National Football League - Galleries

Since 2002, The NFL season features the following schedule:

* a 4-game exhibition season (or preseason) running from early August to early September;
* a 16-game, 17-week regular season running from September to December or early January; and
* a 12-team Single-elimination playoff beginning in January, culminating in the Super Bowl in early February.

Traditionally, American high school football games are played on Friday, American college football games are played on Saturday, and most NFL games are played on Sunday. Because the NFL season is longer than the college football season, the NFL schedules Saturday games and Saturday playoff games outside the college football season. The ABC Television network added Monday Night Football in 1970, and Thursday night NFL games were added in the 1980s.

Exhibition season
Following mini-camps in the spring and officially recognized training camp in July–August, NFL teams typically play four exhibition games from early August through early September. Each team hosts two games of the four. The exhibition season begins with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, so those two teams play five exhibition games each. Historically, the American Bowl(s) were played prior to the NFL scheduling regular season games abroad and those teams faced this similar predicament.

The games are useful for new players who are not used to playing in front of very large crowds. Management often uses the games to evaluate newly signed players. Veteran starters will generally play only for about a quarter of each game to minimize the risk of injury. Several lawsuits have been brought by fans, against the policy of including exhibition games in season-ticket packages at regular season prices, but none have so far been very successful.

Regular season
Following the preseason, each of the thirty-two teams embark on a seventeen-week, sixteen-game schedule, with the extra week consisting of a bye to allow teams a rest sometime in the middle of the season (and also to increase television coverage). The regular season currently begins the Thursday evening after Labor Day with a primetime "Kickoff Game" (NBC currently holds broadcast rights for that game). According to the current scheduling structure, the earliest the season could begin is September 4 (as it was in the 2008 season), while the latest would be September 10 (as it was in the 2009 season, due to September 1 falling on a Tuesday). Each of the thirty-two teams' schedules are organized in the following way:

* Each team plays the other three teams in their division twice: once at home, and once on the road (six games).
* Each team plays the four teams from another division within its own conference once on a rotating three-year cycle: two at home, and two on the road (four games).
* Each team plays the four teams from a division in the other conference once on a rotating four-year cycle: two at home, and two on the road (four games).
* Each team plays once against the other teams in its conference that finished in the same place in their own divisions as themselves the previous season, not counting the division they were already scheduled to play: one at home, one on the road (two games).

Playoffs
The season concludes with a twelve-team tournament used to determine the teams to play in the Super Bowl. The tournament brackets are made up of six teams from each of the league's two conferences, the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC), following the end of the 16-game regular season:

* The four division champions from each conference (the team in each division with the best regular season won-lost-tied record), which are seeded one through four based on their regular season won-lost-tied record (tie-breaker rules may apply).
* Two wild card qualifiers from each conference (those non-division champions with the conference's best record, i.e. the best won-lost-tied percentages, with a series of tie-breaking rules in place in the event that there are teams with the same number of wins and losses[4]), which are seeded five and six.

In each conference, the #3 and #6 seeded teams, and the #4 and #5 seeds, face each other during the first round of the playoffs, dubbed the Wild Card Playoffs (the league in recent years has also used the term Wild Card Weekend). The #1 and #2 seeds from each conference receive a bye in the first round, which entitles these teams to automatically advance to the second round, the Divisional Playoff games, to face the winning teams from the first round. In round two, the highest surviving seed (#1) always plays the lowest surviving seed in their conference. And in any given playoff game, whoever has the higher seed gets the home field advantage (i.e. the game is held at the higher seed's home field).

The two surviving teams from the Divisional Playoff games meet in Conference Championship games, with the winners of those contests going on to face one another in the Super Bowl in a game located at a neutral venue that is either indoors or in a warm-weather locale. The designated "home team" alternates year to year between the conferences. In Super Bowl XLIV, the AFC Champion was the "home" team.

Pro Bowl

The Pro Bowl, the league's all-star game, has been traditionally held on the weekend after the Super Bowl. The game was played at various venues before being held at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii for 30 consecutive seasons from 1980 to 2009.

However, the 2010 Pro Bowl was played at Sun Life Stadium, the home stadium of the Miami Dolphins and host site of Super Bowl XLIV, on January 31, the first time ever that the Pro Bowl was played before the championship game. The 2011 and 2012 games will return to Honolulu.

Calendar
Though the NFL only plays in the late summer, fall, and early winter, the extended offseason often is an event in itself, with the draft, free agency signings, and the announcement of schedules keeping the NFL in the spotlight even during the spring, when virtually no on-field activity is taking place. A typical calendar of league events is as follows, with the dates listed being those for the 2010 NFL season:

* February 22 – Pro Football Hall of Fame Game opponents announced.
* February 24–March 2—NFL Scouting Combine: Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, Ind.
* February 25—Deadline for Clubs to designate Franchise and Transition players.
* March 5—Veteran Free Agency signing period begins. Trading period begins.
* March 21–24—NFL Annual Meeting: Dana Point, Calif. Usually accompanied by announcement of scheduling and opponents for first game and opening-weekend night games.
* Early April: Teams begin voluntary workouts.
* April 20: 2010 schedule announced.
* April 22–24 – NFL Draft: New York City.
* May 24–26—NFL Spring Meeting: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
* June 27 – June 30—NFL Rookie Symposium, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
* Mid-July (varies by team)-- Training camps open.
* August 7 – Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, Canton, Ohio, including Hall of Fame Game.
* August 12–16—First full Preseason weekend.
* August 31—Roster cutdown from 80 to maximum of 75 players.
* September 4—Roster cutdown from 75 to maximum of 53 players.
* September 9–13 – Kickoff 2010 Weekend (Week 1 of regular season)
* October 31 – International Series game (Wembley Stadium, London).
* November – Pro Bowl balloting, flexible scheduling for Sunday Night Football and the NFL Network's night game package all begin.
* November 25 – Thanksgiving games.
* January 2, 2011—End of regular season.
* January 8, 2011 – Playoffs begin.
* January 23 – AFC Championship Game and NFC Championship Game.
* January 30 – Pro Bowl.
* February 6 – Super Bowl.