How Many Teams Make the NFL Playoffs in 2024-2025 Season?
Playoffs? We're talking about playoffs?!
We’re a little more than halfway through the NFL regular season, and while surprises are still a weekly occurrence, we’re starting to get a feel for how things are shaping up heading into the 2024/2025 NFL Playoffs.
Indeed, the cream – the Kansas City Chiefs, the Detroit Lions, the Buffalo Bills – are rising to the top, and the loveable losers – the Carolina Panthers, the New England Patriots (actually not loveable), the Cleveland Browns – are already starting to look ahead to the 2025 draft. That said, every NFL team is still currently mathematically alive to make the Playoffs, even if some are just barely hanging on.
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So with the NFL Playoffs (like the holidays) just around the corner, including huge games every week on Sunday Night Football on NBC and Peacock, let’s take a look at how many teams will actually get in, and what things look like once they get there.
How many teams make the NFL Playoffs this season?
For the NFL’s 2024/2025 season, 14 teams will make the Playoffs: Seven teams from the NFC, and seven teams from the AFC, which breaks down to four division winners and three wild-card teams per conference.
Granted, not all teams making the playoffs will face the same tests. That’s where the bracket comes into play. Once the seven teams from each conference are selected, they’re assigned a seed number based on their record and, in the case of ties, any tiebreaking factors.
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The team with the best record (including tiebreaks) gets the No. 1 seed; the team with the most losses (or ending up on the wrong side of a tiebreaker) gets the No. 7 seed. The rest of the teams fill out the bracket as their records and tiebreaks dictate.
Seeding is a big deal, not just because the teams with the better seeds play the teams with the worse seeds, but because the No. 1 seeded team gets a first round bye, allowing them to skip the first round entirely and get plenty of rest for their first playoff game.
When did the NFL Playoffs change their format?
For the 2020 season, the NFL changed the number of teams making the playoffs from 12 to the the current 14-team bracket.
When are the 2024-2025 NFL Playoffs?
The NFL Playoffs begin with the Wild Card Round on Saturday, January 11; Sunday, January 12; and Monday, January 13, 2025.
The Divisional Round kicks off the following weekend on Saturday, January 18 and Sunday, January 19, 2025.
The NFL Conference Championship games both take place Sunday, January 26, 2025.
When is the 2025 Super Bowl?
Finally, after all the gridiron glory of the previous five months, the best two teams in the NFL will face off in the Super Bowl on February 9, 2025.
Watch the playoff picture take shape every week on Sunday Night Football on NBC and Peacock!
