NFL playoff schedule: Patriots-Bills Round 3 will be a wild-card game on Saturday in Buffalo
The NFL playoffs start with the wild-card weekend. Rick Osentoski/Associated Press
NFL Playoffs
The Patriots will face the Bills for a third time this season, but this time the winner will advance in the NFL playoffs and the loser will go home.
The Raiders’ victory over the Chargers in Sunday night’s final game of the regular season left the Patriots with the No. 6 seed in the AFC playoffs and a Saturday date in Buffalo. Kickoff is scheduled for 8:15 p.m. for the wild-card round game.
The Bills won the AFC East title and the conference’s No. 3 seed on Sunday by virtue of a win over the Jets, while the Patriots fell to No. 6 after losing to the Dolphins. The Patriots defeated the Bills in a wind-swept early December showdown on Monday Night Football. The Bills won the rematch three weeks later in Foxborough.
If the Chargers had defeated the Raiders Sunday, the Patriots would have played the Bengals in Cincinnati in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
Here’s a rundown of the NFL playoff schedule, plus key dates for the rest of the postseason.
AFC playoffs: seeding and wild-card schedule
No. 1 seed: Titans (bye)
No. 5 Raiders at No. 4 Bengals: Saturday, 4:30 p.m.
No. 6 Patriots at No. 3 Bills: Saturday, 8:15 p.m.
No. 7 Steelers at No. 2 Chiefs: Sunday, 8:15 p.m.
NFC playoffs: seeding and wild-card schedule
No. 1 seed: Packers (bye)
No. 5 Cardinals at No. 4 Rams: Monday, 8:15 p.m.
No. 6 49ers at No. 3 Cowboys: Sunday, 4:30 p.m.
No. 7 Eagles at No. 2 Buccaneers: Sunday, 1 p.m.
2022 NFL playoffs schedule
Divisional rounds
AFC Divisional Round: Saturday, Jan. 22, and Sunday, Jan. 23, date and network TBD
NFC Divisional Round: Saturday, Jan. 22, and Sunday, Jan. 23, date and network TBD
Conference championships
AFC Championship Game: Sunday, Jan. 30 (3:05 p.m., CBS)
NFC Championship Game: Sunday, Jan. 30 (6:40 p.m., Fox)
Super Bowl LVI
Sunday, Feb. 13 (6:30 p.m., NBC)
More Patriots coverage
- Instant Analysis: Patriots have the feel of a one-and-done playoff team after a bad loss to Dolphins
- Slow start, penalties, turnovers all in a day’s work for Patriots in sloppy loss to Dolphins in finale
- Dan Shaughnessy: Patriots finished season looking like an average, undisciplined team that can’t play from behind
- Tara Sullivan: Patriots cannot put a playoff game solely in the hands of quarterback Mac Jones and expect to win
- Chad Finn: Too much familiar in Patriots’ latest loss at Miami, and none of it good
- How the Patriots’ season-finale loss to the Dolphins unfolded
- NFL Black Monday: Who’s out, and who’s on the hot seat?
- See the NFL playoff schedule
- The latest on Christian Barmore’s injury suffered late in the game
- ‘Just too many mistakes.’ Here’s what Bill Belichick had to say after the Patriots’ loss to the Dolphins
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