2021–22 NFL playoffs
playoff tournament for the 2021 NFL season
The National Football League playoffs for the 2021 season was the first time that the league featured a 17-game regular season schedule, and consequently the start of the playoffs was pushed a week later to January 15, 2022. The postseason concluded with Super Bowl LVI on February 13 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, with the NFC's fourth seed, the Los Angeles Rams, defeating the AFC's fourth seed, the Cincinnati Bengals. Cincinnati won their first playoff game since 1990 by defeating the Las Vegas Raiders.
This was the first postseason since 2010–11 where neither of the first-seeded teams made it to their respective championships, and it was also the first postseason since 2009–10 in which neither the Green Bay Packers nor New England Patriots reached a conference championship game. This was also the first postseason since 2012–13 to have a Super Bowl to not have the New England Patriots, Denver Broncos, or Kansas City Chiefs representing the AFC. For the first time in history, both teams competing in the Super Bowl finished below the second seed.
Of the 13 games played in the playoffs, nine were decided by seven or fewer points. For the final seven postseason games, six were decided by three points. Five of those six were decided with game-winning field goals. The only game that was not decided by three points was the divisional round game between the Bills and Chiefs, which was decided with a game-winning touchdown in overtime.
Participants
Within each conference, the four division winners and the top three non-division winners with the best overall regular season records qualified for the playoffs.
“2021–22 NFL playoffs” enters the record as playoff tournament for the 2021 NFL season. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what playoffs, playoff and tournament can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“2021–22 NFL playoffs” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, playoffs, playoff and tournament provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q110281135. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2021, 2022, 1990 and 2010.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “2021–22 NFL playoffs”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 2021–22 NFL playoffs primary sources, 2021–22 NFL playoffs archive and playoffs research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2021–22 NFL playoffs”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “2021–22 NFL playoffs” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.