How Many Rounds are in the NFL Playoffs?

How Many Rounds are in the NFL Playoffs?
The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the end of the regular season to determine the NFL champion.

How the NFL Playoffs Work

The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the end of the regular season to determine the NFL champion. Wild Card Weekend (the weekend of January 4-5, 2020), Divisional Playoffs (the weekend of January 11-12, 2020), the Conference Championships (the weekend of January 18-19, 2020), and Super Bowl LIV (February 2, 2020) are the four rounds of the playoffs.

The regular season

In the National Football League (NFL), the regular season is the portion of the season culminating in the playoffs, during which each team plays 16 games out of a possible 16, nine games against teams in their own division and six or seven games against non-division opponents, usually from within their conference.

The playoffs

The National Football League (NFL) playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the end of the regular season to determine the NFL champion. From its inception in 1933, it has grown from 8 teams to the current 32. The tournament culminates with the Super Bowl, the league’s championship game.

How Many Rounds are in the NFL Playoffs?

There are four rounds in the NFL playoffs. The first round is the Wild Card round, followed by the Divisional round, the Conference Championships, and finally the Super Bowl.

The Wild Card round

In the Wild Card round, there are four games held. The three divisional winners in each conference plus one “wild card” team (the team with the best record in the conference that didn’t win their division) per conference. The seeding is done so that the wild card team with the worst record would play the division winner with the best record while the wild card team with the better recordplays the other division winner. Each conference’s two remaining teams will then face each other in the Divisional round.

The Divisional round

The Divisional round is the second round of the NFL playoffs. The divisional round consists of four teams from each conference: the winner of each of the four Wild Card games and the three division winners with the best records who did not receive a first-round bye. These eight teams are seeded according to their overall win-loss record, with the four division winners holding the higher seeds.

The divisional round match-ups are as follows:

AFC:
(1) Denver Broncos vs. (5) San Diego Chargers
(2) New England Patriots vs. (3) Indianapolis Colts
NFC:
(1) Seattle Seahawks vs. (5) New Orleans Saints
(2) Carolina Panthers vs. (3) Philadelphia Eagles

The Conference Championships

The Conference Championships are the penultimate round of the NFL playoffs. The AFC (American Football Conference) and NFC (National Football Conference) champions are determined in this round. The winners of these games advance to the Super Bowl, the biggest event in American sports.

In the Conference Championships, the top seed from each conference faces off against the wild card team with the best record. This means that a total of four teams vying for a spot in the Super Bowl. The Conference Championship games are usually played on the first Sunday in January.

The Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the biggest and most important game in the NFL playoffs. It is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL). The game is played between the champions of the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The winner of the Super Bowl receives the Vince Lombardi Trophy, named after the former head coach of the Green Bay Packers, who won the first two Super Bowls.