When Does the NFL Season Start?

The NFL regular season usually starts the week after Labor Day. Check out this year’s NFL schedule to see when your favorite team is playing.

Introduction

The National Football League regular season typically begins on the Thursday night following the first Sunday of September (September 5, 2019), and ends on December 29, 2019. Prior to 1970, the regular season was 14 games in length, divided into two seven-game halves. From 1970 onwards, it has been 16 games in length.

History of the NFL

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 professional sports leagues in North America, and the highest professional level of American football in the world. NFL games are divided into weeks, with each team playing one game each week. The regular season runs from September to December, with each team playing 16 games.

The NFL was founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association (APFA), with ten teams from four states, all of whom existed in some form as participants of regional leagues in their respective cities or regions. The league’s first president was Jim Thorpe, a prominent Native American athlete and Olympian who played several Minor League Baseball teams before switching to football. In 1922, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League. After initially determining champions through end-of-season standings, a playoff system was implemented in 1933 whereby the championship game was played between the winners of the NFL’s two divisions.

The Current NFL Season

The current NFL season is set to begin on September 10th, 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the start date may be pushed back. As of now, the NFL is planning to have a full season with all 16 games being played.

Pre-Season

The National Football League (NFL) preseason is the period each year during which NFL teams play several not-for-the-record exhibition games before the regular season begins. Beginning with the featured Pro Football Hall of Fame game in early August, five weekends of exhibition games are currently played in the NFL preseason.

Preseason games are generally considered low priority for both fans and athletes compared to regular season games and most star players rarely play in them, choosing instead to focus on preparing for the regular season. However, because preseason games fill NFL stadiums’ seats during a time of year when many people are not willing or able to attend football games, most NFL teams view them as a necessary and lucrative part of their business model.

The length of the NFL preseason has varied throughout the years, but it is now firmly established at four weeks. Prior to 1978, it was six weeks long; between 1978 and 1993, it was cut down to four weeks; in 1994, it was raised back to six weeks; then, from 1995 onward, it has been four weeks again.

Regular Season

The National Football League (NFL) regular season begins on the weekend following the Labor Day holiday in early September. Each team plays 16 games during the regular season, which runs until late December or early January. After the regular season, six teams from each conference (NFC and AFC) advance to the playoffs. The playoffs consist of three rounds of games, leading up to the Super Bowl, which is played between the champions of the NFC and AFC conferences.

Post-Season

Once the regular season ends, the top teams in each conference (the AFC and NFC) compete in the playoffs to determined who will advance to the Super Bowl. The playoffs are a single-elimination tournament, meaning that once a team loses a game, they are out of the running for the championship.

The playoffs consist of six teams from each conference: the four division winners and two wild card teams. The wild card teams are the two second-place teams with the best records who did not win their division. The playoffs begin with the wild card round, where the two wild card teams in each conference play each other. The winners of those games then move on to play the division winners in the next round, called the divisional round.

The divisional round consists of four games: two games involving AFC teams and two games involving NFC teams. In each game, the lower-seeded team plays at the home stadium of the higher-seeded team. The winners of those games then advance to their respective conference championship game. The conference championship games are single elimination games that take place on either the first or second Sunday in January and determine which team from each conference will advance to the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl is always played on a Sunday in early February and is television’s most-watched annual event. The first Super Bowl was played in 1967 between the AFL (now AFC) champion Green Bay Packers and NFL (now NFC) champion Kansas City Chiefs.

Conclusion

The NFL regular season typically starts the week after Labor Day in September and ends in early January. The playoffs follow, culminating in the Super Bowl, which is usually held in early February.