After 272 games of an entertaining regular season, only 14 teams out of 32 remain on the hunt for the Lombardi Trophy.

The NFL postseason gets underway this Saturday with Wild Card weekend, featuring six matches across three days as 14 teams begin their pursuit of the Lombardi Trophy. For the first time in over a decade,

The NFL playoffs are one week away and most of the field is set entering Week 18. Here's what to know about the postseason format and bracket.

Here's everything you need to know about the NFL postseason format: Fourteen teams will make the NFL playoffs — seven from both the NFC and AFC. This is an increase over the previous format, which had 12 teams. This is broken out with four division winners in each conference as well as three wild-card teams.

With the win, the Steelers clinched the AFC North, and they'll now host the Texans in the wild-card round. The AFC North was one of four divisions got clinched during a wild Week 18, and that included a wild NFC South race that ended in the most unlikely way possible.

The Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks locked up the top spots in their divisions and will watch 12 other teams battle it out in Wild Card weekend.

Denver will get the first-round bye while New England and Jacksonville play on Wild Card Weekend — and neither has an easy matchup. Chargers vs. Patriots will feature two of the NFL’s best young quarterbacks with Drake Maye and Justin Herbert facing off. The Jaguars drew the shortest straw and will have to host Josh Allen.

The 2026 NFL Wild Card Weekend schedule was released on Sunday night, and one scheduling decision stood out as a surprise. The first-round matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears was scheduled for Saturday at 8 p.

What just happened? What does it mean? What are the pertinent factors (and, perhaps, tiebreakers) prominently in play as each conference's seven-team bracket begins to crystallize? All will be explained and analyzed up to the point when the postseason field is finalized Sunday,