2000–01 NFL playoffs
| Dates | December 30, 2000–January 28, 2001 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | 2000 | ||||
| Teams | 12 | ||||
| Games played | 11 | ||||
| Super Bowl XXXV site | |||||
| Defending champions | St. Louis Rams | ||||
| Champions | Baltimore Ravens | ||||
| Runners-up | New York Giants | ||||
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The National Football League playoffs for the 2000 season began on December 30, 2000. The postseason tournament concluded with the Baltimore Ravens defeating the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXXV, 34–7, on January 28, 2001, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
This would be the last time that playoff games would be played at the accustomed times of 12:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. EST. The following season, the NFL scheduled prime time playoff games for the first two rounds in an attempt to attract more television viewers.
This would be the final season where wild card weekend was held in December. The following year, the league pushed the start of the season back one week (to the weekend after Labor Day), which effectively pushed the start of playoffs one week later (into January).
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.
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