NFL playoff squares: one board for every round

The Super Bowl gets the attention, but the NFL playoffs are where a squares group really earns its stripes. Thirteen games in four weeks, six of them on one weekend, and every one of them is a game people are already planning to watch. If your group ran one board all season and liked it, the playoffs are where you run five.

The postseason schedule, squares edition

• Wild Card weekend (mid-January): six games over Saturday, Sunday, and Monday night. The busiest squares weekend of the year. Most groups pick two or three games rather than all six.
• Divisional round: four games, two per day. The matchups are the best of the season and boards fill fast.
• Conference Championships: two games, one Sunday. Perfect for a single doubleheader board party.
• Super Bowl: the one everybody knows. See the Super Bowl squares 2027 guide for the specifics.

One board per game, not one board per round

A squares board is tied to a single game because the digits come from that game's score. You cannot run one board across a whole weekend. What you can do is run several boards at once and let people buy into the games they care about. A group of twenty might fill one board on Wild Card weekend; a group of fifty will happily fill three.

In Boxpick every board has its own link, so sharing three boards is three texts. Players claim squares on each one from their phone, and each board follows its own game with its own winners.

Timing the draw

Playoff matchups are set on Sunday night of the previous round, which gives you about six days. A rhythm that works: share the board Monday, remind people Thursday, draw the numbers Friday night or the morning of the game. Numbers are always drawn after the squares are claimed, so nobody can pick their way into the good digits. The draw guide covers how that works.

Playoff pricing and payouts

Groups often step the square price up through the postseason: five dollars for Wild Card boards, ten for the Divisional and Conference rounds, twenty for the Super Bowl. Keep the payout split the same on every board so nobody has to relearn it. The Boxpick standard is 20% for each of the first three quarters and 40% for the final score, and Pro hosts can set any split they like. The payouts guide has worked examples.

Keeping the same group all postseason

The hardest part of a multi-board postseason is bookkeeping: who paid for which board, who owes for two, who has a square on every game. Boxpick tracks paid status per player on each board and shows the host who still owes, so you can stop scrolling through Venmo history. It never collects or moves money; your group settles up the way it already does.

What Boxpick Pro changes for the playoffs

Regular season boards are free to host, as many as you want. Playoff and Super Bowl boards are part of Boxpick Pro, which is $9.99 for the year and covers every postseason game plus custom payout splits, live win probability on every square, and fundraiser mode. Compare that to apps that charge per board: thirteen playoff boards at a dollar each already costs more, and you do not get the live winners.