1990-91 NFL playoffs
| Dates | January 5–27, 1991 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | 1990 | ||||
| Teams | 12 | ||||
| Games played | 11 | ||||
| Super Bowl XXV site | |||||
| Defending champions | San Francisco 49ers | ||||
| Champions | New York Giants | ||||
| Runners-up | Buffalo Bills | ||||
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The National Football League playoffs for the 1990 season began on January 5, 1991. The postseason tournament concluded with the New York Giants defeating the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV, 20–19, on January 27, at Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
The league expanded its playoff system from a 10-team to a 12-team tournament, which is in use now. With these changes, three wild card teams (those non-division champions with the conference's best won-lost-tied percentages) qualified, up from two the year before.
The format consisted of the following:
The 3 and 6 seeds played each other in one game and the 4 and 5 in a second game, both making up what was dubbed the "Wild Card Round". The 1 and the 2 seeds from each conference do not participate in this round, earning an automatic berth in the following week's "Divisional Playoff" games, where they face the Wild Card survivors. The 1 seeded team plays against the lowest remaining seed while the 2 seed plays the other remaining team. In a given game, whoever has the higher seed gets the home field advantage. In addition, a rule stating that teams from the same division could not play against each other in the divisional round was abolished.
These changes forced the division winner with the worst record in each conference to play during the first round. However, it guaranteed that division winner a home game, unlike in the previous format where the highest seeded wild-card team earned a home playoff game while the lowest-seeded division winner, despite earning a bye, was forced to play the second-seeded or top-seeded division winner (based on the no-divisional matchup rule) and thus could not host any playoff game before their respective conference championship (provided that they were the highest remaining seed).
This system was later modified before the 2002–03 NFL playoffs after the league realigned the teams into eight divisions (four per conference).
Within each conference, the three division winners and the three wild card teams (the top three non-division winners with the best overall regular season records) qualified for the playoffs. The three division winners were seeded 1 through 3 based on their overall won-lost-tied record, and the wild card teams were seeded 4 through 6. The NFL did not use a fixed bracket playoff system, and there were no restrictions regarding teams from the same division matching up in any round. In the first round, dubbed the wild-card playoffs or wild-card weekend, the third-seeded division winner hosted the sixth seed wild card, and the fourth seed hosted the fifth. The 1 and 2 seeds from each conference then received a bye in the first round. In the second round, the divisional playoffs, the number 1 seed hosted the worst surviving seed from the first round (seed 4, 5 or 6), while the number 2 seed played the other team (seed 3, 4 or 5). The two surviving teams from each conference's divisional playoff games then meet in the respective AFC and NFC Conference Championship games, hosted by the higher seed. Although the Super Bowl, the fourth and final round of the playoffs, was played at a neutral site, the designated home team was based on an annual rotation by conference.
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