Football season breakdown
The preseason
The preseason is a time for players, coaches, and fans to get a feel for the way the team works together against another team. After every season, teams draft new players and trade with other teams for current players. The preseason is also a time to choose starters for the regular season.
- When: early August to early September
- What: 4 games
Regular season
The regular season is where the fun really begins. This is where teams start playing to qualify for the playoff.
- When: early September to early January
- What:
- 6 games against the teams in their division (each team is played twice)
- 4 games against teams in their conference
- 4 games against teams in the other conference
- 2 games against teams in their conference that have the same record
- 1 bye week
- Each team plays 16 games in total
The table below breaks down the regular season schedule.
Playoffs
Out of the 32 teams in the league, only 12 can participate in the playoffs. So, how are the other 20 teams eliminated? To start, the top team from each division in each conference are automatically given seeds in the playoffs. So each conference will have 4 teams to win spots.
Now here comes the complicated part. I scoured several sites and asked several guys about the highly coveted wild cards spots and here is the watered down version. Each conference is given 2 wild cards for a total of 4 for the franchise. Excluding the top teams from each division, the top teams are given wild cards. Or you could look at it like the top 6 teams are given spots in the playoffs – seed 1 through 4 teams won their division and the two wild cards have to place 5th and 6th to get wild cards
Got it? Sounds simple? Well, it’s not all that simple at times. The harder part of this equation includes win-lose-tie percentages and other magic to calculate the wild card teams. Since I’m not a math type of girl and I’ve been told it’s not necessary to understand for the average fan. If you want to read more go here.
Once each team is in place, each team is placed in a bracket:
Each team battles it out on the field and the winner of that game goes on to play another team. There are a total of 10 playoff games to determine the division champions. The division champions then go on to the Super Bowl to determine the best team in the NFL for the year.
Super Bowl
Now to my favorite part of the season — and the simplest. The winners from the AFC and the NFC compete for the title of best in the NFL at the end of the football season.