The Football Season
The football season (college and NFL) starts on the last weekend in August and runs through the college bowl games in December until Super Bowl Sunday at the beginning of February.
The NFL is made up of 32 teams which are divided into two national conferences, the NFC (National Football Conference) and the AFC (American Football Conference). Each conference is further divided into four divisions based on location: the North, South, East, and West.
The regular season is 18 weeks long. Each team plays 17 games and has one bye week.
At the end of the regular season, the four division leaders and two wild card teams from each conference advance to the playoffs. The two wild card teams are the two teams from the rest of the conference that didn’t win their division but have a better record than everyone else. Unlike other major sports, the football playoffs are single-elimination.
Note that football is mostly a weekend sport. There is one game on Monday night and one on Thursday night, but the real core of the action happens on Sundays. High school games are played on Friday nights and college games on Saturdays.
A Brief Note on College Football
Marching bands, cheerleaders, and mascots add a little fun and color to college football. And some teams, like Michigan and Notre Dame, are steeped in folklore and tradition.
The Field
A football field is 100 yards long and 53 yards wide. The two end zones are both 10 yards deep. So the total length of a football field, including the end zones, is 120 yards.
Stadiums
There are two main types of NFL and college stadiums:
- Domed stadiums
- Outdoor stadiums
Inside domed stadiums, the players and the fans don’t have to deal with the weather because they have a roof over their heads. And the teams always play on artificial turf.
Outdoor stadiums typically use natural grass.
In big-time football, meaning the NFL and the Power 5 college conferences, most stadiums seat between 50,000 and 100,000 people. Also, there are designated areas around the field for photographers and cameramen.
Goalposts
The goalposts sit behind the endzone. The kicker has to kick the ball between the goalposts for extra points and field goals. This is sometimes referred to as splitting the uprights. The uprights, which extend upward from each side of the horizontal crossbar, rise about 35 feet.
A ribbon is also attached to the top of each upright to give the kicker an idea about the wind conditions.
See the appendix here for details about all of the white lines on the field.
The Ball
In the NFL, the ball is always a Wilson brand and carries the signature of the league’s commissioner. The ball also has eight raised white laces across the length to make it easier to grip and throw.
The Players
Each team has 11 players per side: 11 on offense and 11 on defense. The non-starting players are called reserves. The NFL limits active, uniformed players to 53 players per team on gameday.
The players are classified into different positions. Any player can play any position; however once the down has been started and the offensive formation has been formed, a few rules come into play that prohibit players from changing their positions.
Generally, positions are called with their abbreviations, so a quarterback is called a QB, linebacker an LB, cornerback a CB, and so on. Typically, the following abbreviations are used:
Offensive Positions
- Quarterback: QB
- Running Back: RB (If there is more than one, they have different names)
- Full Back: FB
- Tail Back: TB
- Offensive Line: OL (There are five types of OLs)
- Left Tackle: LT
- Left Guard: LG
- Center: C
- Right Guard: RG
- Right Tackle: RT
- Wide Receivers: WR
- Tight End: TE
The Defensive Positions
- Defensive Line: DL
- Defensive Ends: DE
- Linebacker: LB (LB can be further divided into subcategories)
- Inside Linebacker: ILB
- Outside Linebackers: OLB
- Middle Linebacker: MLB
- Cornerback: CB
- Safety: S (Safeties can be further classified):
- The Strong Safety: SS
- Free Safety: FS
Special Teams
- Kicker: K
- Punter: P
- Kick Returner: KR
- Punt Returner: PR
The diagram below shows the normal formation of football that they teach during the basics of football.
Uniforms
The uniforms that the players wear consist of:
- Jerseys
- Helmets
- Pads
- Towels
Check the appendix here for details on their uniforms.
The Rules
Football games are divided into four quarters, 15 minutes each. Halftime lasts for 12 minutes to give the players time to rest. Sometimes there are small festivities during halftime for the fans, including bands and cheerleaders giving performances, and occasionally coaches and alums are honored for their achievements.
The game clock is operated by a timekeeper in the press box. Note that the clock doesn’t run continuously throughout each quarter.
See the appendix here for the different reasons why the clock stops during a game.
At the end of a play, the offense has 40 seconds to get into position at the line of scrimmage and start the next play. If there was an official clock stoppage, the offense only has 25-seconds to hike the ball. If the offense doesn’t snap the ball in time, they get a 5-yard penalty and have to repeat the down.
A player is out of bounds if he steps outside of the field of play. The sidelines and endlines are considered out of bounds. To make a catch near the sidelines or endlines, an NFL player needs to have both feet touch the ground inbounds while he has possession of the ball before he falls out of bounds. College players only need to have one foot touch the ground.
See the appendix here for how tie games are handled.
