Jan 6, 2019; Chicago, IL, USA; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles (9) throws a pass against the Chicago Bears in the first half of a NFC Wild Card playoff football game at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

How many teams make the NFL playoffs?

By Joe Smeltzer | Last updated 7/16/19

After completion of the league’s 17-week regular season, the playoffs begin.

Twelve teams — six from the American Football Conference (AFC) and six from the National Football Conference (NFC) — qualify for the playoffs. Twenty of the 32 teams are left out.

How do they decide which teams make the NFL playoffs?

The NFL playoffs are comprised of the four division champions from each conference (the AFC and NFC) and two wild-card qualifiers from each conference — teams with the best records that did not win a division. The two division champions with the best record from each conference receive a first-round bye and home-field advantage in the divisional round. They are the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds.

During the wild-card round of the playoffs, the No. 3 seed plays host to the No. 6 seed and the No. 4 seed plays host to the No. 5 seed. In the next round — the divisional round — the lowest-seeded winner from the wild-card round plays at the No. 1 seed, and the highest-seeded winner from the first round plays at the No. 2 seed.

The winners in the divisional round play the next weekend, with the highest-seeded teams hosting the conference championship games.

How long do the playoffs last?

There are three weeks of playoffs before the Super Bowl, which is typically held two weeks after the conference championship games.

Joe Smeltzer has more than a decade of journalistic experience, starting when he was a sophomore in high school with his blog, Smeltzer on Sports. Since then, he’s earned a degree in communication (with an emphasis on journalism) from Waynesburg University, where he worked on the student newspaper for all four years, eventually becoming sports web editor. Joe began contributing for Yardbarker in the summer of 2019, the same year he became a stringer for the Observer-Reporter in Washington, Pennsylvania, where he still contributes to local high school sports coverage. He is also a Penn State athletics beat reporter for Nittany Sports Now, under the Pittsburgh Sports Now umbrella. In two and a half years on the Penn State beat, Joe’s mainly covered football, wrestling and men’s basketball and covered prime events such as the 2023 Rose Bowl and 2024 U.S. Olympic wrestling trials.

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