NFL teams approve postseason expansion, 2 more Wild Card games
Mar 31, 2020, 11:15 AM | Updated: 12:01 pm
(AP Photo/Rick Osentoski, File)
The NFL teams on Tuesday approved to expand the postseason to seven teams per conference and Wild Card weekend to three games per conference.
This was initially proposed in the collective bargaining agreement passed by the league and NFL Players Association on March 15.
One additional Wild Card team will make the playoffs in each conference beginning in the upcoming season, which will increase the total number of participating teams to seven per conference.
As a result, the No. 2 seed in each conference will no longer get a bye week for the first round of the playoffs. Now, only the team with the best record in each conference will sit the first week of the playoffs.
That No. 2 seed will play the No. 7 seed in the first round. The No. 3 seed will play No. 6 and Nos. 4 and 6 will face off.
This is the first expansion of the playoffs since 1990, when the NFL went from 10 to 12 postseason entrants.
Wild Card Weekend is scheduled to play three games on Saturday, Jan. 9 and three on Sunday, Jan. 10, presuming the season schedule does not change due to precautions involving the coronavirus.
One game will be aired by CBS and one by NBC. The CBS game will be simulcast on Nickelodeon, according to CBS writer Jeff Kerr.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.