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American football, known in the United States as
simply football, is a competitive team sport that rewards players'
speed, agility, tactics, and brute strength as they push, block, tackle, chase, and outrun each other, trying to force a ball
further into their opponent's territory for one hour of game time, which translates into three to four hours of real time. Like
most team sports (and individual sports in the context of a meet like the Olympics), American football is often seen as a
metaphor for war. It is one of the more physically demanding sports, as there is a great deal
of physical contact occurring on every play as players often weighing 300 pounds or more shove each other with every ounce of
their strength, and with a clearly defined front line, moving up and down the field, separating the offensive and defensive
squads. American football does not much resemble soccer, the sport which most of the
rest of the world, with the notable exception of many of the nations in the British Commonwealth, calls "football". It does owe its heritage to soccer, however. Rugby Union, "Rugby Football" or simply "Rugby" evolved from soccer when players
began carrying the ball, and American football still has some things in common with rugby, especially rugby league.
Popularity
Football is extremely popular in the US. Since the 1990s it has surpassed even
baseball as the nation's most popular spectator sport. The professional league, the
National Football League (NFL), which consists of
32 teams, is very popular. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, is annually
watched by nearly half of US television households, and is also televised in over 150 other countries.
College football is extremely popular, with many major colleges
and universities playing NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) Division I football, and consistently
selling out huge stadiums. College games are widely televised and widely watched. Many colleges in lower NCAA divisions and the
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) have varsity
football teams, as do most high schools. There are also amateur, club and youth teams (such as teams in the Pop Warner leagues).
In addition to those leagues and teams, now there is an American Football World Cup. In addition, there are many "semi-pro" teams, meaning the players
are paid to play, but at a small enough salary that they generally must also have a full-time, more traditional job.
Naming
The word football has a number of different meanings. In the United States football almost always means
what, in the rest of the English-speaking world, is usually called American football (or in some cases Gridiron football). In most of the rest of the world, the word football means the game that is called soccer in the US, although it is occasionally called
Association football or International football. Soccer, the most popular form of football
world-wide, is also popular in the US, particularly as a participation sport for children. It is played at all levels, youth,
amateur, high school, college and professional, and in internationals by teams involving both sexes (see: football (soccer))
The name football might seem a curious name for the sport of American football, as the players' feet rarely have much
to do with the ball -- kicking the football is only allowed in certain situations and is most often inadvisable. The vast
majority of game time involves players holding the ball in their hands as they run. However, the sport is a direct descendant of
rugby union football (which in turn descended from soccer), as explained
below, and has retained the name.
In the remainder of this article, the word football refers to American football.
Professional, college, and other leagues
A college football game between Colorado State University and the Air Force Academy
Football is played at a number of levels in the United States and abroad. These include the following.
The descriptions on this page are based primarily on the current rules of the National Football League (NFL, 1920-present). Differences with college rules will be noted.
Professional, college, high school, and amateur rules are similar. The minor Arena Football League (1987-present) plays an indoor adaptation of American football, at a faster
pace, on a smaller field with no built-in sidelines -- the edges of the grid are coincident with padded walls similar to those
found in a baseball outfield. Flag football and touch football are non-tackle versions of American football.
Professional leagues that no longer exist include the World Football League (WFL,1974-75), the United States Football League (USFL,1983-1985), the XFL
(XFL,2001), the All-America Football
Conference (1946-1949), the World
League of American Football (WLAF,1991-1993-now NFL Europe), and ,the
American Football League (AFL,1960-1969). Since
2000, there has been a surge of women's professional leagues.
The game
Play in American football consists of a series of individual plays of short duration, between which the ball is not in play.
Substitutions are allowed between plays, which allows for a great deal of specialization, as coaches put in players they think
are best suited for any particular situation. The game is very tactical and strategic. With 22 players on the field at a time,
(eleven on each team), each with an assigned task for a given play, the strategies are complex.
Object of the game
The object of the game is to advance the ball to the opponents' end of the field and score points. The team with the most
points when time has expired wins.
