The NFL decided to expand the playoff field from 12 to 14 teams allowing for one more AFC team and one more NFC team to participate in the post season. This expansion came 30 years after the NFL increased the number of NFL playoff teams from 10 to 12 back in 1990 that allowed for three division champions and three wild-card teams from each conference.
The change in the league’s playoff format has had a different impact both positive and negative. Specifically the number of teams changes how the NFL playoff bracket plays out.
Blank NFL playoff bracket
With the change from twelve to fourteen teams, the number of division winners doesn’t change (four from each conference), but it’s two additional wild-card teams added to the playoff format. With fourteen teams, it’s not a balanced bracket where each team plays the same amount of games to reach the championship round. In this new configuration, the top team in the NFC and AFC would earn a first-round bye.
The blank single-elimination 14-team NFL bracket gives you a template that allows you to print out the NFL playoff bracket before any of the teams are set and fill it out after the final week of the regular season ends. At that point, the teams are seeded in each conference and can be populated into our empty bracket above. Our fillable NFL bracket isn’t limited to any one season but can be used in perpetuity as long as the post season format calls for fourteen playoff teams.
Printable NFL bracket templates
If this is your first time here then you might not be aware that Interbasket creates all types of brackets for every sporting tournament, event and occasion. From March Madness to the Stanley Cup to the NBA Playoffs. We’ve done the same for the National Football League playoffs over the last several years. Even with the new 14-team playoff format bracket that includes two first round byes – we have that for you to edit, fill, customize to your fangirl’s and fanboy’s heart content.
Bookmark and come back to this dedicated NFL playoff bracket page every year because you’ll always have free options to download and print out a standard, non-specific 14-game bracket that you can easily reference after any NFL regular season. Our bracket are double-sided so it better aligns with the two NFL conferences. This is much-preferred over those brackets that are all on one side.
Even as the NFL continues to change their playoff format, we’re here to provide you printable blank 14-team brackets no matter how teams in the field. And we offer the above NFL bracket in the popular PDF format as well as this PDF version that gives you a little more space to write in teams and fill out bracket information. There’s this bracket with the NFL Playoff logos in PDF you can print here. Here’s the template in Microsoft Word docx. and the blank NFL bracket in the image file that you can upload and change up all for free.
