SEASON SCHEDULE
ROUND MONTHS SEASONS GP
REGULAR SEASON SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2015-2019 10
2020- 12
PLAYOFFS DECEMBER
2010s 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
2020s 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
2025

BFL Rules can be found at the bottom of the page.

SEASONS

NFL Affiliates are announced following the close of the previous NFL season in January.

The final standings will be released following Week 13.

Seasons follow the NFL regular season and note when your BFL's NFL affiliate will be playing, via this link.

All highlights for BFL teams' NFL affiliates are posted weekly on Facebook via AMT Gridiron and AMT Gridiron Huddle Group.

PLAYOFFS

The BFL Playoffs can be found here.

The current BFL Season can be found here with the 'Road to the BFL Playoffs' starting from Week 10 on the current season page.

All dates are subject to change due to the possibility of NFL affiliates drawn for BFL games playing on different days and/or times. Games in the NFL Week 15 are scheduled later.

RULES

Alex Thomas, BFL Commissioner, designed the rules and affiliates as a means to collate the statistics for his ultimate goal of finalising the playoffs teams and therefore be the only time in the season where BFL teams would be scheduled to play other teams. The main issue has been to create a schedule to make the standings more in line with that of traditional professional leagues but, with NFL teams having bye-weeks, it was deemed more complicated and therefore a more simplified structure was used instead.

As each NFL Affiliate changes from season to season, this enables the BFL to maintain competition. If teams were given the same affiliate each season, this could hinder the continued competition of the league and possibly mean that some teams could be restricted to from ever qualifying for the playoffs.

1. REGULAR SEASON SHEDULE

There is no BFL schedule, per say, and is decided in the following way:

  1. NFL Weeks 1-16 schedule have been used as this means the BFL season would end in the same year and will not expand beyond this as both Weeks 17 & 18 begin/start and end in the following year.
  2. The North Division represents the AFC and the South Division represents the NFC, with BFL teams affiliated with NFL teams in alphabetical order by NFL city/region (not team nickname) per NFL conference.
  3. The schedule follows the NFL Regular Season Weeks 1-13.
  4. Following Week 13 (Week 11 prior to 2020), the final BFL standings will be released as per the BFL schedule, with a drawn result automatically given a win if no other BFL team has drawn a game.
  5. BFL teams are given their NFL affiliated team following the end of the previous NFL season in late December/January.
  6. From 2025, BFL teams' NFL affiliates will be chosen by way of the NFL Playoffs teams (4 per conference AFC & NFC plus the 6 further teams made up of the 3 wildcard teams per conference with the next best records).
  7. From 2015-2024, the top 6 NFL affiliates were chosen by way of their overall record and not by using the NFL's system which includes division champions.

2. REGULAR SEASON TIED GAMES

  1. This only applies if both NFL affiliates have tied games in the same week either versus another NFL affiliate in the same game or if independently.
  2. If only one NFL affiliate has a tied game, then this is automatically changed to a win for that team so that there are no unbalanced records going into the playoffs.

This has only happened once during the 2021 season when the Tyneside Mariners' NFL affiliate Pittsburgh Steelers drew in their Week 10 game but no other NFL affiliate drew in their games.

3. REGULAR SEASON TIEBREAKERS

Tiebreakers are broken by using Net Points (NP), which are made up of the Points For (PF) minus Points Against (PA). Teams that have a higher negative NP will be deemed the winner over a team with a lower negative NP i.e. -2 would beat -29.

4. PLAYOFF TEAMS

3.1 Since the 2020 season, the following rules apply:

  1. Top 3 per division, at the close of Week 13 OR 1-11 if a shortened season, will compete in the Playoffs.
  2. From the 2024 Season, 8 teams (4 per division); 4 @ 1 & 3 @ 2 will qualify for the playoffs, meaning the Division champion will no longer receive a bye into the Division Final.
  3. BFL Playoffs follow the NFL Regular Season Weeks 14-16 (12-13 in 2015-2019).
  4. Playoffs are played within the division i.e. North vs North and South vs South.
  5. Due to Week 14 (opening round of the BFL playoffs) being the final bye week of the NFL's regular season, any BFL playoff teams' NFL affiliates having byes during this week, will use their Week 13 result instead.

5. PLAYOFF GAME SCORING

This is achieved as follows, in this order, and should be sufficient to break tied games:
1. The final full time score for each team is the primary score for the game.
2. If this results in a tie, then each quarter score by each team is added as overtime until an outright winner is found. Therefore a maximum total of 4 OTs.
3. If this still results in a tie, then the very first score (touchdown or field goal or safety) by each team is added as overtime and this procedure will be added until no more scores are available for that week and ultimately this should result in an outright winner. This means that there is no limit as to how many overtime scores are used to break the tie.
4. If the tie still cannot be broken, then Rule 4.3 is repeated as many times until the tie is broken.

6. PLAYOFFS TEAMS BYE WEEKS (IF APPLICABLE)

From the 2021 season, since the NFL has expanded to a 17 game/18 week season and therefore, unlike the 2020 season, there will be the potential of bye weeks during the playoffs.
1. Week 14 will be the sole bye week during the BFL playoffs. Team(s) that have a bye week during the playoffs, will use their Week 13 score or previously played week for the score.
2. The Division Champion automatically gets a bye week.
3. Each team, with a bye week, will use their previous week's score for that week.

7. PLAN B

The BFL introduced PLAN B for the 2020 season and beyond, for the league to address situations that may arise that might threaten the possibility of playing a full season.

If the league is unable to play a full season (12 games/13 week season as of 2020), the following steps would need to be followed:
1. Kickoff is later than 10 September, would mean the season would revert back to the 2019 season of 10 games and the previous Rule 4 would apply.
2. 8 game season (with or without bye weeks) if season is pushed back to the first week of October.*
3. Any later would restrict the season to a 4-6 game season*.
4. Playoffs would be announced once a revised NFL schedule has been released.
5. If the NFL cancels its season or shortens it in such a way in which no BFL season would be possible, the BFL would have to cancel the season.
6. If a season starts but is abruptly ended, then there would be no BFL champion and the next season would include the NFL affiliates carried over from the incompleted season.

* - A shorter regular season, compared to previous seasons of 10 games, does diminish the potential of less successful NFL teams being affiliated with BFL teams and therefore this could possibly affect future seasons.