NFL owners approve expanded 14-team playoffs for 2020 season

It is now official. The NFL will have more playoff teams and more playoff games starting with the 2020 season, whenever that gets played.

On Tuesday, the NFL owners held a vote to decide whether to adopt the provision, which was negotiated in the new collective bargaining agreement, for the upcoming season. It should come as no surprise that the vote has passed the three-fourths majority required, as the league will get additional television and ticket revenue from these two extra games.

The move now puts into effect a seven-team playoff field in each conference, meaning that 14 teams in total will advance to the postseason. One way this will impact the playoff seeding is to eliminate a first-round bye for the second-seeded team in each conference; those teams were the Green Bay Packers (NFC) and Kansas City Chiefs (AFC) in 2019. The second seeds will now host a third Wild Card team, the seventh seed, in the Wild Card round.

Division winners will still host all of the Wild Card games, however, with 2 v. 7, 3 v. 6, and 4 v. 5 matchups taking place on that first weekend. The seeding will continue to reset as it has in past years, with the worst remaining seed traveling to play the one seed in the Divisional round and the two other winners playing one another.

The two added games will be carried on NBC and CBS, with NBC likely getting the NFC game and CBS carrying the AFC contest. Three of the Wild Card games will take place on Saturday, with the other three scheduled for Sunday of the same weekend.

Ian Rapoport of NFL Network was the first to report the successful vote.