first 27 years, only one Wild Card team ever won the Super Bowl. The odds of it happening were lower back then, as the playoffs hadn’t yet expanded. From 1970 until 1978, there was only one Wild Card team per conference. It took just a couple of years in the two-team system for one to break through, as the Oakland Raiders did so in 1980 to become the first team on the list.
It wouldn’t happen again until 1997, when John Elway won the first of two straight Super Bowls to end his career. His Broncos were the 4th seed that year, and wound up knocking off the 1-seeded Chiefs on their way to defeating the Packers for the championship.
The third Wild Card team to win it all came just before the NFL expanded in 2002. The fabled Ravens defense of 2000 was dominant that year, but the Titans were able to win the AFC Central that year with 13 wins. But Baltimore allowed just 23 points over four postseason games, including a win over the Titans and an eventual Super Bowl victory over the Giants.
Perhaps the most memorable NFL Wild Card championship winner was the 2007 New York Giants. The victories they picked up on the way to the big game were impressive enough, but Eli Manning and company put a stamp on their run by handing the mighty New England Patriots their lone loss of the entire season. The Giants were the 5th seed that season.
The most recent occurrence happened in 2020. Tom Brady’s Buccaneers finished second in their division behind New Orleans, but they were able to defeat the Saints in the second round on their way to their second Super Bowl victory in franchise history.
