Although baseball is called "America's National Pastime", American football is the most popular sport according  to public opinion polling.  The Superbowl is not only the most watched football game, it is the most watched TV show in the US every year.

 

In order to enjoy the game, lets review the basics of what Football is and how the modern game is played.

 

American football is played on a field almost the same size as a soccer field.  It is 100 yards long, which is a little less than 92 meters, and about half  that wide (53 yards). Because American footbal is a game of advancing and retreating, the field is marked yard by yard.

 

 

Because the game is violent, and because it looks cool, players wear a lot of protective equipment under their uniforms. This has been scientifically refined over the years, and the rules revised, to reduce injuries while maintaining the level of violence.

 

The Equipment

 

 

The play of the game

 

American Football is a game of control of territory.  In this it is perhaps the team sport most like warfare in the modern world. Before every "play" (movement of the ball) an imaginary line is drawn across the field, from sideline to sideline, at whichever point the ball rested at the end of the previous play.

 

This is called the "line of scrimmage" and it is like the front in a war.  One army (team) is on one side of the "front" and the other army (team) on the other side. Look at this diagram of a football play. This kind of diagram is called "the X's and O's of football". The O's represent the team that is in possession of the football (the Offense) and the X's reprepsent the team that is trying to stop them from advancing it (the Defense).

 

 

Now look at another diagram, this one of the battle of Varna in 1444.

 

 

Notice the similarities.  One side attacks, trying to break holes in the line (of scrimmage) and advance into the other's territory.  Only the scale is different - 11 players instead of 11 thousand soldiers.

 

The Positions

 

In modern football, different players play when their team has the ball (the Offense) than when the other team has the ball (the Defense). Just as modern armies became specialized, featuring infantry, artillery, tanks and calvalry, each with their own skills and jobs, so a modern football team features huge hulking giants (linemen), speedy runners with good hands (receivers) and destructive killers who just like to hit people (linebackers).

 

The followind diagram shows the offensive and defensive positions. You can correlate the abbreviations to the handout I gave you in class.

 

 

Advancing the ball

 

At the start of each play, the teams line up along the line of scrimmage, with one team on each side. Nobody is allowed to move until one of the offensive players (the Center) lifts the ball off of the ground. In that instant, the action starts. Several things happen at once:

 

• The center passes the ball to the Quarterback, who is the offensive leader and leads each play.
• The defense immediately tries to get at the Quarterback, to knock him down and/or take the ball away from him.
• The offensive players each have a role to play, either protecting the Quarterback or finding or creating an open space.

 

The Quarterback can try to advance the ball in one of two ways.

 

• He can give it to a tough, elusive runner who tries to carry the ball THROUGH the line of scrimmage and into enemy territory. For this to work, his teammates need to push the defensive players out of the way to open a "hole" in the line.
• The can throw it OVER the line of scrimmage to an open (without a defender nearby) receiver, who can then continue to advance the ball.  The danger in this alternative (throwing it up in the air) is that if a defensive player cateches it, his team gains possession of the ball and he can advance it in the direction his team is trying to go.

 

When the player holding the ball is knocked down, when either his knee or elbow touch the ground, the play is over and all action should stop.

 

If a team carries the ball over the Goal Line, they score 6 points, get a chance to score an "extra point" with a pretty easy kick, and then kick the ball back to the other team for their next possession.

 

 

 

So those are the basics.  Let's look at some video to illustrate the concepts we just described:

 

How To Understand Football

 

How To Watch An NFL Football Game

 

 

Finally, lets go to the NFL Network site to analyze some individual plays....