by Gary Xander
So the ‘Post-season’ is (funnily enough) the bit that happens after the main season is over. Essentially, the NFL is like series of leagues (called divisions) between September and December, then it turns into a ‘Champions League’ style knock out competition. It’s all very exciting.
So, as mentioned in a previous post, you don’t get ‘points for a win’ in the NFL, you just rack up wins and losses (and occasionally draws). At the end of a season, in December, the 4 teams that won the 4 NFC divisions go through to the ‘Playoffs’ or ‘Post-season’. The next best two teams in the NFC, who didn’t win their division join them – making a group of 6 NFC teams.
The same happens in the AFC – so there are 6 teams from each conference that go through to the Playoffs.
These 6 teams are then ranked according to their win/loss ratios, and given a seeing number (between 1 and 6)
Importantly, teams from the AFC never play teams from the NFC during the playoffs, until the final game – the Super Bowl!
See below for this year’s seedings:
WIldcard weekend
Seeds 1 & 2 from each conference get a bye through the first knockout round of the playoffs – called ‘Wildcard Weekend. In this round Seed 3 will play Seed 6 (with Seed 3 at home), and Seed 4 will play Seed 5 (with Seed 4 at home).
Divisional games
The winners of each Wildcard game will go through to the second knock out round where they will face the teams who were seeded 1 and 2. To make it more difficult the top seeds always play at home!
conference game
The winners of the two divisional games go through to the next round where they play each other to be crowned Conference champions! They will be the NFC Champions, or the AFC Champions for ever more! Well, until someone else wins it next season.
super bowl
As you can probably guess, the winners of the NFC will face the winners of the AFC in the biggest sporting event of the year. It is always played at a neutral venue, decided in advance.
