The NFL is headed into the final stretch of the 2022 regular season and it’s a tight race sorting out the field for the 2023 NFL Playoffs. The field will include 14 teams with seven in each conference. The expansion of the field from 12 to 14 teams and the season from 17 to 18 games has made for tighter races for the final wild card, and we’re seeing it again this season.
The field is filling up, but even the seeding from top-to-bottom is uncertain heading into the final weeks. The playoff bracket will take some time to sort out ahead of the run up to Super Bowl 57. Almost every seed in each conference is up for grabs, and that means we will likely see some tiebreakers come into play.
The NFL has had a goal of building greater parity, thus providing more teams a chance to reach the playoffs. We’ve seen that this year with numerous teams sitting at or near the .500 mark. Heading into Week 17, we saw six AFC and five NFC teams no more than a game above or a game below .500, and all of them had a shot at either the No. 7 seed or the No. 4 seed for the AFC and NFC South divisions. Those two divisions provide a decent chance we see one and maybe two playoff teams with a sub-.500 record. And it will likely come down to some tiebreakers.
The NFL provides a full rundown of its tiebreakers. Below we’ve got a full list of all the pertinent tiebreakers to highlight how seeding will be decided for the 2023 NFL Playoffs.
Seeding
This is how the seven playoff teams in each conference will be seed.
How to break a tie within Division
Two teams
Three teams
How to break a tie for Wild-Card teams
If the two teams are from the same division, you can apply the steps listed above. If not, here’s how it shakes out.
Two teams
Three or more teams
All of this information and other tiebreaking procedures can be found at this link.