The NFL’s playoff system will be updated on Thursday with a new format for determining which teams advance to the Super Bowl.
The league announced Thursday that the top three teams will earn a berth in the championship game, and the bottom three will advance to a playoff.
The playoff will be played on Jan. 7, the same day as the regular season.
The top three will earn an automatic berth in Super Bowl XLVIII, and they’ll face off in the AFC Championship Game on Feb. 5.
The bottom three, which will face off against each other in the NFC Championship Game, will face each other on Feb 5.
In the meantime, there will be a second, “best of seven” playoff in which the best two teams will advance.
The winner will advance, while the loser will play the team from the AFC that lost to the best-seeded team.
The NFL has not yet announced how many teams will play in the Super-Bowl, but if the teams in the top-two divisions and the top five teams in each conference all play, it could result in an extra 24 teams for the first time in a decade.
The first two Super Bowls featured the same format.
