Key takeaways
- Seven teams per conference make the playoffs: the four division winners are seeded 1 to 4 and the three best remaining records are seeded 5 to 7.
- Only the No. 1 seed in each conference gets a bye, so every other playoff team needs four wins to take the title and the top seed needs three.
- The playoffs reseed: in the Divisional round the No. 1 seed hosts the lowest-seeded team still alive, whichever seed that turns out to be.
- Ties in the standings count as half a win and half a loss, and tied records are separated by a fixed list of steps that starts with head-to-head results.
- Division ties and wild-card ties use different step lists, so check which situation applies before working through a tiebreaker.
Fourteen teams make the NFL playoffs, seven from each conference. In each conference the four division winners are seeded 1 to 4 and the three teams with the best remaining records are seeded 5 to 7. Only the No. 1 seed gets a first-round bye; seeds 2 to 7 play on Wild Card weekend, the survivors are reseeded, and the two conference champions meet in the Super Bowl. When teams finish level, a fixed list of tiebreakers decides who goes through, starting with head-to-head results.
The details matter more than they look, because seeding decides who plays at home, who rests, and how many wins the title takes.
Who qualifies, and how the seeds are set
The league's site priorities for the 2026 postseason spell out the order: the No. 1 seed "will receive the only bye", the "remaining division champions in each conference will be seeded 2, 3 and 4, followed by the next three teams per conference seeded 5, 6 and 7."
| Seed | Who gets it | First game |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Division winner with the best record | Bye, then hosts a Divisional game |
| 2 to 4 | The other three division winners, by record | Host a Wild Card game |
| 5 to 7 | The three best records among teams that did not win their division | Wild Card game on the road |
Two consequences follow. A division winner is always seeded above every wild card, so a wild card with a better record than a division winner still plays on the road in the first round. And because there are "no restrictions on intra-division games", two teams from the same division can meet on Wild Card weekend.
The field grew to 14 teams for the 2020 season. Since 1990 it had been 12, and NFL.com noted at the time that the new format means 43.7 percent of the league's teams qualify. That figure is simply 14 of 32 teams.
Why only the No. 1 seed rests
Adding a seventh team in each conference meant one more Wild Card game per conference, and the bye had to come from somewhere. NFL.com's report of the change put it directly: the expansion "means only the No.1 seeds in the AFC and NFC will earn a postseason bye, a massive advantage to the top club each year."
The advantage is easy to count. The top seed needs three wins to take the title; everyone else needs four. In the old 12-team format, six teams per conference had to be cut to four for the Divisional round, which took two Wild Card games and left two teams in each conference resting. Now only one rests, so every other playoff team has an extra game to win.
Wild Card weekend and the reseed
The first-round pairings are fixed: 2 hosts 7, 3 hosts 6, and 4 hosts 5. After that, the bracket is not.
For the Divisional round, the league's rule is that the top division champion "will play host to the lowest-seeded Wild Card survivor", and "the other two Wild Card winners play in the other game, with the team with the higher seed playing host." That is a reseed, and it means the No. 1 seed's opponent is not known until the whole first round is over.
A worked example with invented results:
| Wild Card result | Survivor |
|---|---|
| 2 vs 7 | 7 wins |
| 3 vs 6 | 3 wins |
| 4 vs 5 | 5 wins |
The survivors are seeds 3, 5 and 7. The No. 1 seed hosts the lowest of them, seed 7. Seeds 3 and 5 meet in the other game, at seed 3's stadium. In the conference championship games "the home teams will be the surviving playoff winners with the highest seeds", and the Super Bowl is played at a site chosen in advance.
For the 2026 season, the league's published calendar is:
| Round | Date |
|---|---|
| Wild Card weekend | Beginning Saturday, Jan. 16, 2027 |
| Divisional round | Jan. 23 and 24, 2027 |
| Conference championships | Sunday, Jan. 31, 2027 |
| Super Bowl LXI | Sunday, Feb. 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles |
How ties in the standings count
Before any tiebreaker, there is the question of how a tied game counts. The league's answer is that tie games "count as one-half win and one-half loss for both clubs." So a 10-6-1 team has 10.5 wins from 17 games, a winning percentage of about .618, and finishes above a 10-7 team at about .588. A tie is worth more than a loss and less than a win, exactly halfway between.
