Saturday January 7, 2012
4:30 pm EST Cincinnati VS Houston
8:00 pm EST Detroit VS New Orleans
Sunday January 8, 2012
1:00 pm EST Atlanta VS NY Giants
4:30 pm EST Pittsburgh VS Denver
Click the link below to watch Wild Card Games online.
In the NFL, each of the two conferences sends two wild-card teams along with four division champions to its postseason. The first round of the playoffs is called the "Wild Card Round". In this round, each conference's two best (by regular-season record) division champions are exempted from play and granted automatic berths in the "Divisional Round". The four division champions are seeded from #1 through #4, while the two wild card teams are seeded #5 and #6; within these separations, seeding is by regular-season record. In the "Wild Card Round", the #6 team (a wildcard team) plays against the #3 team (a division champion) and the #5 team (a wildcard team) plays against the #4 team (a division champion). The division champions have automatic home-field advantage in these games. In the "Divisional Round", the worst seeded remaining team plays the #1 seeded team, while the best seeded remaining team that played in the wildcard round play the #2 seed. Both the #1 seed and #2 seed have home-field advantage in the divisional round.
The NFL was the first league ever to use the wild-card format. When the league realigned into two conferences of three divisions each in 1970, it wanted an even four-team playoff field in each conference. This was established by having the three division champions in each conference joined by the best second-place finisher in the conference. At first, this team was referred as the "Best Second-Place Team" (or sometimes simply as the "Fourth Qualifier"). The media, however, began referring to the qualifying teams as "wild cards." Eventually, the NFL officially adopted the term. During the 1975, 1976, and 1977 seasons, the divisional playoffs featured the #1 seed hosting the wild card team and the #2 seed hosting the #3 seed unless the #1 seed and wildcard team were divisional rivals. In that case, the #1 seed hosted the #3 seed and the #2 seed hosted the wild card team. (This policy is currently used by Major League Baseball in its Division Series.) From 1970 through 1974, the NFL used a rotation to determine which teams would host conference semifinal and final games, and which teams would play which other teams (coincidentally, baseball also used a rotation when it began to have this number of teams, for both of the aforementioned purposes, from 1995-1997 before switching to the seeding method).
The number of wild-card qualifiers was expanded to two per conference in 1978 -- the divisional winners were granted a bye week whilst the wild card teams played (hence the origin of the phrase "Wild-Card Round"). Like wild card teams before, the wild card game winner played the #1 seed, or the #2 seed if they and the #1 seed were divisional rivals. The playoffs were expanded again to three wildcards per conference in 1990 with the lowest ranked divisional winner losing its bye (and divisional rivals could now meet in the divisional playoffs). Following the addition of the Houston Texans in 2002, the league added a fourth division to each conference. The league decided not to change the number of playoff teams, and thus the number of wildcard qualifiers was reduced to two per conference.
No comments:
Post a Comment