NFL Playoffs 2026-27 and Super Bowl LXI: Format and Dates

Fourteen teams make the NFL playoffs, seven from each conference. Wild Card weekend is 16–18 January 2027, the Divisional round 23–24 January and both Conference Championships on Sunday 31 January. Super Bowl LXI is on Sunday 14 February 2027 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and is scheduled to kick off at 6:30 PM Eastern time.

Every playoff game is a single knockout game. The two Conference Championship winners — one from the AFC, one from the NFC — meet in the Super Bowl.

In each conference the four division winners take seeds 1 to 4, ordered by their records, and the three best remaining teams take seeds 5 to 7 as wild cards. A division winner hosts its Wild Card game even when a wild card has a better record. This 14-team format has been used since the 2020 season.

Only the No. 1 seed in each conference skips Wild Card weekend. The other six play 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5, with the higher seed at home.

The NFL does not use a fixed bracket. After Wild Card weekend the No. 1 seed hosts the lowest seed still alive, and the other two survivors meet at the higher seed's stadium. The Conference Championship is again hosted by the higher seed, so the top seed keeps home field for as long as it keeps winning.

A playoff game cannot end in a tie. In overtime both teams get at least one possession, even if the first team scores a touchdown; from the third overtime period on, the next score wins.

SoFi Stadium, home of the Rams and the Chargers, hosts the game. In the United States ABC has the English-language broadcast, with alternate telecasts on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and NFL Network, streaming on Disney+, the ESPN app and NFL+, and Spanish-language coverage on Univision and ESPN Deportes.

6:30 PM Eastern on Sunday 14 February is 3:30 PM on the West Coast, 23:30 in the UK and 00:30 on Monday 15 February in Central Europe. The MatchCountdown page for the game shows the kick-off in your own time zone and counts down to it.