How tied records are broken
When teams finish with the same winning percentage, the league works down a list until one team comes out ahead. Which list depends on whether the tied teams are in the same division.
Two teams in the same division
| Step | Tiebreaker |
|---|---|
| 1 | Head-to-head record |
| 2 | Record in division games |
| 3 | Record in common games |
| 4 | Record in conference games |
| 5 | Strength of victory in all games |
| 6 | Strength of schedule in all games |
| 7 | Best combined ranking among conference teams in points scored and points allowed |
| 8 | Best combined ranking among all teams in points scored and points allowed |
| 9 | Best net points in common games |
| 10 | Best net points in all games |
| 11 | Best net touchdowns in all games |
| 12 | Coin toss |
Two wild-card contenders from different divisions
Head-to-head comes first only "if applicable", because the teams may not have met. Then come conference record, common games (minimum of four), strength of victory, strength of schedule, the two combined-ranking steps, net points in conference games, net points in all games, net touchdowns, and finally a coin toss. If the tied teams are from the same division, the division list is used instead.
Three or more teams
Two rules keep multi-team ties manageable. In a wild-card tie, the division tiebreaker is applied first, so that only the highest-ranked team from each division remains before the other steps begin. And "only one club advances to the playoffs in any tie-breaking step"; once a team is separated out, the rest go back to the first step of the appropriate list. For wild cards, head-to-head among three or more teams counts only as a sweep, where one team beat all the others or lost to all of them.
Two worked examples
These use invented teams and records.
A division tie. Teams A and B both finish 11-6 and split their two meetings, so step 1 does not separate them. A went 5-1 in the division and B went 4-2, so A wins the division at step 2.
A wild-card tie. Teams C and D, from different divisions, both finish 10-7 and did not play each other. Step 1 does not apply. C went 8-4 against its own conference and D went 7-5, so C takes the playoff spot at step 2.
What the later steps measure
Strength of victory and strength of schedule are measures of opponent quality: the first looks at the teams a club beat, the second at all of its opponents, each judged by their combined record. The league's record book shows how they appear in practice, with past tiebreaks settled on strength of victory figures such as .458 against .392. The combined-ranking steps add a team's league position in points scored to its position in points allowed, and the lowest total wins; a team first in scoring and second in points allowed scores 3.
The same procedures decide home-field order inside the seeds. Division winners are ordered using the wild-card tiebreakers, and wild cards are ordered using the division or wild-card list, depending on whether the teams share a division. For comparison with another sport's approach, how goal difference and tiebreakers work covers soccer's table-based system.
What the playoffs mean for next year's draft
The postseason also sets most of the next draft order. Under the league's selection procedure, the 18 non-playoff teams pick first in reverse order of their records, Wild Card losers pick 19th to 24th, Divisional losers 25th to 28th, conference championship losers 29th and 30th, the Super Bowl loser 31st and the champion last. How draft order works covers the reasoning behind reverse-standings drafts.
Playoff pressure in a GM game
Football Franchise GM League has its own Playoff Mode, which "puts the whole roster under pressure", alongside VS Computer, Battle and Tournament play. The app does not describe it as a copy of the league's bracket, and the season simulator's results are the game's model scoring your roster, not a forecast of any real postseason. The player pool is built from real players' careers, with ratings that are the game's own estimates. The football draft simulator guide explains why a roster's weakest unit tends to show up when the stakes rise.
For more on the sport, start at our American football page; the full list of management and career titles is under sports GM games.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
How many teams make the NFL playoffs?
Who gets a bye in the NFL playoffs?
Does the NFL reseed the playoffs?
How do ties count in the NFL standings?
What is strength of schedule in NFL tiebreakers?
Sources
- NFL Tiebreaking Procedures (opens in a new tab)NFL.com — accessed
- Owners approve expanding postseason to 14 teams (opens in a new tab)NFL.com — accessed
- Official 2026 National Football League Record & Fact Book (PDF): 2026 Postseason Schedule & Site Priorities; Tie-Breaking Procedures (opens in a new tab)National Football League — accessed
League, team and athlete names appear here only to identify the rules, records and history being discussed. Reign Creative LLC's sports games are not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by any league, team, players' association or athlete, and all names and marks belong to their owners.
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