In the last 10 years, at least one wild card team has made the Super Bowl 7 times.
2001, 2002, and 2009 are the only exceptions. And if the Packers or Jets win this weekend, we'll have another wild card team representing their conference, which begs the question: How much does seeding really matter?
Every team fights all year for that first round bye and home field advantage, but it often seems like it doesn't even matter. Take this season as an example. The Jets and Packers are 6-seeds, yet they've already won two road playoff games as underdogs. The Jets just beat Peyton Manning and Tom Brady on the road, and if they beat the Steelers this Sunday, they would have beaten three Super Bowl winning quarterbacks in a row, all on the road no less.
The Packers had to win their last two regular season games just to get into the post-season, only to have a date on the road with the Falcons, the #1 seed. The Falcons had a week off while Green Bay was already in playoff mode for two weeks. We all saw what happened, the Packers put on a clinic on their way to a 48-21 win.
Obviously every team and it's fans want a bye to rest up and home field advantage, but as we see every year, it doesn't really matter.
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