The tournament culminates in the Super Bowl, the league's championship game, competed between teams from each conference.

Among the four major professional sports leagues in the United States, the NFL postseason is the only one to use a single-elimination tournament in all of its rounds.

[3] The names of the first two playoff rounds date back to the postseason format that was first used in 1978, when the league added a second wild-card team to each conference.

The only time such a scheduling conflict occurred was during Wild Card weekend in 1985 when only 10 teams qualified for the postseason and there were only two wild-card games.

The tie-breaking rules have changed over the years, with the most recent changes being made in 2002 to accommodate the league's realignment into eight four-team divisions; record vs. common opponents and most of the other criteria involving wins and losses were moved up higher in the tie-breaking list, while those involving compiled stats such as points for and against were moved to the bottom.

[12] Since postseason games cannot end in a tie, unlike the preseason or regular season, additional overtime periods are played as necessary until a winner is determined.

The longest NFL overtime game played to date is 82 minutes, 40 seconds: Miami Dolphins kicker Garo Yepremian made the walk-off 37-yard field goal after 7:40 of the second overtime to defeat the Kansas City Chiefs, 27–24, in an AFC playoff game on December 25, 1971.

As each team played a different number of games, simply counting wins and losses would have been insufficient.

[18][19] In 1932, the Chicago Bears (6–1–6) and the Portsmouth Spartans (6–1–4) were tied at the end of the season with identical winning percentages (.857).

The game was played under modified rules on a shortened 80-yard dirt field, and the Bears won with a final score of 9–0.

There was no tie-breaker system in place; any ties in the final standings of either conference resulted in playoff games in 1941, 1943, 1947, 1950 (2), 1952, 1957, 1958, and 1965.

In 1949 (its last year), the AAFC merged its two conferences when one of its teams folded, and used a four-team playoff system.

In 1948, the aforementioned issue of playoff inequity came into play when the San Francisco 49ers would miss the playoffs with a 12–2 record; they were in the same conference as the 14–0 Cleveland Browns, who would go on to win the Western Conference and then the AAFC's championship game against the 7–7 Buffalo Bills (AAFC).

[22] In the only year of this format, the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs were the second-place team in the Western division and played both games on the road.

[23] The Super Bowl began as an inter-league championship game between the AFL and NFL, an idea first proposed by Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt.

The first round determined the conference's champion and its representative in the NFL Championship Game, played the following week.

In 1967, the Los Angeles Rams and Baltimore Colts ended the season tied at 11–1–2 for the lead in the Coastal Division.

This event figured into the decision in 1970 to include a wild-card team in the playoff tournament after the AFL–NFL merger.

[25][26] From 1970 to 1974, the divisional playoff round rotated which of the three division champions would have home-field advantage, with the wild-card team never having it; they and their opponents they faced in the divisional playoff game do not get home field advantage in the conference championship game.

In that case, the designated divisional road team would play one of the two other division champions, depending on the probable matchups from the previous year.

Following an expansion of the regular season from 14 to 16 games in 1978, the league added one more wild-card team for each conference.

However, the league continued to prohibit intra-divisional games in the divisional playoffs but allowed such contests in the wild-card round.

As a result, this became the first time that teams with losing records qualified for the playoffs: the 4–5 Cleveland Browns and the 4–5 Detroit Lions.

In 1983 and 1988, the games were split between Saturday and Monday because Sunday was Christmas, and the NFL had avoided playing on that day at the time.

Home field advantage does not guarantee success, however; during the 2015–16 season, every road team won their respective Wild Card playoff game, the first such occurrence in NFL history.

[39] Through 2019 however, NFL owners remained adamant that every division winner should still be rewarded with a home playoff game regardless of record.

The opposition to such a move notes that an expansion of the playoffs would "water down" the field by giving access to lower-caliber teams.

[44] The 14-team playoff proposal remained tabled until December 2014, when no team in the NFC South could finish better than .500; Goodell stated that the league would vote on it at the March 2015 Owners' Meetings.

However, by February 2015, the Washington Post reported that support among team owners had eroded, and league leaders expressed reluctance to make a change until the end of the 2015 season.

[46] The league eventually revisited and implemented the 14-team playoff format in 2020, placing a third wild-card team in each conference, and only giving the top seed a bye (as explained above).