It was a lifelong dream come true. Going to the Super Bowl was something I had imagined since I was a kid, not just watching it on TV, but being there, feeling it, living inside the moment. And somehow, improbably, I got to experience it the best way possible: sitting beside my dad, the person who first taught me what this game meant.

If the NFL regular season is a 17-week slow burn, the playoffs are the final episodes where every storyline collides at once. There are no do-overs, no series, no “best of seven.” One bad throw, one missed block, one tipped pass, and months of work disappear. Here’s how the NFL playoffs work, step by step, explained in a way that actually makes sense, and will have you sounding like a pro by kickoff. Courtesy of Programming Insider Two Conferences, Two Separate Roads The NFL

Christmas has passed, the schedule has thinned, and the NFL has entered its most revealing phase of the season. The pageantry fades. The narratives tighten. The excuses disappear. What remains is football in its most honest form, cold, calculated, and consequential. This is the stretch where teams stop dreaming and start confronting reality.