BuddyLee said:
With the NFC East in a tight race a question arose in my spiked head. Is it already determined who the NFC East victor will play in the playoff's? How is this determined if not? For example, say the Skins win in the NFC East, if they were to play the slumping winner of the NFC North I think we'd have a great shot! Someone, please explain whether this is already determined or not.
Short answer is "No"... Here is the result of a quick google....
How do the NFL playoffs work?
The NFL playoffs are inaccurately a bracket system. The reason why is that brackets cannot be predicted ahead of time. We’ll see why. With the first two games of the playoffs completed, there are some scratching their head determining if this teams wins, then that team will play this other team on the road. If not then this other team will play that other team at home. How confusing.
It’s actually pretty simple, just hard to explain.
In the NFL, there are four divisions (North, South, East and West) in each of two conferences (AFC and NFC). The champions of each division gets an automatic playoff bid. Usually champions are determined by record, but sometimes, in the case of tie records, much more complex routines of tie breaking occurs. In addition to the 8 division champions, each conferece gets 2 wildcard teams which are the two top
non-division champion teams.
Now the playoff matchups themselves are based on seedings. The top seed in every matchup gets home field advantage which is why the number one seed in each conference gets home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
The top 4 (of 6) seeds are the division champions and are ordered based on record first, and then a series of tie breakers. The two wildcards in each conference become the 5 and 6 seeds.
So this year, the AFC has these playoff teams: Pittsburgh (#1), New England (#2), Indianapolis (#3), San Diego (#4), New York Jets (#5), and Denver (#6). In the NFC, we have: Philadelphia (#1), Atlanta (#2), Green Bay (#3), Seattle (#4), St. Louis (#5) and Minnesota (#6).
Now in week 1 of the playoffs - also known as Wild Card Weekend - the top two seeds in each conference get the week off, or a first round BYE. That means that Philadelphia, Atlanta, New England and Pittsburgh can sit home and watch, and maybe get a little rusty. The matchups ALWAYS work that the HIGHEST seeded team matches up against the LOWEST seeded team and the middle two play each other. With #3, #4, #5 and #6 playing so theres some sort of predictability about who’s playing. Thus, this weekend, round 1, wildcard weekend we have:
- Denver (#6) @ Indianapolis (#3)
- New York (#5) @ San Diego (#4)
And in the NFC:
- Minnesota (#6) @ Green Bay (#3)
- St. Louis (#5) @ Seattle (#4)
Following through with the same theory of highest seed always plays lowest seed, etc, that is how we determine who is going to matchup against the #1 and #2 seeds in Round 2 - Divisional Weekend.
Therefore, if Denver wins (#6) this weekend, they will automatically play Pittsburgh (#1). If Denver loses but the Jets win (#5), then the Jets play Pittsburgh (#1). And so on. Lowest seed always playes highest seed, and the higher seed always gets home field advantage.
http://www.technosailor.com/how-do-the-nfl-playoffs-work
