The NFL is the most popular professional sporting league in the US, followed by the NBA, then the MLB, and lastly the NHL. It consists of 32 teams located in cities across the country who compete for the ultimate goal of winning the Super Bowl, and the eternal glory that comes with that. Each season begins the week after Labor Day and concludes on the first Sunday in February, known as Super Bowl Sunday. The aim of this article is to briefly explain to new fans how the NFL works. We will cover, the schedule, the format of the league, and how the playoffs work.
The Schedule
The NFL regular season is 17 weeks long. Each team plays 1 game per week and plays a total of 16 games. Each team receives one "bye" week, which is essentially their week off. Games are primarily played on Sunday afternoons, although each week there is one Thursday night game and one Monday night game. The lone exception is Thanksgiving, where fans are treated to 3 Thursday games.
We will come back to the schedule but before that it's important to explain the structure of the league.
Conferences and Divisions
The 32 teams are split into 2 conferences, the AFC (American Football Conference), and the NFC (the National Football Conference), each of which has 16 teams. Each conference is then split geographically into 4 divisions of 4 teams each: East, North, South, West. For example, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play in the NFC South (NFC Conference, South division).
Back to the Schedule
Ok so 16 games right? Each team will play their other three division members twice, i.e. six of the games. And you play those six games every year. Of the remaining 10 games, six of these come from other teams in your conference and four of these come from one of the divisions from the other conference.
To better illustrate, let's again use Tampa as an example. We will use their 2018 schedule. The Bucs played each of their division opponents twice: the Atlanta Falcons, the Carolina Panthers, and the New Orleans Saints. The Bucs also played 6 more teams from the NFC: the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Giants, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Washington Redskins, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Chicago Bears. They also played teams from the AFC North (the AFC division will rotate every year): the Cleveland Browns, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Baltimore Ravens, and the Cincinatti Bengals.
Each team gets 8 home games and 8 road games. Unless there are extreme circumstances (hurricane, crazy lightning storm or other natural disaster), these games are played despite the elements. I.e. games in the snow, games in monsoons, games in extreme heat, etc. Although some teams play in air conditioned domes or stadiums with retractable roofs.
Playoffs
Of the 32 teams, only 12 make the playoffs, so you need to be roughly in the top third of the league to qualify. The first 8 spots go to the winners of each division. The last 4 spots are "Wild Cards" that go to the 2 teams from each conference with the best records who were not division winners. The best 2 teams from each conference receive a first round bye, while the 3rd and 4th best team host the wild card teams in each conference. This is known as "Wild Card Weekend". The winners from Wild Card Weekend advance to the divisional round (8 teams remaining), where those top 2 teams who get byes host last week's winners. The winners of those games advance to the AFC and NFC Championship games, whose winners then meet for the Super Bowl. The higher seed always has home field advantage with the exception of the Super Bowl, which is played at a neutral location.
Again, let's use 2018 as an example that should help clarify.
AFC
1. Kansas City Chiefs; 12-4; AFC West Champions
2. New England Patriots; 11-5; AFC East Champions
3. Houston Texans; 11-5; AFC North Champions
4. Baltimore Ravens; 10-6; AFC North Champions
5. Los Angeles Chargers; 12-4; 1st AFC Wild Card
6. Indianapolis Colts; 10-6; 2nd AFC Wild Card
In this scenario, Kansas City and New England are already in the divisional round because they finished as the 2 best division champions in the AFC. #3 Houston would host #6 Indianapolis and #4 Baltimore would host #5 Los Angeles. After those games are played, Kansas City gets to host the lowest ranked (as in highest number seed) remaining team, and New England hosts the other. In this case because both Wild Card teams won, Kansas City hosted Indianapolis and New England hosted Los Angeles. Kansas City and New England each won their games, so they met in Kansas City for the AFC Championship, which was won by New England who then reached the Super Bowl.
A couple quick things to note. Los Angeles has a 5 seed despite having the 2nd best record? This is because they did not win their division, they are in the AFC West with Kansas City. Secondly, there are tie breakers for teams with identical records. For example, New England and Houston are both 11-5. The reason New England gets the 2 and Houston gets the 3 is because New England beat Houston in the regular season.
So applying this same logic to the NFC we get:
1. New Orleans Saints; 13-3; NFC South Champions
2. Los Angeles Rams; 13-3; NFC West Champions
3. Chicago Bears; 12-4; NFC North Champions
4. Dallas Cowboys; 10-6; NFC East Champions
5. Seattle Seahawks; 10-6; 1st NFC Wild Card
6. Philadelphia Eagles; 9-7; 2nd NFC Wild Card
I will zoom ahead and tell you that the Rams ultimately won the NFC bracket. The Super Bowl was then played in Atlanta where the Patriots defeated the Rams.
The NFL Draft
After the conclusion of the season, the next marquee event is the NFL Draft, which occurs at the end of April. This is where NFL teams get to select from the best college football players to come join their teams. To keep the league fair, the worst team gets to pick first, followed by the 2nd worst team, and ending with the champs. So for this coming April, the worst team was the Arizona Cardinals, who finished 3-13. They can pick the best player from the entire crop. The next worst team was the San Francisco 49ers, who finished 4-12. Thus they can select anyone except the player whom Arizona selects. From there the New York Jets (also 4-12) can select anyone except who the Cardinals and 49ers have selected, and so on. The 32nd pick would belong to the Patriots, because they won the Super Bowl, they go last.
This draft is 7 rounds and the order stays the same each round, except for when picks have been traded. So for example Arizona would also have the 33rd overall pick (the 1st pick of round 2) and the 65th overall pick (the 1st pick of round 3), and so on. It's an exciting event where the bad teams have reasons for optimism and the good teams try to fill necessary pieces to remain on top.
In Conclusion
So that's a basic overview. We won't go over some of the other nuances here like Free Agency, contracts, or the Combine. To summarize: 32 teams want to win the Super Bowl, 12 make the playoffs, 1 wins it. The 1 then tries to protect it the following season, the teams that were close try to figure out how to win it, the bad teams rebuild through the draft and work towards their future.
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