The playoffs are the post-season matches (usually to decide a championship) in various sports leagues.
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason and/or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be either a single game, a series of games, or a tournament, and may use a single-elimination system or one of several other different playoff formats. Playoff, in regard to international fixtures, is to qualify or progress to the next round of a competition or tournament.
Playoff, play-off or playoffs may also refer to:
A one-game playoff, sometimes known as a pennant playoff, tiebreaker game or knockout game, is a tiebreaker in certain sports—usually but not always professional—to determine which of two teams, tied in the final standings, will qualify for a post-season tournament. Such a playoff is either a single game or a short series of games.
A playoff in the sport of golf is an extra hole, or holes, played when, at the completion of regulation play in a competition or tournament, there is a tie and it is desirable to determine an outright winner.
A third place playoff, match/game for third place, bronze medal game or consolation game is a single match that is included in many sporting knockout tournaments to decide which competitor or team will be credited with finishing third and fourth. The teams that compete in the third place playoff game are usually the two losing semi-finalists in a particular knockout tournament.
![]() | disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Playoff. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. | This
A draw or tie occurs in a competitive sport when the results are identical or inconclusive. Ties or draws are possible in some, but not all, sports and games. Such an outcome, sometimes referred to as deadlock, can occur in politics, business, and wherever there are different factions regarding an issue.
In a sport or game, sudden death is a form of competition where play ends as soon as one competitor is ahead of the others, with that competitor becoming the winner. Sudden death is typically used as a tiebreaker when a contest is tied at the end of regulation (normal) playing time or the completion of the normal playing task.
Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required to have a clear winner, as in single-elimination tournaments where only one team or players can advance to the next round or win the tournament. In other sports, particularly those prominently played in North America where ties are generally disfavored, some form of overtime is employed for all games.
Throughout its history, the National Football League (NFL) and other rival American football leagues have used several different formats to determine their league champions, including a period of inter-league matchups determining a true national champion.
The Playoff Bowl was a post-season game for third place in the National Football League (NFL), played ten times following the 1960 through 1969 seasons, all at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida.
The NFL playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held after the National Football League (NFL)'s regular season to determine the NFL champion. Six teams from each of the league's two conferences qualify for the playoffs based on regular-season records, and a tie-breaking procedure exists in the case of ties. The tournament culminates in the Super Bowl, the league's championship game, which matches the two conference champions.
The National Football Conference – Southern Division or NFC South is one of the four divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). It was created prior to the 2002 NFL season, when the league realigned divisions after expanding to 32 teams. The NFC South currently has four member clubs: the Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to the 2002 season, the Buccaneers belonged to the AFC West (1976) and NFC Central (1977–2001), while the other three teams were part of the geographically inaccurate NFC West. As a matter of fact, the South has more multiple-season members of the old NFC West than the current NFC West does.
The 1932 NFL Playoff Game was an extra game held to break a tie in the 1932 season's final standings in the National Football League. It matched the host Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans. Because of snowfall and anticipated extremely cold temperatures in Chicago, Illinois, it was moved indoors and played at the three-year-old Chicago Stadium on December 18 on a reduced-size field on Sunday night.
In games and sports, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is used to determine a winner from among players or teams that are tied at the end of a contest, or a set of contests.
The 1932 Green Bay Packers season was their 14th season overall and their 12th in the National Football League. The club posted a 10–3–1 record under coach Curly Lambeau, earning them a 2nd-place finish despite winning three more games than the champion Chicago Bears. With only one loss, the Bears' winning percentage was calculated by the league at .875, as ties were discarded, compared to the Packers' .769.
The 1965 Baltimore Colts season was the 13th season for the team in the National Football League. The Baltimore Colts finished the National Football League's 1965 season with a record of 10 wins, 3 losses, and 1 tie, tied for first in the Western Conference with the Green Bay Packers. Although the Packers won both regular season games over the Colts, no tiebreaking system was in place in 1965, and a playoff game was required to determine the Western Conference champion, who would host the Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Browns for the NFL title.
The Romanian football league system, also known as the football pyramid, refers to the system in Romanian club football that consists of several football leagues bound together hierarchically by promotion and relegation. The first three leagues are organized at a national level and consist of fully professional teams. Lower divisions are organized at county levels, with each county's football association controlling its respective leagues.
The 1960 San Francisco 49ers season was their 11th season in the league. The team was able to match their 7–5 output from the previous year. However, they again failed to make the playoffs. The season did have a silver lining, though, as the 49ers' defense was top-ranked in the league, allowing only 205 points.
Resting the starters is the substitution of regular players on a sports team with backup players, and it occurs when a team has clinched at least a playoff berth, often its division, and in many case home advantage, and no further regular season losses would hurt the team in the standings. This enables the team to avoid risking injury to the starters, and to give real life playing practice to backup players.
The 2016–17 Champions Hockey League is the third season of the Champions Hockey League, a European ice hockey tournament launched by 26 founding clubs, six leagues and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF). The season started on 16 August 2016 with the group stage and ended with the final game on 7 February 2017 with Frölunda defeating Sparta Prague, 4–3 in overtime.
The 2018 National League Central tie-breaker game was a one-game extension to Major League Baseball's (MLB) 2018 regular season, played between the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs to determine the champion of the National League's (NL) Central Division. It was played at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois on October 1, 2018.