NFL Playoff Seeding Rules

The National Football League (NFL) consists of two conferences, the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). Each conference consists of 16 teams, with four divisions of four teams per conference. At the conclusion of the regular season, the NFL uses a seeding system to determine who plays whom during the playoffs.

  1. Initial Seedings

    • The four division winners and the top two second-place teams in each of the two conferences qualify for the playoffs. The six teams are then ranked based on their regular season records and whether they were division winners. The teams with the two best records in each conference are given a bye, meaning they do not have to play during the first round of the playoffs. The other two division winners are ranked third and fourth depending on which one had the better regular season record. The two second-place teams, known as "wild card" teams, are ranked fifth and sixth, also depending on how they fared in the regular season.

    Re-seeding

    • After the first round has concluded, the remaining teams are then re-seeded, with the surviving teams playing the division winners who had the previous week off. The top seed plays the remaining team with the worse seed, while the second seed plays the remaining team. As with the first round, the games are played on the home field of the team with the better seed.

    Conference Championship and Super Bowl

    • After the second round, two teams will remain in each conference and will square off for the conference championship. The team with the better seed will have the home field advantage. The two conference champions will meet in the Super Bowl, which is played at a neutral site.

    Tie Breakers

    • In the event that two teams have identical records, a series of tie breakers is used to determine the seeding. The first tie breaker is how the two teams fared if they played each other during the regular season, with the winning team receiving the higher seed. Other tie breakers include how the teams fared within their division and their records against common opponents.

    Inequities

    • A possible inequity of the NFL's seeding system is that a team with a better record could be forced to travel to play a team with a lesser record during the first round. For example, in the 2009 season, the Arizona Cardinals finished with a 10-6 record, while the Green Bay Packers ended up 11-5. But because the Cardinals won their division and the Packers finished second in theirs, the Packers had to travel to Arizona to play a first-round game because division winners get the better seed in the first round. The Cardinals won the game by a wide margin on their home field.