Elsewhere on the site, you can read about a piece about the regular season in American football, which contains a brief reference to the post-season. That, though, is something that deserves a bigger piece, given how important it is to the overall outcome of the National Football League.
The playoffs is the system that decides the final winner of the NFL through the Super Bowl, with the structure of the playoffs being such that, in theory at least, any of the 14 teams that make it through to it could end up as winners rather than just the two divisional champions.
A Brief History of the Playoffs
Between when the American football league was founded in 1920 and 1932, there was no championship game scheduled into the season. Instead, the championship title was awarded by numerous methods, starting with a vote by the owners and moving to the side with the best win percentage. The first time that a playoff game was played was in 1932, which was when the Chicago Bears went up against the Portsmouth Spartans because the two teams had identical winning percentages. The Bears won it 9-0, whilst the interest in it is believed to have sparked the idea behind a Championship Game.
From 1933 onwards, the National Football League was divided into two conferences, which saw the first-placed team in each Conference move into the NFL Championship Game after the season’s conclusion. Between then and 1966, the structure was thought of as being inequitable by some thanks to the fact that it often failed to see the two teams with the best records reach the Championship Game. Meanwhile, the American Football League, after it was formed, had playoffs of its own. It took until the merger between the NFL and the AFL for the Super Bowl to be played.
It was initially suggested by the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, Lamar Hunt, who wanted it to be an inter-league game that would see the winners of the National Football League take on the winners of the American Football League, which is what happened between 1966 and 1969. The NFL split into two conferences in 1967, which had two divisions with four teams in each. The winners of all four divisions advanced to a multi-game playoff, becoming the basis for which the modern post-season is based.
How the Playoffs Work
In the modern era, the National Football League playoffs play out as a single-elimination tournament, featuring four games and taking place after the conclusion of the regular season. Seven teams from each Conference have made it through to the playoffs since 2020, made up of the four divisional winners along with three Wild Card teams. The Wild Cards are issued to the three best teams from each Conference that have the best overall record outside of the divisional winners, with each of them being seeded either fifth, sixth or seventh.
The overall winner of each Conference receives a bye past the first round of the playoffs, instead entering in the second round. As a result, the first round sees the number two division winner play against Wild Card number three, the number two division winner play the Wild Card number two and the number four division winner go up against the Wild Card number one. That is the same across both the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference.
Round two sees the two Conference winners enter the completion, with the second lowest remaining seeded team go up against the second highest seeded remaining team in one match, and the lowest remaining seeded team go up against either the NFC or the AFC team with the best record, depending on which side of the draw they are from. The winners of those two games make it into the AFC Championship Game and the NFC Championship Game, with the winner of each of those then making it into the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl
Essentially taking place since 1966, the Super Bowl is the league championship game that sees the winning team from the American Football Conference playoffs take on the winning team from the National Football Conference playoffs in a game to decide the overall winner of the National Football League. The game has been played on the second Sunday in February since 2022, giving some semblance of order to when the final game of the season will take place. As well as being crowned the overall winners, the victors also receive the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
In terms of its importance in the sporting calendar, the Super Bowl sits amongst the most-watched single sporting events of the year. It tends to bring in the largest audience that any American broadcaster enjoys during a 12-month period. Only the final of the Champions League sees more people watching a club sporting event around the world, whilst the half-time show will often feature a well-known artist performing and numerous different adverts shown. Apart from Thanksgiving dinner, no event sees more food eaten than the Super Bowl.