Every year, 32 NFL teams compete for the opportunity to play at the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is a huge cultural experience with a halftime show, pregame festivities like the flyover, and commercials. It is the culmination of weeks of matches during the regular season and the playoffs. The regular season provides plenty of games to watch, but the Super Bowl is more than just a game – it’s a huge celebration of football and what it means to Americans.
The regular season
The regular season begins the week of the first Monday in September, which coincides with Labor Day. The first game is usually a home game for the defending Super Bowl champions. It takes place on September 4 this year, when the Philadelphia Eagles will take on the Dallas Cowboys.
During the regular season, there’s one game on Thursdays, one on Mondays, and the rest on Sundays. The only exception is for Thanksgiving weekend, when there are three fixtures on a Thursday. The regular season is 18 weeks long, and each team takes part in 17 matches. The regular season ends in early January.
Betting on the NFL regular season is very different from betting on the Super Bowl. US sports betting in the regular season may involve placing bets on a wide variety of games, all with diverse betting opportunities. Sports bettors have opportunities to refine their strategies and spread their wagers to minimize their losses.
The draft and preseason games
The draft is the first major event on the NFL calendar. Teams take turns in choosing the top players in collegiate football to join them. After drafting is over, the teams begin to train for their preseason games. This year, the NFL preseason games started on Friday, July 1, and ended on Sunday, August 26. During the preseason games, the teams start building confidence on the field.
The two conferences
When the regular season starts, the 32 teams are split into two conferences. One is the National Football Conference, and the other is the American Football Conference. In each conference are 16 teams split into North, South, East, and West, with four teams in each. In the regular season, each team plays its three division rivals twice. Then, teams play six other opponents from inside their conference and four teams from outside their conference.
The playoffs
Seven teams from each conference take part in the playoffs. This includes the eight division winners and six wild cards, three from each conference, who didn’t win their divisions. Each team is seeded from one to seven, and the first seed in each conference receives a first-round bye.
The first round (Wild Card round) of the playoffs features the three division winners from each conference playing against three of the wild card teams.
The next round (divisional round) features the top seed in each conference playing against the winning team with the lowest seed from the previous round. The two other winning teams face each other.
The four winning teams advance to the Conference Championships and play for a place in the Super Bowl. These championships start on Monday, January 26.
The Super Bowl
The AFC and NFC champions meet in the Super Bowl, which is the biggest night on the sporting calendar in the U.S. The Super Bowl will take place on Monday, Feb 9, 2026, when the two teams taking part head to Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
The Super Bowl is the only one-off event of this nature, as other major sports championship winners are decided over a series of games. Its halftime shows and adverts make it fun for even casual viewers to watch. They may decide to place bets on the game, even if they aren’t regular sports bettors.
Experienced sports bettors will examine NFL stats this year to inform their Super Bowl bets. After all, they are betting on a one-time, high-stakes event. Some bettors are willing to wager more than usual, as it only comes around once a year. They can place a huge range of prop bets with higher payouts. Current odds put the Philadelphia Eagles and the Baltimore Ravens as joint favorites to win the Super Bowl.
