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NFL playoffs

The National Football League (NFL) playoffs are the games that make up the single-elimination tournament held after the regular season to determine the league champion. Currently, seven teams from each of the league's two conferences qualify for the playoffs. A tie-breaking procedure exists if required. The tournament culminates in the Super Bowl: the league's championship game in which two teams, one from each conference, play each other to become champion of the NFL.

Sport

1933

14

Kansas City Chiefs
(4th title)

NFL postseason history can be traced to the first NFL Championship Game in 1933, though in the early years, qualification for the game was based solely on regular-season records. From 1933 to 1966, the NFL postseason generally only consisted of the NFL Championship Game, which pitted the league's two division winners against each other (pending any one-game playoff matches that needed to be held to break ties in the division standings). In 1967, the playoffs were expanded to four teams (division winners). When the league completed its merger with the American Football League (AFL) in 1970, the playoffs were expanded to eight teams, which increased to ten in 1978, twelve in 1990, and fourteen in 2020.


Among the four major professional sports leagues in the United States, the NFL postseason is the only one to use a single-elimination tournament in all of its rounds. Major League Baseball (MLB) has traditionally used "best-of" series formats, though its Wild Card postseason round, initiated in 2012, was a single game until 2022 when it was replaced with a best-of-three series. Both the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) continue to use "best-of" series formats.

The four division champions from each conference (the team in each division with the best overall record) are 1 through 4 based on their overall won-lost-tied record.

seeded

Three qualifiers from each conference (the three teams with the best overall record of all remaining teams in the conference) are seeded 5, 6, and 7.

wild-card

The 32-team National Football League is divided into two conferences, the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). Since 2002, each conference has 16 teams and is further divided into four geographic divisions of four teams each. As of 2020, qualification into the playoffs works as follows:[2]


If teams are tied (having the same regular season won-lost-tied record), the playoff seeding is determined by a set of tie-breaking rules.[3]


The names of the first two playoff rounds date back to the postseason format that was first used in 1978, when the league added a second wild-card team to each conference. The first round of the playoffs is dubbed the wild-card round, wild-card weekend, or, since 2021, super wild-card weekend. In this round, the second-seeded division winner hosts the seventh-seeded wild card team, the third hosts the sixth, and the fourth hosts the fifth. There are no restrictions regarding teams from the same division matching up in any round. The team with the best overall record from each conference receives a first round bye, automatically advancing them to the second round, dubbed the divisional round, and hosts the lowest-remaining seed from the wild-card round. Meanwhile, the other two winners from that round play each other with the higher seeds hosting.[4] The two surviving teams from each conferences' divisional-round playoff games then meet in the respective AFC and NFC Conference Championship games, hosted by the higher-seeded team. The winners of those contests go on to face one another in the Super Bowl which is played at a predetermined site.


The New York Giants and New York Jets have shared the same home stadium since 1984 (Giants Stadium from 1984 to 2009, and MetLife Stadium since 2010). Thus, if both teams need to host playoff games on the same weekend, they are required to play on separate days, even during the Conference Championship round when both games are normally scheduled on the same day. The only time such a scheduling conflict occurred was during Wild Card weekend in 1985 when only 10 teams qualified for the postseason and there were only two wild-card games. Instead of playing both Wild Card games on the same day, as was the case when the 10-team system was used from 1978 to 1989, the Jets hosted their game on Saturday, December 28, before the Giants hosted their game on Sunday, December 29. This same scheduling conflict could occur for the Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams, who began sharing SoFi Stadium in 2020.

In , the teams with the two best records in each conference met in the divisional round. Meanwhile, the wild card teams had better records than the division winners they faced (the Browns and 49ers were both 9–5).

1971

In , the Dolphins had to take their perfect record to Three Rivers Stadium to face the Pittsburgh Steelers, who went 11–3, in the AFC championship game.[26] Also, the 8–5–1 49ers, who had the worst record of any playoff team, hosted the 10–4 Cowboys.

1972

In , the 10–4 Bengals had to play at the 12–2 Dolphins in the divisional round, while the 9–4–1 Raiders hosted the 10-4 wild card Steelers.

1973

That same year, the finished 10–4, but hosted two 12–2 teams; the Los Angeles Rams and Minnesota.

Cowboys

In , the 11–3 Dolphins had to play at the 12–2 Raiders in the divisional round, while the 10–3–1 Steelers hosted the wild card Bills.

1974

In 1974, the hosted the Rams in the NFC championship even though both teams went 10–4 and Los Angeles defeated Minnesota in the regular season.

Vikings

Bold italics including longest streak indicates that the streak is also the team's longest-ever streak for consecutive playoff seasons.

List of NFL playoff games

National Football League championships

NFL playoff results

NFL starting quarterback playoff records

NFL head coach playoff records

. Time Inc. Home Entertainment. July 25, 2006. ISBN 1-933405-32-5.

2006 NFL Record and Fact Book

. HarperCollins. July 25, 2006. ISBN 1-933405-32-5.

Total Football II: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Football League

News, Sporting (February 1995). The Sporting News Complete Super Bowl Book 1995. Sporting News Publishing Company.  0-89204-523-X. {{cite book}}: |last1= has generic name (help)

ISBN

Super Bowl History

– Large online database of NFL data and statistics. Many of the game scores and records in this article can be found there.

Pro-Football-Reference.com