Dates | January 8–30, 1994 | ||||
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Season | 1993 | ||||
Teams | 12 | ||||
Games played | 11 | ||||
Super Bowl XXVIII site | |||||
Defending champions | Dallas Cowboys | ||||
Champions | Dallas Cowboys | ||||
Runners-up | Buffalo Bills | ||||
Conference runners-up |
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The National Football League playoffs for the 1993 season began on January 8, 1994. The postseason tournament concluded with the Dallas Cowboys defeating the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVIII, 30–13, on January 30, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia.
Since the 1993 regular season was conducted over 18 weeks (two byes per team), the traditional bye week between the conference championship games and Super Bowl was removed.
Within each conference, the three division winners and the three wild card teams (the top three non-division winners with the best overall regular season records) qualified for the playoffs. The three division winners were seeded 1 through 3 based on their overall won-lost-tied record, and the wild card teams were seeded 4 through 6. The NFL did not use a fixed bracket playoff system, and there were no restrictions regarding teams from the same division matching up in any round. In the first round, dubbed the wild-card playoffs or wild-card weekend, the third-seeded division winner hosted the sixth seed wild card, and the fourth seed hosted the fifth. The 1 and 2 seeds from each conference then received a bye in the first round. In the second round, the divisional playoffs, the number 1 seed hosted the worst surviving seed from the first round (seed 4, 5 or 6), while the number 2 seed played the other team (seed 3, 4 or 5). The two surviving teams from each conference's divisional playoff games then meet in the respective AFC and NFC Conference Championship games, hosted by the higher seed. Although the Super Bowl, the fourth and final round of the playoffs, was played at a neutral site, the designated home team was based on an annual rotation by conference.
* Indicates overtime victory
These playoffs marked the final season that CBS was the NFC network. Fox would then take over the rights to the NFC before the start of the following season. ABC continued to broadcast the first two Wild Card playoff games, and NBC televised the rest of the AFC games. CBS would not televise an NFL game again until 1998 when it replaced NBC as the AFC network.