How many teams make the NFL playoffs?

The NFL postseason is upon us. As we finish the holiday season in December and enter the New Year, it is time for one of the biggest events in sporting calendars - the NFL playoffs. Every NFL season begins in September with the regular season panning for 18 weeks. The 32 teams compete with each other for 17 games to qualify for a postseason run to the Super Bowl.

Football is one of the most unpredictable sports. Just because a team is strong doesn’t mean they will make the postseason. Some various permutations and combinations happen for a team to qualify for the playoffs if they’re not outrightly qualified.

How many teams make the NFL Playoffs?

The NFL playoffs will feature 14 teams attempting to make a run for the Lombardi Trophy. Seven teams from the American Football Conference (AFC) and seven from the National Football Conference (NFC) will comprise the 14 teams.

The winners of all four divisions from each AFC and NFC conference will earn a playoff berth by their performances. The remaining three teams from each of the meetings will enter as Wild Card teams.

The qualifying criteria for these three teams will be based on their record. The top three teams (after the divisional winners) with a better record in their respective conferences will make the cut. In case of ties among the teams to qualify for the Wild Card round, the NFL has certain tiebreakers that will be used to determine the teams.

Generally, there are 12 steps to break the ties to determine which teams will qualify for the postseason. 11 steps will first be employed to break the ties. And only if this criterial fails, will the NFL resort to a coin toss to determine which team makes the cut to the postseason.

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NFL Playoff Bracket: How it works

As we discussed above, there will be seven teams from each conference making the cut for the NFL playoffs. Based on the regular season record of these teams, they will be given a seed number from one through seven.

The winningest team will be given the No. 1 seed and the No.7 seed will be given to the teams with the most losses. Once these teams qualify, the first round of the playoffs will include the wild card round.

The No. 1 seed from each conference will get a bye. And will play one of the winners from the wild card round, which we will see below.

There will be a total of six wild-card round games, three for each conference. The highest-seeded team will play the lowest-seeded team among the remaining six teams in each of the conferences. No. 2 seed will take on the No. 7 seed. No. 3 will face No. 6. The No. 4 seed will clash with the No. 5 seed. The winner of the wild card round will qualify for the divisional round.

In this round, the highest seed vs. the lowest seed continues. The No. 1 seed will take on the lowest-seeded team in the divisional round. And the same continues for the remaining teams as well. The divisional round will be of 4 games.

The winners of each game from the divisional round will face each other in the conference championship to determine who’ll make it to the Super Bowl. Once again, the team with the better record will get the home-field advantage.

The winners of each of the two conferences, AFC champions and NFC champions, will eventually take on each other in the Super Bowl.