Amidst fierce competition from the NBA, MLB, and NHL, the NFL has emerged as the most popular sport in the USA. Part of what makes NFL games so highly prized is their relative scarcity. Each season, each team plays 17 regular-season games, while the most matches the Super Bowl champions can play is 21. In comparison, the average MLB team plays 162 games, while the average for the NBA and NHL is 82.
The way in which NFL contests are organised is a little different to the straightforward home and away format of the typical European sports league. After all, 17 regular-season games per side is a strange number for a league which is made up of 32 teams. So, how does it all work?
NFL Game Weeks: Fixtures & Results
The League Structure
Before looking at the schedule, it is useful to understand how the NFL is structured. The NFL is split into two conferences, the AFC and the NFC, each of which contains 16 teams. Both the AFC and the NFC are then split into North, South, East and West divisions. Each of these eight divisions contains four teams.
Preseason
Much like the UK football season, the competitive action is preceded by a stream of preseason fixtures.
The NFL preseason begins with the Hall of Fame Game during the first week in August. When selecting the matchup for the Hall of Fame Game, the NFL generally favours teams with links to the players being inducted into the Hall of Fame that year.
Following the Hall of Fame Game, a full schedule of preseason clashes takes place in the second, third and fourth weeks of August. As such, most NFL teams will play three preseason games, with the exception of the Hall of Fame Game franchises, who will play four.
One of the main purposes of preseason is to help the 32 teams finalise their squads. Franchises may enter preseason with up to 90 players but must trim this to an official 53-player roster by a specified date in late August. With teams often resting their stars and utilising limited playbooks to avoid tipping their hand, preseason results should generally be taken with a large pinch of salt.
The Regular Season
With preseason out of the way, the regular season action begins in September. The season opener takes place on the first Thursday after Labor Day in early September and usually features the previous season’s Super Bowl winners at home.
The regular season runs for 18 weeks, with each team playing 17 games and benefitting from one bye week. Most games take place on a Sunday, in addition to weekly prime-time Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football games.
NFL fans tuning into the action in the UK can expect a schedule dominated by the headline Sunday games in addition to Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football matchups. That said, the Sky Sports Red Zone feature and NFL Game Pass grant access to every game.
Breakdown of Regular Season Games
For each of the 32 NFL teams, the 17-game regular season schedule breaks down as follows:
- Home and away games against their three divisional rivals for a total of six games.
- One game against the four teams from a selected division within the same conference – two home games and two away games, for a total of four fixtures. The divisions paired together rotate from year to year, e.g. the teams in the NFC East may play the teams in the NFC South one year, the NFC North the next, and the NFC West the next.
- One game against the four teams from a selected division in the opposite conference – two home games and two away. In common with the intra-division games, these inter-conference divisional pairings rotate from year to year.
- Two games against a team from each of the remaining divisions in the team’s own conference. For example, an NFC North team paired with the NFC East will play one game against a team from the NFC South and one game against a team from the NFC West. One of these games will be at home and the other away.
- One game against a team from the other conference from a division the team is not paired with. For example, an NFC North team paired with the AFC North will play one game against a team from the AFC East, AFC South, or AFC West.
Bye Weeks
Each team receives one week off during the regular season. This is known as a bye week and is designed to provide teams with a mid-season break. Bye weeks typically occur between Week 5 and Week 14. As such, all 32 teams are in action for both the first four and the final four weeks of the season. During the Week 5 to Week 14 window, between two and six teams may have a bye week in the same week.
The International Series
One final quirk of the NFL schedule is that not all home games are actually played at home. Some are played many thousands of miles away from the stadium of the designated “home” team. The reason for this is the burgeoning NFL International Series.
Beginning with a solitary game at Wembley Stadium in 2007, the International Series has grown steadily over the years, with games in nations including Ireland, Spain, Brazil, and Germany. In 2026, a record nine International Series games were scheduled to take place during the Regular Season.
Since the NFL expanded to a 17-game Regular Season in 2021, the AFC and NFC alternate having nine home games per season. When planning the International Series games, the schedule makers usually select home games from the conference with the additional home game that year. Every NFL franchise is required to play at least one International Series game every eight years.
Playoffs
At the end of the Regular Season, seven teams from each conference progress to the postseason. In each conference, the teams are seeded as follows:
- No. 1 – Divisional winner with the best win/loss record. The No.1 seed earns a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the conference playoffs.
- No. 2 – Divisional winner with the second-best win/loss record.
- No. 3 – Divisional winner with the third-best win/loss record.
- No. 4 – Divisional winner with the fourth-best win/loss record.
- No. 5 – The team with the best win/loss record outside of the four divisional winners.
- No. 6 – The team with the second-best win/loss record outside of the four divisional winners
- No. 7 – The team with the third-best win/loss record outside of the four divisional winners
With the seedings determined, the playoff rounds in each conference proceed as follows:
Wild Card Round
- No. 1 seed receives a bye
- No. 2 seed vs No. 7 seed
- No. 3 seed vs No. 6 seed
- No. 4 seed vs No. 5 seed
Divisional Round
- No. 1 seed hosts the lowest remaining seed
- The other two winners from the Wild Card Round play each other, with the highest seed having home advantage.
Conference Championships
- The two winners from the Divisional Round meet, with the highest remaining seed playing at home.
Super Bowl
The winners of the AFC and NFC conference games face off in the biggest game in sports. The Super Bowl location is chosen years in advance, meaning the game is almost always played at a neutral venue.
To play at home, a team must have its stadium selected to host the Super Bowl in a specific season and then make it through the playoffs in that season. As of 2025, this has only happened twice, amazingly in consecutive Super Bowls. In 2020, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers hosted the Kansas City Chiefs at Raymond James Stadium. One year later, the LA Rams welcomed the Cincinnati Bengals to the SoFi Stadium. The home team won on both occasions, with the Buccaneers winning the Super Bowl in 2020 and the Rams coming out on top in 2021.