The quarters: Although the time on the clock in football is only an hour, games can last far longer than that. A football game is divided into four 15-minute quarters, and there's always a halftime break in between the second and third quarter, along with two-minute breaks at the end of the first and third quarters. There are also timeouts (each team gets six in a game) and other ways to stop the clock — like when the ball is thrown or run out of bounds, someone doesn't catch the ball after the quarterback throws it, or a player makes a penalty.
Overtime: If an NFL game is tied at the end of the fourth quarter, the game goes into another 15-minute period, called Sudden Death. In NFL playoff games, however, it has been called a Modified Sudden Death, since the rules are slightly different than in the regular season. With this format, if the team who gets the ball following a coin toss scores a touchdown, the game is over with that team winning. If the team who gets the ball following a coin toss doesn't score a touchdown, the other team has a chance to score one as well. If they don't, then whichever team scores first (in any way, not just a touchdown) after both teams have had a chance to possess the ball wins the game.
But before the start of the 2022 season, the NFL changed the overtime rules for the 2023 playoffs last year. Under this system, if the first team scores a touchdown, the other team then gets a possession and a chance to tie up the game with a touchdown of its own, which would extend play again. But otherwise, the rules remain unchanged from the previous Modified Sudden Death format.
