National Football League

The National Football League (NFL) is the largest professional American football league, consisting of thirty-two teams from American cities. The league was formed in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, which adopted the name "National Football League" in 1922. The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues of North America.

Playoffs

At the conclusion of each 16-game regular season, six teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs, which culminate in the Super Bowl:

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• The four division champions, which are seeded #1 through #4 based on their regular season won-lost-tied record, and
• Two wild card qualifiers (those non-division champions with the conference's best won-lost-tied percentages), who are seeded #5 and #6 within the conference.

The #3 and #6 seeded teams, and the #4 and #5 seeded teams, face each other during the first round of the playoffs, dubbed the "Wild Card Round." The #1 and #2 seeds from each conference do not participate in this round, earning an automatic berth in the following week's "Divisional Playoff" games, where they face the Wild Card survivors. The #1 seeded team plays against the lowest remaining seed while the #2 seeded team plays the other remaining team. In a given game, whoever has the higher seed gets the home field advantage.

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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.

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The terms "Wild Card Round" and "Divisional Playoffs" originated from the playoff format that was used before 1990. During that time, three division winners and two wild card teams from each conference qualified for the playoffs. Only the wild card teams played during the first round, while all of the division winners waited until the following week to play.

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