<Li> 2014 Kansas City Royals </Li> <P> In the National Football League (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 wild card team) plays against the #3 team (a division champion), and the #5 team (a wild card 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 plays the #2 seed . Both the #1 seed and #2 seed have home - field advantage in the divisional round . </P> <P> The NFL was the first league ever to use the wild - card format . The decision to implement a Wild Card coincided with the completion of the AFL - NFL merger in 1970 . Prior to the merger, the right to compete in the postseason for the NFL title was restricted to division / conference champions . Until 1967, a tiebreaker game was played to resolve a deadlock for first place in either of the two conferences . When the league expanded to 16 teams, it realigned into four divisions and expanded the playoffs to two rounds . Tiebreaker games were eliminated in favor of the use of performance - based criteria to determine division champions . The rival American Football League, which reached a final size of ten teams in two divisions, also restricted its postseason to division winners until the 1969 season (the AFL's last as a separate league) when it expanded the playoffs to include division runners - up . The runners - up played the winners of the opposite divisions for the right to contest the AFL Championship Game . </P> <P> Following AFL upsets in the last two Super Bowls prior to the merger, the merged league realigned into two conferences of thirteen teams each, with three "old - line" NFL teams joining the AFL teams in the newly - formed American Football Conference . The decision to make the conferences equal in size meant they could not feasibly align into anything except three divisions of four and five teams each . This led to a debate as to how the postseason of the merged league should be structured . Both the NFL and AFL playoff formats of 1969 had attracted fierce critics . The NFL format was criticized for its ability to cause a team tied for first overall in the league to miss the playoffs (this happened once, in 1967, when the Baltimore Colts missed the postseason despite a . 917 winning percentage after losing a tiebreaker to the Los Angeles Rams). The AFL's 1969 playoffs were criticized by NFL purists for breaking with longstanding tradition, also, due to the fact that they allowed runners - up to qualify no matter how much disparity existed between the divisions, the AFL playoff structure could allow a mediocre team to qualify - this did occur when the Houston Oilers, a . 500 team, finished second in the Eastern Division - the Oilers were throttled in the playoffs 56 - 7 by the Western champion Oakland Raiders . The Raiders went on to lose the AFL title game to the Western runner - up (and eventual Super Bowl IV champion) Kansas City Chiefs . </P>

When did the wild card start in football