How the NFL season and playoffs work: 17 games, divisions, wild cards and the Super Bowl

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The NFL season is short compared with other major American leagues, so every game matters. Understanding how the schedule is built and how teams reach the playoffs makes the autumn far more interesting, because you can see why a December game between two middling teams suddenly carries so much weight.

The structure of the league

32 teams split into two conferences: the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC).
Each conference has four divisions of four teams: East, North, South and West.
Division rivals play each other twice a season, home and away.

The calendar

Preseason in August: practice games that do not count, mostly used to judge players fighting for roster places.
Regular season from early September to early January: 17 games over 18 weeks, so each team has one bye week off.
Playoffs in January, with the Super Bowl in February.

Games are mostly on Sundays, with fixtures on Thursday and Monday nights and some Saturdays late in the season. The league also plays a number of games abroad each year.

How the 17-game schedule is built

The schedule follows a formula so that every team in a division plays a broadly similar set of opponents:

Six games against division rivals, home and away.
Four games against one division from its own conference, on a rotation.
Four games against one division from the other conference, on a rotation.
Two games against teams from the remaining two divisions in its own conference that finished in the same position the previous season.
One extra game against a team from the other conference that finished in the same position, chosen by rotation.

This is why a team that won its division faces a slightly harder schedule the next year.

Who makes the playoffs

Seven teams from each conference qualify, 14 in all.

The four division winners take seeds one to four, ranked by record.
The three best remaining teams, the wild cards, take seeds five to seven.
A division winner with a worse record than a wild card still gets the higher seed and a home game. Proposals to change this have been discussed in recent years, so check the current rules if the format becomes a talking point.

Ties in the standings are broken by a long list of tiebreakers, starting with head-to-head results and moving through division and conference records.

The playoff rounds

All playoff games are single elimination: lose once and you are out.

Wild Card round: seed 2 hosts 7, 3 hosts 6, 4 hosts 5. The number one seed has a bye and rests.
Divisional round: the top seed hosts the lowest remaining seed, and the other two winners meet, the higher seed at home.
Conference championships: the AFC and NFC champions are decided.
Super Bowl: the two conference champions meet at a venue chosen years in advance, so neither team usually plays at home.

Why the bye and home field matter

Only one team per conference skips the first round, which means one fewer game to win and an extra week of rest. Home teams also avoid travel and enjoy crowd noise that makes it harder for visiting offences to communicate. That is why the race for the top seed is often as intense as the race to qualify.

Overtime in the playoffs

Regular-season games can end in a tie after one overtime period. Playoff games cannot: overtime continues until there is a winner, and current rules give both teams a chance to possess the ball. The rules have been changed in recent years, so check the latest version before an important game.

Following the race

In the final weeks, broadcasters show playoff pictures and clinching scenarios. Focus on your team's division first, then the wild-card spots. A useful habit is to note which rivals your team still plays, because those head-to-head games often decide tiebreakers. Which part of the season or playoff format would you like explained further? Ask in the comments.