When Does the NFL Playoffs Start?

The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the regular season to determine the NFL champion.

Introduction

The National Football League (NFL) playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the regular season to determine the NFL champion. Each year, six teams from each of the league’s two conferences qualify for the playoffs.

The four division winners in each conference (the team with the best record in each division) earn a bye week in the first round of the playoffs. The divisional round consists of the four remaining teams in each conference, who compete against each other in two matchups. The two conference champions then advance to the Super Bowl, where they compete to determine the NFL champion for that year.

What is the NFL Playoffs?

The National Football League playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the end of the National Football League’s 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 sequence of playoff games is conducted until a champion is crowned.

How Do the NFL Playoffs Work?

The National Football League (NFL) playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after 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 fourth club from each conference is awarded a wild card berth. These clubs enter the tournament seeded based on their overall won-lost-tied record, with the division champion holding the better seed in each matchup. In the first round, dubbed the wild-card playoffs or wild-card weekend, the third seed hosts the sixth seed while the fourth seed hosts the fifth. The winners advance to meet respective divisional playoff opponents, which seeds 1 and 2 in each conference. The divisional playoffs are held on consecutive weekends in January, with one week between each conference’s divisional round. Conference championship games are then played on back-to-back weekends, hosted by the higher remaining seed in each conference.

The NFL does not use a fixed bracket playoff system so there is some flexibility regarding which teams play each other in any particular round. In cases where three or more teams from one conference are involved in the playoffs, seeds 4–6 must play each other in Round 1 as there are no restrictions regarding intraconference match-ups in any other round. The sole exception to this rule occurs when only one wild card team from each conference remains; in such cases, regardless of seeding, only one intraconference game can be scheduled per Wild Card weekend.[1][2] Since 1993, home teams have also had an advantage in the NFL playoffs: since that season home teams have posted a 34–21 record (.618) during Wild Card Weekend and 103–63 (.622) during Divisional Playoff Weekend (not including games played at neutral sites).

The current 10-team format was adopted prior to 1970 as two additional wild card clubs were added due largely to expansion of both leagues at that time; record tiebreakers were not yet implemented,[citation needed] so it was feasible for three clubs (or even all four from some divisions) to finish with identical records and have only two qualify for playoff berths. Prior to 1975 and prior to 1993 whenWild Card Weekend was instituted if two or more clubs were tied for a conference championship (or a divisional title with no corresponding conference title), they would be ordered by win percentage within their own divisions;[3] if only two teams were tied but they were not members of the same division then they would be ordered by win percentage within all common opponents.[4][5] Conference tiebreakers did not come into play until 1967—when fringe contender Baltimore sneaked into an automatic AFL Playoff berth despite finishing behind co-champions Kansas City and Oakland—and did not become standardized until 1974.[citation needed] Since 1975, when then-AFC head coach Chuck Noll complained about having his team Seed 3 despite having an identical overall won–lost record as Seed 4 Dallas (who had won their head-to-head matchup), future tiebreakers specifically excluded records against common opponents;[6] instead ORG has used various combinations of head-to-head results, intra-conference winning percentage,[7]and intra-conference point differential[8] (the preferred option since 2016).[9][10]

When Do the NFL Playoffs Start?

The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the end of the National Football League (NFL)’s regular season to determine the NFL champion. Six teams from each of the league’s two conferences qualified for the playoffs.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the NFL playoffs start the weekend after the final regular season games are played. The specific date and time of the playoffs vary each year, depending on which teams are playing and where the games are being held. To find out when the playoffs are happening this year, be sure to check the NFL schedule when it is released in late summer or early fall.