How Many Wildcard Spots In the NFL?
Contents
8 teams will be vying for the final 4 playoff spots this weekend. Who will prevail?
Introduction
The National Football League (NFL) playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the end of the regular season to determine the NFL champion. Following the merge between the NFL and its rival the American Football League (AFL), a four-team playoff system was implemented in 1966; it expanded to six teams in 1978, and then to eight teams in 1990. Since 1990, eight teams have qualified for each conference’s tournament. These teams consist of six division winners, who are seeded 1–6 according to their overall won-loss records, and two “wild card” qualifiers, who are seeded 4–5 or 5–6.
What is a Wildcard Spot?
In the NFL, a Wildcard spot is a position in the playoffs that is given to the two teams in each conference who did not win their division, but had the next best record.
In other words, if a team didn’t win their division but still had a better record than any of the other teams who also didn’t win their division, then they would get a Wildcard spot.
The Wildcard round is the first round of the playoffs and is usually played on Wildcard Weekend (the first weekend of the playoffs). The two Wildcard teams in each conference play each other, with the winner moving on to play one of the division winners in the Divisional Round.
How Many Wildcard Spots are in the NFL?
The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the end of the regular season to determine the NFL champion. Six teams from each of the league’s two conferences qualify for the playoffs. Wild Card Weekend (the weekend of January 5-6, 2019) features four wild-card playoff games. The four winners advance to Divisional Playoff weekend (the weekend of January 12-13, 2019).
At present, there are two wild-card spots available in each conference. That means that, in total, there are four wild-card teams in the NFL playoffs.
How are the Wildcard Spots Determined?
The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the end of the regular season to determine the NFL champion. Six teams from each of the league’s two conferences qualify for the playoffs based on regular season records, and a seeding system is used to determine which team plays which in the opening round. The tournament culminates with theSuper Bowl, played between the champions of the NFC and AFC.
In each conference, the four division winners and two wild card teams (the two non-division winners with the best won-lost-tied records) qualify for the playoffs. The four division winners are seeded 1 through 4 based on their overall won-lost-tied record, and the wild card teams are seeded 5 and 6. The NFL does not use a fixed bracket playoff system, so there are no restrictions regarding teams from the same division matching up in any round. During the first round, dubbed the Wild Card playoffs or Wild Card weekend, seeds 1–4 host 5–6 while seeds 5–6 travel to play 3–4.
Conclusion
In summary, there are six playoff teams from each conference: the four division winners and two wild card teams. The two wild card teams from each conference play each other in the Wild Card round. The winners of those games move on to the Divisional round, where they play the first-seeded team from their conference. The winners of those games move on to the Conference Championships, and finally, the Super Bowl.
