Within each conference, the four division winners and the two wild card teams (the top two non-division winners with the best overall regular season records) qualified for the playoffs. The four division winners are seeded 1 through 4 based on their overall won-lost-tied record, and the wild card teams are seeded 5 and 6. The NFL does not use a fixed bracket playoff system, and there are 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 hosts the sixth seed wild card, and the fourth seed hosts the fifth. The 1 and 2 seeds from each conference then receive a bye in the first round. In the second round, the divisional playoffs, the number 1 seed hosts the worst surviving seed from the first round (seed 4, 5 or 6), while the number 2 seed will play 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, is played at a neutral site, the designated home team is based on an annual rotation by conference.

Under the new U.S. television broadcast contracts that took effect starting this season, TV network coverage was slightly altered. The AFC playoffs were split between CBS and NBC. Each network televised one AFC game in the first two rounds of the playoffs, while CBS held exclusive rights to the AFC Championship Game. The NFC playoffs were televised mainly by Fox, which had rights to all NFC playoff games except for a single Wild Card game televised by ESPN. This marked the first time an NFL playoff game was aired on a cable channel. NBC exclusively televised Super Bowl XLIX. All games were broadcast on Westwood One radio.

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