Free Printable NFL Playoff Bracket
The full playoff picture on one sheet: seven teams in each conference, the two byes already in place, and every round from Wild Card weekend to the Super Bowl. Type this season’s teams in, or print it empty and fill it in as the games are played.
Build your NFL playoff bracket
Fourteen lines, AFC seeds 1 to 7 then NFC seeds 1 to 7, in that order. The sheet handles the rest: each conference keeps to its own half, the top seeds get their byes, and the two halves only meet in the Super Bowl.
Round one is filled in from your list. Later rounds always print blank.
14 of 14 · bracket of 16 · both byes drawn in
Paste a list straight from a spreadsheet. One name per line.
Slots on the sheet, not players. Pick the smallest one that holds everybody and the spare lines print empty.
Everything you type stays in your browser and is drawn on your own device. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no watermark on the print or the PNG.
Want the bracket to run itself?
A printed sheet is finished the moment it leaves the printer. Move this draw into the Bracket widget instead and winners advance on their own, visitors vote and predict, and a live leaderboard ranks everyone’s picks. Your players come across, so you carry on where you left off.
Your 14 teams come across in the order you typed them, but the widget builds one bracket rather than two conferences, so it opens as a standard single elimination draw. The printed sheet on this page is unaffected.
Every bracket sheet
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- NFL playoffs
- March Madness
- College Football Playoff
Widgets that pair with a tournament
A printed sheet settles the draw. These free CommonNinja widgets keep the tournament alive on your own site once the first results are in.
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Free 16 Team Bracket Maker
Print a 16-team tournament bracket: 4 rounds, 15 matches, first round seeded from your list.
Use Tool →Free Blank Bracket Template
Print an empty tournament bracket with no names at all. 4 to 64 slots, every line left blank to fill in by hand.
Use Tool →Free Single Elimination Bracket Maker
Print a single elimination bracket. Lose once and you are out: the shortest format, 4 to 64 players.
Use Tool →How It Works
Three steps, about a minute
1. Type or paste your players
One name per line, or paste a column straight out of a spreadsheet. Switch to a blank sheet if you would rather write them in by hand.
2. Check the draw
Choose whether round one follows your list, a random shuffle, or standard seeding that keeps the strongest apart. Byes are worked out for you.
3. Print it
The sheet is fitted to one A4 page exactly, so it never spills onto a second one. Your print dialog will save it as a PDF if you prefer.
The Format
How the NFL playoff bracket is built
Fourteen teams make the playoffs, seven from each conference: the four division winners, seeded 1 to 4, and three wild cards seeded 5 to 7. Only the number one seed in each conference gets a first-round bye. That is why this sheet has sixteen lines and two of them are byes.
- Wild Card6 games. Seeds 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5 in each conference. The 1 seeds sit it out.
- Divisional4 games. The rested 1 seeds come in against the surviving wild card teams.
- Conference Championship2 games. One AFC, one NFC. The winners are the two Super Bowl teams.
- Super Bowl1 game, on neutral ground. Thirteen games in all, across four weekends.
One Catch
The one thing a printed bracket cannot do
The NFL reseeds every round. After Wild Card weekend the surviving number one seed is matched against the LOWEST remaining seed in its conference, not against whoever happens to be next on the page. So if the 7 seed pulls off an upset, the real Divisional round sends them to the 1 seed, while a fixed sheet like this one sends them onward to whoever won the 3 v 6 game.
Every printable bracket has this, because paper cannot rearrange itself. It only bites when a lower seed wins, and it never affects the Wild Card round, the Conference Championships or the Super Bowl. If it happens, draw an arrow. That is what the pen is for, and it is the part of the weekend everyone argues about anyway.
If you would rather the bracket advanced winners by itself and stayed right on a web page all season, that is what the Bracket widget does, and you can move this draw straight into it in one click.
Office Pool
Running a playoff pool off the sheet
A printed bracket is still the simplest way to run a pool, and it does not need an app or anybody’s email address. Hand out a copy each, collect them before the first kickoff, and score them as the weekends go.
Weight the later rounds
A common scheme is 1 point per Wild Card pick, 2 for Divisional, 4 for the Conference Championships and 8 for the Super Bowl. It keeps everyone alive into February instead of settling it on the first weekend.
Collect them before kickoff
Every entry has to be in before the first Wild Card game starts. Print a few spares: somebody always wants to redo theirs.
Ask for a tiebreaker
Have everyone write a guess at the total points in the Super Bowl somewhere on the sheet. Closest without going over settles a tie, and ties are common.
Pin the master copy up
Keep one sheet as the official record and fill it in as results come in, so nobody has to take anybody’s word for what the score was.
Printing
Getting it onto paper cleanly
The sheet is drawn to landscape and fits on one page, with the AFC in the top half and the NFC in the bottom. Press Print and choose "Save as PDF" as the destination if you want to send it round rather than print it, or use Download PNG for something to drop into a group chat.
Nothing you type is uploaded. The bracket is drawn on your own device, so your pool stays your own business, and there is no watermark on the print or the image.
Other Sizes
Need a different bracket?
Same sheet, same print settings, a different number of slots.
Free 16 Team Bracket Maker
Print a 16-team tournament bracket: 4 rounds, 15 matches, first round seeded from your list.
Free Blank Bracket Template
Print an empty tournament bracket with no names at all. 4 to 64 slots, every line left blank to fill in by hand.
Free Single Elimination Bracket Maker
Print a single elimination bracket. Lose once and you are out: the shortest format, 4 to 64 players.
Or start from the general printable bracket maker, which opens with every size and format available and works out the right one from however many players you paste in.
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