Editing Super Bowl XVII (section)

===NFL players’ strike===
A 57-day-long [[1982 NFL lockout|players' strike]] reduced the 1982 regular season from a 16-game schedule to 9 games. Because of the shortened season, the NFL adopted a special 16-team playoff tournament. Division standings were ignored. Eight teams from each conference were seeded 1–8 based on their regular season records.

The modified schedule forced the league to extend the regular season into January for the first time. After the 57-day strike, the NFL extended the regular season one weekend (pushing the end of the regular season back from December 26 to January 2), moving back the start of the playoffs and eliminating the week off for the first time since [[Super Bowl IV]].

Four teams that made the playoffs the [[1981–82 NFL playoffs|previous year]] failed to do so in the strike-shortened season, even with the greatly expanded postseason field. The [[1982 San Francisco 49ers season|San Francisco 49ers]], the [[Super Bowl XVI|defending Super Bowl champions]], struggled to a 3–6 record. The [[1982 Buffalo Bills season|Buffalo Bills]], [[1982 New York Giants season|New York Giants]], and [[1982 Philadelphia Eagles season|Philadelphia Eagles]] also did not qualify for the playoffs. However, the [[1982 Cleveland Browns season|Cleveland Browns]] and [[1982 Detroit Lions season|Detroit Lions]] did qualify for the playoffs with 4–5 records, becoming the first teams in NFL history to compete in postseason play despite regular-season winning percentages below .500. No other losing teams would do so until the [[2010 Seattle Seahawks season|Seattle Seahawks]] reached the playoffs following the {{nfly|2010}} season, becoming the first team to accomplish this in a season unaffected by a strike. The [[2014 Carolina Panthers season|2014 Carolina Panthers]], [[2020 Washington Football Team season|2020 Washington team]], and [[2022 Tampa Bay Buccaneers season|2022 Tampa Bay Buccaneers]] also achieved playoff berths with winning percentages below .500 in seasons not shortened by a players' strike.