How Many Playoff Spots are There in the NFL?
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The NFL playoff picture is set with 14 teams vying for a chance to win the Lombardi Trophy.
How many playoff spots are there in the NFL?
In the NFL, there are a total of 12 playoff spots.
6 teams from each conference (NFC and AFC) make the playoffs each year.
The 4 division winners in each conference are seeded 1-4 based on their record, with the top seed getting a bye in the first round.
The
NFL Regular Season
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league consisting of 32 teams, divided equally between the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). The NFL is one of the four major North American sports leagues, the highest professional level of American football in the world, the other three being Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Hockey League (NHL).
16 games
In the National Football League (NFL), the regular season is the portion of the season generally from September to December each year, in which each team plays 16 games and several teams compete for the playoffs. The NFL playoffs follow a typical single-elimination tournament where the top six teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs.
The NFL regular season typically runs for 17 weeks, with each team playing 16 games and having one bye week. The bye week is a scheduled break in between each team’s 16 regular season games. During this time, no NFL games are played.
32 teams
The NFL regular season is a 16-game schedule that each team plays. After the regular season, the top 12 teams in each conference qualify for the playoffs. The four division winners in each conference are seeded 1-4 based on their record, with the top seed receiving a bye in the first round of the playoffs. The remaining 8 teams are seeded 5-12 based on their record and play each other in the first round of the playoffs, with the 5 seed playing the 12 seed, the 6 seed playing the 11 seed, and so on.
NFL Playoffs
The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the end of the regular season to determine the NFL champion.
6 teams
The top six teams in each conference (AFC and NFC) make the NFL playoffs. The four division winners are seeded 1-4 based on their record, with the top seed getting a bye in the first round. The two wild card teams (seeded 5-6) also make the playoffs, playing each other in the first round.
4 division winners
In the NFL, there are a total of four division winners who automatically qualify for the playoffs each year. These division winners are the top team in each of the NFL’s four divisions (East, West, North, and South). The division winners then advance to the playoff round where they compete against each other to determine who will ultimately make it to the Super Bowl.
2 wild card teams
In the NFL, there are 12 teams that make the playoffs. The top seed in each conference gets a bye in the first round. The other 6 teams play each other in the first round, with the winner advancing to the divisional playoffs. In the divisional playoffs, the 2 top seeds play the lower seeds that advanced from the first round. The winners of those games advance to the conference championships. The conference champions then advance to the Super Bowl, where they battle for the Lombardi Trophy.
Super Bowl
The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the regular season to determine the NFL champion. As of 2020, fourteen teams qualify for the playoffs. Seven teams are divisional winners of their respective conferences, and the other two teams are the wild-card qualifiers from each conference. The four divisional winners from each conference are seeded 1–4 based on their regular-season records, and the two wild-card qualifiers are seeded 5 and 6.
2 teams
In the National Football League (NFL), the two teams that advance from each of the league’s two conferences to play in the Super Bowl are the winners of the conference championship games. The conference championship games are typically played on the Sunday two weeks after the NFL’s divisional playoff games, which are themselves generally held on either the last Saturday or last Sunday in January.
1 champion
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league consisting of 32 teams, divided equally between the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). The NFL is one of the four major North American sports leagues, the highest professional level of American football in the world, the wealthiest professional sport league by revenue, and is considered the most popular sports league in the United States.
