Welcome to heaven, football fans. Enjoy the next few days!

Everyone knows January means the beginning of the NFL playoffs and while those begin on Saturday with a pair of AFC Wild Card round matchups, Thursday and Friday make these next five days playoff football heaven. For the first time ever, the College Football Playoff semifinals are happening the same week as the NFL playoffs' opening round. Thanks to the expanded CFP, fans are set to enjoy eight win or go home games within a 96 hour span.

That's a lot of football. All that kicks off Thursday night with the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Orange Bowl between No. 6 Penn State and No. 7 Notre Dame. Here's a better way to visualize all football has to offer as this week comes to an end.

Following Penn State-Notre Dame is Ohio State-Texas on Friday in the other CFP semifinal, this one played in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium. Before anyone has had enough time to breathe and fully analyze the College Football National Championship matchup the NFL playoffs begin, at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday with Texans-Chargers.

Five more matchups follow. Ravens-Steelers on Saturday night and then a triple header on Sunday with Bills-Broncos, Eagles-Packers and Buccaneers-Commanders. Monday night wraps up the greatest five-day stretch in football history with Rams-Vikings. The game is currently slated to be played at SoFi Stadium, but amid the Los Angeles wildfires the NFL has created a contingency plan for the game to be played at State Farm Stadium in Arizona.

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A couple of weeks ago, we had a single day with five football games -- three opening-round CFP games and two NFL regular season games. The NFL won the ratings war that day, as expected, despite playing regular-season games against College Football Playoff games. This time around, though, no competition is needed. The CFP semifinals will be played on different days than the NFL playoffs so no same-day ratings competition will happen this time, which is good news for College Football. No one can compete with the NFL in a ratings war, especially come playoff time.

Sit back and enjoy! The greatest five-day stretch in football watching history begins Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. and will end sometime around 11:45 p.m. Monday.

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