Gourt Home::Gourt :: NFL playoffs
The National Football League (NFL) playoffs is a single-elimination tournament held at the end of the 16-game regular season to determine the NFL champion. Throughout the years, the format has changed to include more teams into the tournament. Currently, the NFL playoffs consist of 12 teams (6 from each of the league's two conferences) and ends with the Super Bowl, the league's championship game.
Current playoff system
The tournament brackets are made up of six teams from each of the league's two conferences, the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC), following the end of the 16-game regular season:
- The four division champions from each conference (the team in each division with the best regular season won-lost-tied record), which are seeded 1 through 4 based on their regular season won-lost-tied record.
- Two wild card qualifiers (those non-division champions with the conference's best won-lost-tied percentages), which are seeded 5 and 6.
The 3 and the 6 seeded teams, and the 4 and the 5 seeds, face each other during the first round of the playoffs, dubbed the Wild Card Playoffs. The 1 and the 2 seeds from each conference receive a bye in the first round, which entitles these teams to automatically advance to the second round, the Divisional Playoff games, to face the Wild Card survivors. In any given playoff round, the highest surviving seed always plays the lowest surviving seed . And in any given playoff game, whoever has the higher seed gets the home field advantage (i.e. the game is held at the higher seed's home field).
The two surviving teams from the Divisional Playoff games meet in Conference Championship games, with the winners of those contests going on to face one another in the Super Bowl.
If teams are tied (having the same regular season won-lost-tied record), the playoff seeding is determined by a set of tiebreaking rules. *
A major disadvantage that critics cite in the current system is that a divisional winner could host a playoff game against a wild card team that earned a better regular season record. For example, the Jacksonville Jaguars finished the 2005 regular season with a 12-4 record, but only qualified as a wild card team (due to the fact that Indianapolis Colts took the AFC South division title) and thus had to face the New England Patriots, the AFC East division champions with a 10-6 record, at the Patriots' home field, Gillette Stadium.
History of the playoff format
NFL Playoff History
- For playoff games of the American Football League prior to the AFL-NFL merger, see AFL playoffs.
1932 NFL Playoff game
NFL Championship games (1933-1966)
Four-team tournament (1967-1969)
- NFL Championship winner in bold, who then faced the AFL champion in the AFL-NFL World Championship Game (later to be known as the Super Bowl)
Post AFL-NFL Merger (1970-present)
- ''Note: Since the AFL-NFL Merger, the playoffs have generally been held over two calendar years.
- Super Bowl winner in bold. For a list of Super Bowl games, see List of Super Bowl champions
All-Time Playoff Records(NFL/AFL)
Trivia
- After the 1970 AFL-NFL merger and the emergence of the Super Bowl, all AFL and NFL league championship games prior to merger are listed along with the AFC and NFC conference championship games, respectively, in the NFL's official records.
References
- http://www.superbowl.com/history
- http://www.pro-football-reference.com - Large online database of NFL data and statistics
- The NFL History Network - includes a large database of historic NFL box scores
See also
External links
National Football League playoffs | National Football League
"NFL playoffs"