Between the 2013 and 2019 seasons, all 14 Super Bowl teams had first-round byes. From 1990 to 2019, the last season of the 12-team playoff field in which two teams in each conference got byes, 80 percent of Super Bowl participants had byes (h/t to CBS Sports).
Stories like the 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a wild-card team that won a Super Bowl, did happen. But it was rare. Teams with byes had a big advantage, for obvious reasons. Then the NFL expanded the playoff field, taking that edge teams…
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