NFL playoff squares for every round in January

A regular-season Sunday gives a pool dozens of games to choose from. The playoffs give it one game per window, so the whole group watches the same matchup and the board becomes the center of the party. That focus is the appeal, but it also means the board has to be ready before kickoff: there is no next game to fall back on if the pool starts late. Pick the game everyone will watch, set a deadline for claims and draw the numbers as soon as the board fills.

The cleanest playoff pool is a new board for each round: wild-card weekend, the divisional round, the conference championships and the Super Bowl. Keep the same buy-in, the same payout split and the same group, and change only the teams. A fresh board each week prevents last week's digits from carrying over and gives everyone a new chance. If the group wants one continuous pool, track the rounds separately anyway; a single grid cannot score four different games without turning the payout lookup into a spreadsheet.

Enter the two teams, choose 10×10 or 5×5, set the cost per square and the payout split, then decide between blank numbers and randomized numbers. The team across the top is the column team; the team down the side is the row team. Print the board for a room, or create an online pool for a group that watches from different houses. The generator keeps the same layout all season, so a playoff board looks exactly like the one your group used in September.

Use the four-period structure: end of Q1, halftime, end of Q3 and the final. A 25/25/25/25 split keeps the prizes equal; 20/20/20/40 makes the final worth double. On a $20 board with all 100 squares sold, the pot is $2,000, which pays $500 per period on the even split or $400, $400, $400 and $800 on the weighted one. Playoff pools often carry a higher buy-in than a regular-season office pool, so print the dollar amounts rather than just the percentages.

Playoff games have a fixed start time and a group that is already paying attention, which makes the board easier to sell but harder to fix if it is incomplete. Set a claim deadline an hour before kickoff. If squares remain, either draw anyway and leave them dead or reduce the pot to the number sold; announce which rule applies before the first entry. Do not let late arrivals choose a square after the numbers are visible, even if the empty square is the one that would have won.

A printed board is the simplest option for a playoff party: one page, one pen, one wall. An online pool gives remote friends the same view and highlights the winning square at each period. The free plan covers one pool at a time; One credit removes a pool from the free limit, payment tracking and CSV export if you are running a board for every round. Either way, the rules and the payout math stay the same.