The tournament brackets are made up of six teams from each of the league's two conferences, the EFC and the WFC, following the end of the 10-game regular season.

Qualification into the playoffs are as follows:

• The three division champions from each conference (the team in each division with the best regular season won-lost-tied record), which are seeded 1 through 3 based on their regular season won-lost-tied record.
• Three wild card qualifiers (those non-division champions with the conference's best winning percentages), which are seeded 4 through 6.

The first round of the playoffs is dubbed the Wild Card Playoffs. The 3rd-seeded division winner hosts the 6th seed wild card, and the 4th seed hosts the 5th. 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. Unlike most tournaments, with a predetermined bracket, each round of the playoffs is 're-seeded'; the highest surviving seed always hosts the lowest surviving seed, the second-highest hosts the second-lowest, etc. This guarantees each division winner at least one home playoff game.

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 USFA Championship.

If teams are tied (having the same regular season won-lost-tied record), the playoff seeding is determined by a set of tiebreaking rules. (In selecting teams for the playoffs, the division winners are selected, and the remaining teams, including any which tied for 1st place in their division and lost the division championship by a tiebreaker, are then considered for the wild-card spots. It is possible for a team to tie for 1st in its division and not make the playoffs.)