The NFL may not know until May how many playoff games it will have this season, but the league will have a completely new system for how its playoff games are officiated.

On Tuesday, the NFL announced that it will appoint officials by crews instead of individual positions starting this season. Under the old system, the NFL picked all-star crews for playoff games based on how each official graded during the season.

The best referee, for example, handled the Super Bowl. The second best field judge, for example, handled a conference championship game.

Feeling that continuity of crews leads to better officiating, the NFL will not break up crews, instead it will promote the best crews for the best postseason games.

"You are changing from a philosophy of going from the best officials moving on to best officiating moving on," said NFL supervisor of official Mike Pereira said.

Excluded from the mix, though, will be first or second-year officials. Though it's been rare that new officials worked playoff games, three second-year officials made passing grades to work playoff games last year. Two of those officials worked in the controversial Giants-49ers game. Another worked in the Raiders-Titans championship game.

That created a little bit of a stir in the officials union because it felt that giving the young officials playoff experience took away opportunities from more experienced officials. Part of the reason for the surprising opportunity for the three young officials was because of recent turnover. Over the past two years, there were 26 new officials among the league's 119.

Part of the turnover was because of retirements created by the league's new labor deal with the officials. Another part was from the usual number of officials who didn't maintain top grades.

"This decision was not the result of the Giants game or any game in the playoffs," Pereira said. "This is actually a system I had when I was the supervisor of officials in the WAC."

Of course, Perrerra may not know until May how many crews he'll need for the playoffs. The NFL owners tabled a vote on expanding the playoffs, and the proposal may stay on the table until May.

Though the owners may vote for two additional playoff teams Wednesday before the annual meetings end, the decision of have 12 or 14 playoff teams could be "under further review" while league official study the concept.

Should the league expand to 14 playoff teams, Pereira will appoint nine crews of seven officials. If it stays at 12, he would select eight. There are currently 17 crews in the league.

Having entire crews advance from the regular season to the playoffs should help with positioning and familiarity. It should also improve communication.

First and second year officials will be replaced by individuals who graded out the best at their positions. The league will construct crews that will have no more than two first or second-year officials.

"We will have the crews rated from one to eight, and we would probably have the one, two and three crews work in the wild-card round so that they can come back in the championship games and the Super Bowl," Pereira said. "We also want to make sure that the same crew doesn't have the same teams two games in a row."

Officials weren't happy about news that eight officials were told to resign or be replaced, but the league says that there is normal turnover every year.

"As with any change in any type of program, there is going to be some resistance," Pereira said. "I would be lying to you to say that we didn't have some here. We still believe this is the right thing to do for the league. We're taking steps to improve the way we officiate."

NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue tried to use Tuesday evening to lobby for a few more votes to help change the overtime rule. The NFL wants to go to an overtime in which each team has a possession. Ten of the 25 overtime games last season were decided by the team that won the coin toss.

On Tuesday, a majority of the teams favored changing to the new system but there weren't enough votes to pass it. Tagliabue worked on the other votes.

A final vote will come Wednesday until Tagliabue decides to table it until the May owners meeting.

John Clayton is a senior writer for ESPN.com.