The Coin Toss
Every game starts with a coin toss. The captains from both teams come to the center of the field to meet the officials. The visiting team calls heads or tails before an official flips the coin. After the coin toss, the team who has won the toss has three choices. The team can either kick, receive or defer, and unless deferred, the opposite team gets to choose the side of the field. If the toss-winning side chooses to kick, the opposing team will receive the ball, and the game will begin from the first down of the first half. Similarly, if the toss winners choose to receive, their offense will start the first half. However, if the coin toss winner team chooses to defer, then the option of kicking and receiving will go to the opposite team, but the coin toss winners will get to pick which side they would prefer to play in the first half.
Down System
The offense has four downs, or tries, to move the ball forward by 10 yards. If they can do this in four or fewer tries, they receive another set of four downs. If they cannot advance 10 yards after three downs, they can either punt the ball on the fourth down or try to get the first down by running or passing.
Commentators use the phrase “three and out.” to refer to when team a team has failed to advance the ball 10 yards and decides to punt on fourth down.
A first down is also called “First and 10” because the offense has to go 10 yards to restart the downs. If the team then runs the ball for 4 yards, they would then be at “Second and 6”.
When the ball is too close to a first down for the on-field officials to make the call with certainty, the chain gang, or chain crew, comes onto the field, holding two tall, orange poles, to measure if the offense gained 10 yards.
If you’re watching a game on TV, it’s much easier to tell because you will see a yellow line digitally layered across the field that marks where a team must reach for a first down.
Points
A touchdown is worth six points. A team scores a touchdown when a player carrying the ball breaks the plane of his opponent’s goal line with the ball.
An extra point is worth 1 point. An extra point is kicked after a touchdown is scored. It is good if the kicker kicks the ball through the uprights. For extra points, the ball is snapped from 2 yards in front of the goal line.
A two-point conversion is worth two points. If a team is feeling especially confident — or desperate — they might attempt a two-point conversion after a touchdown, where they try to run or throw the ball into the endzone instead of kicking an extra point.
A field goal is worth three points. It is like a small prize when an offense can move the ball up the field but cannot reach the endzone. To get a field goal, the kicker has to kick the ball through the uprights from the location on the field where his team was before the kick.
You calculate the distance of a field goal by adding 17 yards to the number of yards that the offense is from the goal line. That’s 10 yards for the depth of the end zone and an extra 7 yards for the typical distance of the snap. For example, if the offense is on its opponent’s 33-yard line, they’re attempting a 50-yard field goal.
A safety is worth 2 points. A safety occurs when an offensive player is tackled in his own end zone or goes out of bounds in the end zone. Two points are awarded to the defensive team and then the team that was scored on must punt the ball to the other team from its own 20-yard line.
As you can see, points can be scored in 5 different ways.
The Officials
There are usually around seven officials calling a game. Each one carries a whistle and a bright yellow flag. The flag is thrown to signal that a penalty has occurred. If an official throws his yellow flag during a play and then sees a second penalty, he throws his hat.
The official known as the “referee” is the primary official who manages the game. He is the only official wearing a white hat. The rest of them wear black hats.
The referee is the one that announces all the penalties to the spectators and TV viewers using a mic attached to his clothes and hand gestures at the same time. The most common penalties have their own hand gestures.
Penalties
There are over 100 different penalties.
See the appendix here for the different 5-yard, 10-yard, and 15-yard penalties.
Whenever a penalty is called, the ref announces it over the loudspeakers and also shows a signal for the penalty using his hands and body. You HAVE to see this link on referee signals. They have videos of every penalty signal!
Personal Foul
Disputing a Call
With the instant replay challenge system, a coach can ask the referees to review a play if he disagrees with the call that was just made. To challenge a call, the coach must throw his red flag onto the field of play before the ball is snapped.
Coaches can challenge up to two calls per game. But if they challenge a call and the call stands, the team loses a timeout.
In the NFL, there is a two-minute rule. In the last two minutes of each half, neither coach needs to challenge. A replay official monitors all plays and signals down to the referee if a play or call needs to be reviewed. In addition to this, all scoring plays and turnovers (interceptions and fumbles) are automatically reviewed by the replay official.
Positions
Offense
The Quarterback
The quarterback is the leader of the offense. He announces the plays in the huddle. He doesn’t call the plays on his own; the coaches decide what plays to run and mics it into the QB, who has a speaker in his helmet. But the QB may sometimes call an audible (change of play) at the line of scrimmage if he reads the defense and sees that they’re prepared to handle the play.
The area in which the quarterback operates and is protected by his offensive line is called the pocket.
Here is a diagram of the main passing routes that the wide receivers run.
Refer to the appendix here for more details on the different passing routes.
The “formation” describes how the offensive players line up behind the line of scrimmage before the snap. For example, shotgun formation is when the QB lines up a few steps behind the center before the snap.
