NFL playoffs
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National Football League Playoffs logo. |
The
National Football League (NFL) playoffs is a
single-elimination tournament held at the end of the 16-game
regular season to determine the NFL champion. Throughout the years, the format has changed to include more teams into the tournament. Currently, the NFL playoffs consist of 12 teams (6 from each of the league's two conferences) and ends with the
Super Bowl, the league's championship game.
The
tournament brackets are made up of six teams from each of the league's two conferences, the
American Football Conference (AFC) and the
National Football Conference (NFC), following the end of the 16-game regular season:
*The four division champions from each conference (the team in each division with the best regular season won-lost-tied record), which are
seeded 1 through 4 based on their regular season won-lost-tied record.
*Two
wild card qualifiers (those non-division champions with the conference's best won-lost-tied percentages), which are seeded 5 and 6.
The 3 and the 6 seeded teams, and the 4 and the 5 seeds, face each other during the first round of the playoffs, dubbed the
Wild Card Playoffs (the league in recent years has also used the term
Wild Card Weekend). The 1 and the 2 seeds from each conference receive a
bye in the first round, which entitles these teams to automatically advance to the second round, the
Divisional Playoff games, to face the Wild Card survivors. In any given playoff round, the highest surviving seed always plays the lowest surviving seed . And in any given playoff game, whoever has the higher seed gets the home field advantage (i.e. the game is held at the higher seed's home field).
The two surviving teams from the Divisional Playoff games meet in
Conference Championship games, with the winners of those contests going on to face one another in the
Super Bowl.
If teams are tied (having the same regular season won-lost-tied record), the playoff seeding is determined by a set of tiebreaking rules. [
1]
A major disadvantage that critics cite in the current system is that a divisional winner could host a playoff game against a wild card team that earned a better regular season record. For example, the
Jacksonville Jaguars finished the
2005 regular season with a 12-4 record, but only qualified as a wild card team (due to the fact that
Indianapolis Colts took the AFC South division title) and thus had to face the
New England Patriots, the AFC East division champions with a 10-6 record, at the Patriots' home field,
Gillette Stadium.
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NFL playoffs logo, Jan. 2000-Jan. 2005 |
For playoff games of the American Football League prior to the AFL-NFL merger, see AFL playoffs.*
Chicago Bears 9,
Portsmouth Spartans 0
NFL Championship games (1933-1966)
Four-team tournament (1967-1969)
NFL Championship winner in bold, who then faced the AFL champion in the AFL-NFL World Championship Game (later to be known as the Super Bowl)Post AFL-NFL Merger (1970-present)
:
''Note: Since the AFL-NFL Merger, the playoffs have generally been held over two calendar years.
Super Bowl winner in bold. For a list of Super Bowl games, see List of Super Bowl champions*After the 1970 AFL-NFL merger and the emergence of the Super Bowl, all AFL and NFL league championship games prior to merger are listed along with the AFC and NFC conference championship games, respectively, in the NFL's official records.
* http://www.superbowl.com/history
*http://www.pro-football-reference.com - Large online database of NFL data and statistics
*
The NFL History Network - includes a large database of historic NFL box scores
*
National Football League championships*
NFL lore*
NFL Tiebreaker Rules
