All you need to know about NFL Wild Cards

Wild card playoff teams make football more exciting. The NFL playoffs can get a little complicated to understand at times, but that is, in part, because the playoff picture isn't just divisional winners.

Wild card teams are exactly what their designation indicates: a wild card. They are random teams that haven't won their division but have played well enough to get a spot in the playoffs. They are usually second-place divisional teams with good records. They add flavor and a more random quality against the higher-level teams that have won games through most of the season.

How many wildcards teams are there in NFL playoffs?

If the NFL playoffs only included divisional winners, there would only be eight teams in the playoffs. That would certainly indicate that top-level teams would be battling it out with one another to see who is truly the best in the entire league.

But what about the teams that came in second place in their divisions, posting winning records? Should they not be allowed a chance to make it all the way?

Back before the 1970 merger, a new playoff model was proposed. The game of football wanted not only divisional winners to battle it out in the playoffs, but the second-place team in the divisions with the best win/loss percentage was also to be added. The wild card was born.

That is what makes the wild card spots so coveted, as teams that have essentially lost or lost more often than the divisional winners get a chance to rectify the end of their seasons. Teams can lose games while they figure themselves out, but once they become these best end-season versions, they still get their chance in the playoffs.

Think about the 2007 New York Giants. They landed themselves a wild card spot with a 10-6 record and went all the way to the Super Bowl. They also beat the New England Patriots. If the wild card aspect of the playoffs had never been implemented, this historic game would have never happened.

What the NFL is saying is "any given Sunday." That is especially true for teams that are having a tough time gelling with one another and figuring out how they all meld together into a competitive group. A lot of wild card teams get better as the season goes on, and that is proven in the playoffs, as they fight even harder to make it to the Super Bowl.

The current playoff picture in the AFC has the Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles Chargers, and Cincinnati Bengals in wild card spots. Think about wild cards in this light. The Kansas City Chiefs are currently #1 in the AFC West. The Chargers had already beaten them earlier in the season. Now there's potential for them to rematch in the playoffs. The wild card makes things much more exciting in that way.The new wild card playoff rules add an additional team to that designation. Now instead of two wild card teams, there are three from each division.

Wild card teams keep football honest. If the divisional winners are truly that good, they need to beat bottom-level teams, especially those that have already beaten them in the regular season.