Ever wondered why your favorite football team never seems to play the same opponents every single year? Well the NFL and all its glory have actually made the scheduling some-what fair in the world of sports.
Though "rivalry games" are up in the air each year (all depends on $$ and ratings) some of the other aspects are up front and concrete for each football season.
Regular Season
- Each team plays home and away against its three division opponents, which accounts for six games on the schedule.
- Each team plays four teams from another division within its conference on a rotating three-year cycle, which accounts for four more games.
- Each team plays four teams from a division in the other conference on a rotating four-year cycle, which accounts for another four games.Each team plays two intra-conference games based on the prior year's standings. For example, the first-place team in a division will play against the first-place team from another division within the same conference. The second place team in a division will play against the second-place team from another division within the same conference, etc...
Playoffs
- The season concludes with a 12-team tournament used to determine the teams to play in the Super Bowl.
- The tournament brackets are made up of six teams from each of the league's two conferences, the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC), following the end of the 16-game regular season.
- Each of the 4 division winners is seeded 1–4 based on their W-L-T records (Win-Loss-Tie).
- The two Wild Card teams (labeled Wild Card 1 and 2) are seeded 5th and 6th (with the better of the two having seed 5) regardless of their records compared to the 4 division winners.
