It's Wild Card Weekend in the NFL.
It's also the opening week of the postseason, but you'll hear the words "wild card" all throughout the six games being played to begin the postseason.
There are fans Googling to see what wild card even means, so we've got answers.
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Why is it called Wild Card in the NFL?
The Wild Card system in the NFL has existed for more than 50 years.
Wild Card Weekend has existed, in concept, for nearly as long.
The NFL's playoff qualifiers are made up of division champions and wild cards.
The wild card teams are those that don't win their division and have the remaining best records in their conferences.
They're "wild cards" because it doesn't matter which division they come from.
The NFL originally had one wild card team into the postseason when the system started.
In 1978, they made it two wild card teams per conference.
It then became three wild card teams per conference in 1990.
Once it became four divisions in each of the AFC and NFC, it went back down to two wild card teams per league to keep the playoff teams at 12.
The NFL then expanded to a 14-team postseason, seven teams from each conference, so now it's three teams per league as wild cards again.
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