Running Backs
The ground game refers to running the football.
The primary ball carrier is called the halfback (also known as the tailback or running back).
If a team uses two running backs at the same time, the bigger one is usually called the fullback. He’s there to clear the path for the halfback, who carries the ball.
Sometimes teams run the ball just to keep the clock moving. This strategy is called “ball control”.
The running back formations
There are three main running back formations:
- The pro-set, aka the split-back or split T formation – where the runners are behind the quarterback on either side of him, forming a triangle
- The I formation – where both runners are lined up one after another behind the quarterback
- The I formation’s hybrid, the offset I formation – where one runner is behind the QB, and the other is a step away from the line, on the right or the left side
The Offensive Line
The job of the offensive linemen is to protect the quarterback and block for the ball carrier. They also open up holes in the defense for the running backs. Ball carriers try to go through these holes, called running lanes.
The offensive line is made up of five players. The man in the middle is called the center. To the right of him is the right guard, and to the right of the right guard is the right tackle. Similarly, on the left side of the center is the left guard and then the left tackle.
If the quarterback is right-handed, the left tackle is referred to as the blind-side tackle because the quarterback has his back to that side when he throws the ball. And vice versa
A Play
A play is a blueprint for where each player on the offense should go once the ball is snapped. It dictates how the O-line should block, what routes the wide receivers should run, and what the running backs and tight ends should do.
There are two main types of plays, running plays and passing plays.
In a running play, the receivers will run routes to deceive the defense into thinking they’re passing, the O-line will try to open up lanes in the trenches, and the quarterback will hand the ball off to the running back, who is looking for a whole in the D-line, or takes a route around the trenches. With running plays, the QB doesn’t have much of a decision to make. He just hands the ball off to the running back and moves out of the way. Running plays are safer than passing plays because the offense never loses contact with the ball.
In a passing play, the O-line will create a pocket for the QB to take his time in, the running backs may also block for the QB or run outside to possibly receive the ball, and the receivers will run their designated routes. Now the QB has a decision to make. There will usually be a primary receiving target for the QB and also secondary targets to throw the ball to in case the first target was covered closely.
Each team has a playbook with all the different plays the offense can run in a game. Sometimes the quarterbacks wear an abridged version of the playbook on their forearm so they can reference it during huddles.
Defense
The Defensive Line
Across from the center on defense is the defensive lineman known as the nose tackle. On either side of him are the defensive tackles, and on either side of them are the defensive ends. Their goal is to chase the quarterback out of the pocket and try to sack him.
Linebackers
Behind the defensive line are the linebackers. They are the leaders of the defense, giving defensive calls at the beginning of each play.
Defensive Terms
A sack refers to tackling the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage for a loss of yards. A tackle is when a defender brings down an offensive player who has possession of the ball. Tackles and sacks can be shared by more than one defender.
A blitz is a tactic used by the defense to disrupt a pass attempt by overwhelming the offense. In a blitz, a higher number of defensive players than usual will rush the opposing quarterback after the snap to try and sack him or force a hurried pass attempt.
The Secondary
The secondary refers to the group of players who guard the defensive backfield. The secondary consists of four positions: a right and left cornerback, a strong safety, and a free safety.
The players in the secondary are known as defensive backs or DBs. Their job is to tackle runners who get past the D-line and linebackers and break up passing plays.
Cornerbacks
The cornerback is typically the fastest player on the defensive side. Most defensive schemes use two cornerbacks in man-to-man coverage to guard the wide receivers.
Safeties
Most defenses use two safeties — a strong safety and a free safety. The strong safety is usually bigger, stronger, and slower than the free safety.
The strong safety normally aligns across the tight end side of the offensive formation. This is known as the strong side, hence the name, strong safety.
The free safety is generally more athletic and leaner than the strong safety. He usually positions himself 12 to 15 yards deep off the line of scrimmage and defends against the long pass. The strong safety lines up closer to the line of scrimmage and therefore is more involved with the run defense.
Two Types of Coverage
Football teams use two types of pass coverage in the defensive backfield: man-to-man and zone coverage.
Man Coverage
Man-to-man coverage is when the defensive backs, and sometimes the linebackers, are assigned to cover a specific offensive player, and they cover them until the play is over.
Zone Coverage
In zone coverage, the DBs and linebackers cover areas on the field and protect those zones against receivers who enter them.
The Main Defensive Schemes
- D-line designation
- 4-3 defense: 4 defensive linemen and 3 linebackers
- 3-4 defense: 3 defensive linemen and 4 linebackers
- Backfield designation
- Nickel defense: 5 DBs – 3 CBs and 2 safeties
- Dime defense: 6 DBs
Here are diagrams of the four defensive schemes:
