{"id":1376,"date":"2025-04-26T10:15:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T10:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1376\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T10:15:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T10:15:23","slug":"how-many-teams-get-a-bye-in-the-nfl-playoffs-bracket-format-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1376\/","title":{"rendered":"How many teams get a bye in the NFL playoffs? Bracket format explained"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;z-index:2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/77554578007-daniels-4-usatsi-25048083.jpg\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/icon-play-alt-white.svg.svg+xml\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>NFL wild-card playoff picks: Consider Eagles, Commanders and Vikings<\/p>\n<p>Lorenzo Reyes is back with his three best bets for Super Wild Card Weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/sports\/nfl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">NFL <\/a>constantly tinkers with its rules, and it&#8217;s sometimes hard to keep track of all the league&#8217;s changes.<\/p>\n<p>That said, one with which fans are familiar by now is the league&#8217;s most recent playoff format changes.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of the 2020 NFL season, the league expanded its postseason from 12 teams to 14. That change necessitated a minor format change, as two teams in each conference no longer received a first-round bye.<\/p>\n<p>The NFL is now in the fifth year of its latest postseason change. Here&#8217;s a refresher on the league&#8217;s playoff format and how many teams get bye weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"related-link\">NFL POWER RANKIGNS: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/columnist\/nate-davis\/2025\/01\/06\/nfl-playoff-power-rankings-super-bowl-title-odds-chiefs-lions\/77488703007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Which NFL playoff team is biggest Super Bowl threat?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>How many NFL teams earn a bye in the playoffs?<\/p>\n<p>Two NFL teams will have byes in the first round of the NFL playoffs. Those are awarded to the No. 1 seeds in each conference, which will be the AFC&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/kansas-city-chiefs\/339\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Kansas City Chiefs<\/a> and NFC&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/detroit-lions\/334\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Detroit Lions<\/a> for the 2025 NFL playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Under the NFL&#8217;s previous playoff format, the top two seeds in each conference got a bye in the first round of the playoffs. That was because there was no No. 7 seed in either conference.<\/p>\n<p>The NFL expanded its playoff field from 12 to 14 ahead of the 2020 NFL season, making the 2021 NFL playoffs the first time only one team had not gotten a bye week.<\/p>\n<p>No. 7 seeds have a record of just 1-7 on wild-card weekend, with the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/green-bay-packers\/335\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Green Bay Packers<\/a> being the only team to earn a win. That came during the 2024 NFL playoffs, which came following the 2023 NFL season.<\/p>\n<p>NFL playoff format<\/p>\n<p>Wild card round<\/p>\n<p>No. 1 seed has a bye.<\/p>\n<p>No. 7 seed at No. 2 seedNo. 6 seed at No. 3 seedNo. 5 seed at No. 4 seed<\/p>\n<p>Divisional round<\/p>\n<p>Lowest remaining seed at No. 1 seedSecond-lowest remaining seed at second-highest remaining seed<\/p>\n<p>Conference championship<\/p>\n<p>Divisional round winners, hosted by higher seed<\/p>\n<p>Super Bowl<\/p>\n<p>Conference championship winners<\/p>\n<p class=\"related-link\">2025 NFL MOCK DRAFT: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/draft\/2025\/01\/05\/2025-nfl-mock-draft-projections-first-round-cam-ward-titans\/77322206007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cam Ward or Shedeur Sanders at No. 1?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>NFL playoffs schedule<\/p>\n<p>The NFL playoffs kick off on Jan. 11 with the league&#8217;s wild card weekend before concluding on Feb. 9 with Super Bowl 59 in New Orleans.<\/p>\n<p>Wild card round<\/p>\n<p>All times Eastern<\/p>\n<p>Saturday, Jan. 11<\/p>\n<p>Sunday, Jan. 12<\/p>\n<p>Monday, Jan. 13<\/p>\n<p>Divisional round<\/p>\n<p>Saturday, Jan. 18<\/p>\n<p>AFC\/NFC divisional game: 4:30 p.m.AFC\/NFC division game: 8:15 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday, Jan. 19<\/p>\n<p>AFC\/NFC divisional game: 3 p.m.AFC\/NFC divisional game: 6:30 p.m.NFL conference championship round<\/p>\n<p>Sunday, Jan. 26<\/p>\n<p>NFC championship game: 3 p.m.AFC championship game: 6:30 p.m.Super Bowl 59Date: Feb. 9, 2025Location: Caesars Superdome (New Orleans)Time: 6:30 p.m.TV: FOXWhere is the Super Bowl this year?<\/p>\n<p>The Caesars Superdome, home of the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/new-orleans-saints\/350\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">New Orleans Saints<\/a>, will host Super Bowl 59. It will mark the eighth time that the Super Bowl is played in the Saints&#8217; home stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NFL wild-card playoff picks: Consider Eagles, Commanders and Vikings Lorenzo Reyes is back with his three best bets&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[247,265,825,324,12,388,864,876,7,866,379,677,679,248,826,246,88,6,84,245,264,359,818,865,817,829,9,266,819,678,776],"class_list":{"0":"post-1376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-playoffs","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-american-football-conference","11":"tag-conference","12":"tag-espn","13":"tag-espn-inc","14":"tag-exclude","15":"tag-exclude-smart-fronts","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-fronts","18":"tag-inc","19":"tag-modular","20":"tag-modular-story","21":"tag-national","22":"tag-national-football-conference","23":"tag-neutral","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-nfl","26":"tag-nfl-playoffs","27":"tag-overall","28":"tag-overall-neutral","29":"tag-playoffs","30":"tag-scores","31":"tag-smart","32":"tag-sport","33":"tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-sports-news","36":"tag-statistics","37":"tag-story","38":"tag-u0026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114403746128886048","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}