The 2026 NFL season is underway and tracking the playoff picture is already a focus as teams pursue the road to Super Bowl LXI. The expanded postseason field will include 14 teams, with the league’s title game set for Feb. 14 in Los Angeles.
Projections in this look ahead rely on ESPN’s Football Power Index to estimate how the remainder of the season might play out. According to ESPN’s FPI, the model projects the rest of the schedule and lays out seed projections for both conferences as the league heads toward January postseason play.
ESPN’s FPI also provides updated odds for every team to make the postseason, to clinch its division and to reach the Super Bowl in February. Those probabilities are included alongside the seed projections to give a probabilistic view of each team’s path into the 14-team playoff field, according to ESPN.
In addition to season-long projections, ESPN’s FPI offers game-by-game forecasts for the upcoming slate and quantifies how a single win or loss would alter a team’s playoff chances independent of other results. That approach is intended to show the immediate stakes for each matchup and how individual outcomes could shift the postseason landscape, according to ESPN.
The projections are presented with separate looks at the AFC and NFC picture as teams jockey for division titles and wild-card berths. Key postseason dates are set: the wild-card round is scheduled for Jan. 16-18, 2027, the divisional round for Jan. 23-24, the conference championship games on Jan. 31 and Super Bowl LXI on Feb. 14 in Los Angeles.
