How Will the 2022 NFL Playoffs Work?

2022 NFL Playoffs will feature 14 teams instead of the usual 12. Here’s how it will work.

NFL Playoff Format

The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the NFL regular season to determine the NFL champion. The playoffs of the National Football League (NFL), which is America’s top professional level of competitive football, begin in early January each year.

How many teams make the playoffs?

The NFL playoff format currently consists of six teams from each conference—four division winners and two wild card teams. However, that is set to change in 2022. The NFL recently announced that it would be expanding the playoffs to seven teams from each conference starting in 2022. That means that there will be a total of 14 teams in the playoffs instead of 12.

The four division winners will still get a bye in the first round, but the wild card round will now consist of three games instead of two. The top seed in each conference will play the lowest-seeded wild card team, and the second and third seeds will play each other.

This expansion is likely to have a few implications for the NFL regular season. First, it means that there will be even more importance placed on winning your division. Not only does it guarantee you a spot in the playoffs, but it also guarantees you a bye in the first round.

It also means that there could be more parity in the NFL overall. With an extra spot up for grabs in each conference, it’s possible that we could see more upsets and more surprise teams making a run to the playoffs.

Either way, we’ll have to wait until 2022 to see how this new playoff format plays out.

What is the seeding system?

The NFL playoff seeding system is a set of rules that determine how teams are ranked for the playoffs. The seeding system has been in place since the 1970 NFL season, when the league expanded from 14 to 16 teams. The NFL playoff seedings are as follows:

The four division winners in each conference are seeded 1-4 based on their regular season record.

The two wild card teams in each conference are seeded 5-6 based on their regular season record.

If two or more teams have the same record, the following tiebreakers are used to seed them:

Head-to-head record

Divisional record (if teams are in the same division)

Record against common opponents

Conference Championships

With the NFL regular season now over, the post-season playoffs are all that remain before the Super Bowl. The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the regular season to determine the league’s champion. The playoffs consist of four rounds: the Wild Card round, the Divisional round, the Conference Championships, and the Super Bowl. In each round, the teams are seeded according to their record. The team with the better record plays the team with the worse record, with the better team having home-field advantage.

How are conference championships determined?

The conference championships are the last step before the Super Bowl, and they are always played on the Sunday following the divisional playoffs. The AFC championship game is played at 1 p.m. EST, and the NFC championship game is played at 4:30 p.m. EST.

The conference championships are determined by whichever team has the best record in their respective conference. If two teams have the same record, then it goes to whoever has the better divisional record. If two teams are still tied, then it goes to whoever has the better overall record.

Who gets home-field advantage?

The current system for seeding playoff teams in the NFL is a simple one. The four division winners in each conference are seeded one through four based on their record, with the top seed getting home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. The two wild card teams in each conference are seeded five and six, with the fifth seed getting to play at home in the wild card round.

However, things will be changing slightly for the 2022 season. That year, instead of four division winners per conference, there will be only two. These two division winners will be seeded first and second based on their records, as usual. But the other two playoff spots in each conference will go to the next two teams with the best records regardless of division affiliation. In other words, it will be possible for two teams from the same division to both make the playoffs as wild cards.

What does this mean for home-field advantage? It’s still going to be based on record, but it’s going to be a little more complicated. The top two seeds in each conference will still get home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, but it’s not guaranteed that the team with the best record in the league will get that coveted number one seed. It all depends on how things shake out within divisions.

So let’s say, for example, that Team A has a 12-4 record and wins its division while Team B goes 11-5 and wins its division. Team C is 10-6 but finishes second in its division while team D goes 9-7 but also finishes second in its division. In this scenario, Teams A and B would get seeded one and two based on their records and would get home-field advantage. But Teams C and D would also make the playoffs as wild cards and would have to play on the road in the first round even though they both have better records than at least one of the division winners.

This system is designed to reward teams that win their divisions while still giving non-division winners a chance to compete for a spot in the playoffs. It should make for some interesting games down the stretch as teams jockey for position not just within their divisions but within their conferences as well.

Super Bowl

The NFL has announced that the 2022 Super Bowl will be played in Los Angeles. The game will be held at the new home of the Rams, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. This will be the first time that the Super Bowl will be played in Los Angeles in over 30 years.

How is the Super Bowl determined?

The NFL determines its champion via a single elimination playoff tournament held each year after the conclusion of the regular season. The tournament brackets consist of six total teams: the four divisional champions from both the American Football Conference (AFC) and National Football Conference (NFC), and two wild card qualifiers from each conference. These 12 teams are seeded based on their win-loss records, with the divisional champions receiving automatic berths into the divisional round as the top four seeds. The wild card qualifiers enter the tournament in the wild card round as the fifth and sixth seeds.

In the divisional round, the first seed from each conference hosts the fourth seed from their respective conference, while the second seed hosts the third seed. The winners of these games then advance to their respective conference championship game. Finally, in the Super Bowl, the AFC champion faces off against the NFC champion to determine which team will be crowned NFL champion for that season.

Who gets home-field advantage?

In each conference, the team with the best record in the regular season will earn home-field advantage throughout the conference playoffs. In the event that two or more teams have the same record, the tiebreaker rules will be used to determine which team earns the top seed.

If a team with a better record than another team loses to that team during the regular season, it can still earn home-field advantage throughout the playoffs if it has a better record than all other teams in its conference, regardless of whether those teams have lost to it during the regular season.