Greatest NFL Playoffs Ever?

The evidence is in.

The 2021–22 season ended with the Rams defeating the Bengals, 23–20 in the Super Bowl.

It was the end of a breathtaking playoffs. In the seven games of the divisional playoffs, conference championships, and Super Bowl,

• Six games were decided by 3 points.
• In four of those games, the last play was the game-winning field goal.
• The seventh game was decided by six points — an overtime touchdown.

After the Divisional round had ended, we all knew that was a special week of football, but the close games kept coming after that.

The Super Bowl itself went down to the wire, with the Rams getting the winning touchdown with just 1:25 left in the game. I’m glad the 2022 Super Bowl was worthy of the playoff games that preceded it, capping off the greatest playoffs of my memory.

But how great were they?

I decided to do an apples-to-apples comparison dating back to the first year of the AFL-NFL merger of 1970. While the wild-card round wasn’t introduced until 1978 (starting with two wildcard games, increasing to four in 1990, and then to six in 2020), the seven games of the divisional playoffs, conference championship games, and Super Bowl have remained constant throughout all…