2025-2026 NFL Playoff Bracket – Early NFL Playoff Picture During Week 7

The 2025-26 NFL regular season kicked off on Thursday, September 4, 2025. The regular season will conclude after all Week 18 games are played on January 4, 2026. The 2026 NFL playoffs are scheduled to begin January 10 with Super Wildcard Weekend. The 2026 Super Bowl will be played Sunday, February 8, 2026.

The image above – which will be updated after each game of the 2025-26 regular season – displays the NFL playoff bracket after SNF of Week 7. In order to fill this bracket out, I am leaning on a ton of tie-breaking procedures. This will be the case for the first couple/few weeks of the season.

You’ll find much more NFL playoff information on this page, including playoff schedule, teams who clinched a playoff berth / have been eliminated from playoff contention, playoff clinching scenarios, and remaining schedules. You can jump to a specific section using the links below:

NFL Playoff Picture | NFL Playoff Dates & Schedule | Clinched Playoffs | Clinching Scenarios | Remaining Schedules | Eliminated | NFL Playoff FAQs

NFL Playoff Picture

The top seven teams from the AFC will make the playoffs. The 2025-26 AFC playoff picture looks a lot different than last year, but it’s still very early. The Colts currently hold the #1 seed after moving to 6-1 with their win over the Chargers in Week 7. The Patriots sit behind the Colts in the #2 seed.

The Ravens and Chiefs are the most notable teams missing from the playoff bracket. Baltimore dropped to 1-5 following their loss to the Rams in Week 6, and are enjoying their bye in Week 7, but desperately need Lamar Jackson healthy. Even with the win over the Raiders, the Chiefs remain out of the playoff picture, thanks to their head-to-head loss to the Jaguars, sitting at 4-3.

Be sure to bookmark this page and keep checking in with Sports Betting Dime for the latest NFL Playoff picture.

The top seven seeds in the NFC will make the playoffs. The early look at the playoff bracket in the NFC has the Buccaneers on top. Tampa Bay holds a 5-1 record but has yet to play in Week 7 – they will see the Lions on MNF.

Three teams from the NFC West sit in playoff positions, with the 49ers leading the division and holding the #3 seed, while the Rams and Seahawks are in the first two wild card spots.

NFL Playoff Dates & Schedule for Divisional Round

We typically see the first day of Wild Card Weekend (Saturday) see games played at 4:30pm ET and 8pm ET. Then we see a traditional set of kickoff times for the Sunday, starting at 1pm ET, with the second game at 4:30pm ET, and the final one at 8:15pm ET. Then the Monday has normally been an 8pm ET kickoff. None of these times are confirmed yet by the NFL, but that’s what we have seen in the past.

The 2025-26 NFL Playoffs will be the fifth year to feature “Super Wild Card Weekend,” where there will only be two games played on the Saturday so there’s a game to be played on Monday night of Wild Card Weekend. It will be the sixth year of the “new” playoff format that sees seven teams get in from each conference and only the top seed from each conference receiving a bye.

The 2026 Super Bowl will likely kick off at 6:30pm ET on Sunday, February 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

Teams Who Have Clinched a Playoff Spot

The order the teams will be listed in above is not indicative of their playoff seeding, rather the order they clinched playoff berths in. But we’re not even through Week 1 yet, so no teams have clinched a playoff spot.

We’ll likely be waiting a bit, as no team clinched a playoff berth until Week 13 last season, and it took until Week 14 for the first team to clinch the previous season.

NFL Playoff Clinching Scenarios

We are not even close to any playoff-clinching scenarios. Once we get to Week 14 (or so), I will start to fill this section out.

Remaining Schedules for Teams in Playoff Hunt

Similar to the section above, I will start to fill this out once we see some clinching scenarios.

Teams Eliminated from Playoff Contention

We are a long way from any teams being mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. No teams were eliminated until Week 13 in each of the last three seasons.

How Many Teams Make the NFL Playoffs?

Starting in the 2020 NFL season (2021 NFL Playoffs), seven teams from each conference get into the NFL playoffs. This makes a total of 14 teams in the playoffs.

Prior to this, only six teams from each conference made the playoffs, and 12 total. The format change starting in the 2020-21 NFL season was made to add two more teams to the postseason, one in each conference.

How Many Teams Get a First-Round Bye in the NFL Playoffs?

The change to the NFL playoff format ahead of the 2020-21 NFL season also saw an adjustment to the number of teams who get a first-round bye. With seven teams from each conference making the playoffs, only one team—the top seed—from each conference gets a bye through the wildcard round.

Prior to the change, the top two seeds in each conference would get a bye through the wildcard round. With only one team from each conference getting a first-round bye, the NFL added another wildcard game to each conference, totaling six wildcard games now instead of four.

How Do the NFL Playoffs Work?

As mentioned above, seven teams from each conference (the AFC and NFC) make the NFL playoffs. Each team who makes the playoffs is seeded from 1-7 in their respective conference. The two conferences do not mix or meet until the Super Bowl.

The top four seeds in each conference are given to the teams who win their division. These four division winners are ordered 1-4 based on their records. The final three spots—seeds 5 to 7—in each conference are called “wildcard spots”. These are given to the three non-division winners who have the best records in their conference.

The NFL playoffs begin with the Wildcard Round. The top seed in each conference gets a bye through this round, leaving three games to be played in each conference. The matchups are as follows: 7-seed vs 2-seed, 6-seed vs 3-seed, and 5-seed vs 4-seed.

The NFL playoffs are not a traditional bracket, where teams move through to a fixed spot. The second round of the NFL playoffs is called the Divisional Round. The 1-seed in each conference, who was given a bye through the Wildcard Round, will get matched up with the worst remaining team in their respective conference. If the 7-seed were to upset the 2-seed, they would have to play the 1-seed in the Divisional Round. After setting the best-vs-worst matchup, the remaining two teams in each conference (second-best and second-worst seeds remaining) will battle it out in the other Divisional Round matchup.

After the Divisional Round comes the Conference Championships, where there are only two teams remaining in each conference. These two teams will play for the right to go to the Super Bowl and play the conference champion from the other side.

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