The Importance of the Bye Week

And I'm not talking about the bye week that comes in week 3, I'm talking about playoffs! The goal for teams is usually just to make the playoffs, hopefully by winning the division. But my guess is that if you really want to make it to the Super Bowl, being the #1 or #2 seed and getting the bye is really advantageous. But how much so? Last year the Steelers proved you can win it all by being a wild-card team. Let's find out how important a playoff bye really is.

In 1990 the playoffs expanded to 12 teams, and is the beginning of the modern format, and our analysis of the bye weeks.

There are 16 years to study, meaning 32 Super Bowl teams. Here's the breakdown by seed:

#1 seed: 16 appearances, 8 winners
#2 seed: 10 appearances, 5 winners
#3 seed: 1 appearance, 0 winners
#4 seed: 3 appearances, 2 winners
#5 seed: 0 appearances, 0 winners
#6 seed: 1 appearance, 1 winner

• The odds of a Super Bowl team or Super Bowl winner having a playoff bye is 81.25%.
• The #2 seed has fared much better than the #3 seed, despite that the difference could come down to a tiebreaker.
• All 3 of the #4 seeds to advance to the Super Bowl were Wild Card teams, as they occured before the NFL switched to the 4 division lineup in 2002. The winners were the 2000 Ravens and the 1997 Broncos. The loser, 1992 Buffalo, which only made it to the Super Bowl because of "The Comeback" against the Oilers.
• The only other Wild Card team to make it to the Super Bowl -- the 2005 Steelers. That makes Wild Card teams 3 out of 4 when playing in the Super Bowl.
• The only divisional winner to make the Super Bowl without getting a bye -- the 2003 Panthers.

There have been 64 teams that got playoff byes. 26 of them made it to the Super Bowl. 40.625% success rate.
There have been 40 divisional winners that didn't get byes. 1 of them made it to the Super Bowl. 2.5% success rate.
There have been 88 wild card teams. 4 of them have made it to the Super Bowl. 4.55% success rate.

Overall, only 2 of the 12 playoff teams can make it. A 16.66% rate.

Clearly, it's not good enough to win your division. You have to go out and get that bye. The numbers are even more impressive than I thought they would be.