As of 2006, The NFL season features; A 4-game exhibition season (or preseason) running from early August to early September, A 16-game, 17-week regular season running from September to December or early January, A 12-team playoff tournament beginning in January culminating in the Super Bowl in early February.

Summers see most NFL teams playing four exhibition games (referred to by the NFL as "preseason games"; the league discourages the use of the term "exhibition game") from early August through early September. Two "featured" preseason games, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game and American Bowl, do not count toward the normal allotment of four games, so the four teams playing in those games each end up playing five exhibition games. Baltimore Ravens schedule and game information. Find Baltimore Ravens schedule at Front Row King. 2007-2008 Baltimore Ravens Team Schedule.

The games are useful for new players that are not used to playing in front of very large crowds. Management often uses the games to evaluate newly signed players. Veteran players will generally play only for about a quarter of each game so they can avoid injury.

The season concludes with a 12-team tournament used to determine the teams to play in the Super Bowl. The tournament brackets are made up of six teams from each of the league's two conferences, the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC), following the end of the 16-game regular season; The four division champions from each conference (the team in each division with the best regular season won-lost-tied record), which are seeded 1 through 4 based on their regular season won-lost-tied record. Two wild card qualifiers from each conference (those non-division champions with the conference's best won-lost-tied percentages), which are seeded 5 and 6.

The 3 and the 6 seeded teams, and the 4 and the 5 seeds, face each other during the first round of the playoffs, dubbed the Wild Card Playoffs (the league in recent years has also used the term Wild Card Weekend). The 1 and the 2 seeds from each conference receive a bye in the first round, which entitles these teams to automatically advance to the second round, the Divisional Playoff games, to face the Wild Card survivors. In any given playoff round, the highest surviving seed always plays the lowest surviving seed. And in any given playoff game, whoever has the higher seed gets the home field advantage (i.e. the game is held at the higher seed's home field).

The two surviving teams from the Divisional Playoff games meet in Conference Championship games, with the winners of those contests going on to face one another in the Super Bowl.