When are the NFL play-offs and how do they work?

The play-offs for the 2025 NFL season get under way on Saturday when the Carolina Panthers host the Los Angeles Rams at 21:30 GMT (16:30 local time).

They are two of the 14 teams who will feature in the play-offs, with seven teams qualifying from the American Football Conference (AFC) and seven from the National Football Conference (NFC).

Each conference is kept apart during 12 knockout games over three weeks to decide which team represents their conference in the Super Bowl - the NFL's championship game.

Teams are seeded from one to seven and those who finished top of each conference during the 17-game regular season automatically qualify for the Divisional Round - the second week of the play-offs.

This season, the Denver Broncos earned the AFC's top seed and the Seattle Seahawks topped the NFC.

The other 12 teams enter from the first round, known as Wildcard Weekend, and the highest remaining seeds in each round have home-field advantage.

In the wildcard round, the teams ranked second in each conference play the seventh seed, third plays sixth and fourth faces fifth.

The winners of those six games will join the top seeds in the Divisional Round, where the top seed faces the lowest-ranked team, and the two other teams face each other.

The winners of those four games reach the Conference Championships - effectively the Super Bowl semi-finals.

The overall NFL champions will be crowned at Super Bowl LX, the 60th edition of the league's showpiece finale, on Sunday, 8 February at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

All kick-off times GMT

Saturday, 10 January

Los Angeles Rams (5) @ Carolina Panthers (4) (21:30)

Green Bay Packers (7) @ Chicago Bears (2) (01:00 Sun)

Sunday, 11 January

Buffalo Bills (6) @ Jacksonville Jaguars (3) (18:00)

San Francisco 49ers (6) @ Philadelphia Eagles (3) (21:30)

Los Angeles Chargers (7) @ New England Patriots (2) (01:00 Mon)

Monday, 12 January

Houston Texans (5) @ Pittsburgh Steelers (4) (01:00 Tue)

Divisional Round

Saturday, 17 January - 21:30 & 01:00 Sun

Sunday, 18 January - 20:00 & 23:30

Conference Championships

Saturday, 25 January - 20:00 & 23:30

Super Bowl 60

Sunday, 8 February - 23:30

Sky Sports and DAZN will be showing all six wildcard games for British-based audiences with those subscriptions.

Channel 5 will also be showing live coverage of Buffalo's trip to Jacksonville on free-to-air television.

BBC Sport will have live text coverage and match reports throughout the play-offs across our website and app, with live radio commentary on selected games.

Thanks to Noah in Telford for the question

This article is the latest from BBC Sport's Ask Me Anything team.