Duration, kickoffs and free kicks
The game is 60 minutes long, divided into two halves separated by a halftime. Each half
consists of two quarters, each 15 minutes long. Teams change ends of the field after the first and third
quarters. If a game is tied at the end of regulation, overtime is played. Professional overtime periods are "sudden death", meaning
that the teams that scores first, by any means, wins. In college football, an overtime procedure ensures that each team has equal
opportunity to score.
A kickoff is a special play used to start each half, and also used to restart the game following a field
goal, or a conversion attempt following a touchdown. One team kicks the ball, usually from its own 30-yard line, although a
kickoff may occur elsewhere due to a penalty on the preceding play. (Note: the ball is usually kicked from the 35 yard line in
college football). The ball must be kicked from the ground (not punted) and in bounds at least 10 yards away. Once the ball has
traveled 10 yards upfield it can be fielded by either team. The ball is usually just kicked deep to the receiving team, but
sometimes a team will attempt to recover its own kick, in a play that is known as an onside kick.
A free kick is used to restart the game following a safety, which doesn't happen often. The team that was
trapped in its own end zone, and therefore conceded two points to the other team, kicks the ball from its own 20-yard line. A
free kick may be punted if the kicking team so chooses.
Methods of scoring
Points can be scored in the following ways.
- A field goal, worth 3 points, is scored by placing the
ball on the ground and kicking it between the uprights of the goal posts. (If a field goal is missed, the ball is returned to the
original line of scrimmage [in the NFL, the spot of the kick], and possession is given to the other team.)
- A touchdown, worth 6 points, is achieved when a player has
legal possession of the ball within the opponents' end zone. Scoring a touchdown is the ultimate goal of the offensive team.
- One or two extra points may be scored following a touchdown. The team which scored the touchdown is given a
conversion attempt (also called a "try"). The ball is spotted at the 2 yard line (NFL) or 3
yard line (college), and the team which scored the touchdown is allowed to run a single play in which they may score either one
or two additional points. The defending team can only score during a conversion attempt by the other team in college football,
where if a defender gets possession of the ball and carries it into the opposing end zone, his team gets two points. This rule
was adopted by the NCAA in 1990, but is not used
anywhere else.
- An extra point, worth 1 point, is scored in the same way
as a field goal is scored during regular play.
- A two-point conversion is scored in
the same way as a touchdown is scored during regular play.
- A safety, worth 2 points, is scored when a player is either
tackled or goes out of bounds within his own end zone, in either case while carrying the ball. A safety is also awarded to the
defensive team if the offensive team commits a penalty within its own end zone.
The field
The field is a rectangle 120 yards (109.73 metres) long and 53 1/3 yards (48.78 metres) wide, defined by
sidelines running the length of the field and endlines running the width. There is a
goal line ten yards in from each end line and parallel to it. The two goal lines are thus 100 yards (91.44
metres) apart. The area of the field between the goal lines is called the field of play. At each end of the
field, the end zone is the area between the goal line and the end line.
Within the field of play, additional markings include yard markers, as well as inbound lines
(also called hash marks), every yard the length of the field. The inbound lines (hash marks), which are short
lines perpendicular to the yard markers, are 70-3/4 feet from the sidelines in the NFL. (Note: the hash marks are closer to the
sidelines in college football) Every 5 yards, the yard markers run the width of the field, and every 10 yards, they are marked by
numbers indicating the distance, in yards, from the nearest goal line.
At the center of each end line is a set of goal posts, which have two upright posts extending above a
crossbar. The distance between upright posts is 18-1/2 feet, and the top of the crossbar is 10 feet above the ground.
Play of the game
A game consists of many individual plays. The vast majority of these are scrimmage plays. Each play from
scrimmage is one of a series of downs given to the team with possession. These two concepts, the
concept of scrimmage, and the concept of downs, are fundamental to American football, and are what distinguish it, as well as
Canadian football, from most other forms of football. However, rugby league does
have a similar system where each side is allowed to be tackled five times while in possession (see the entry for rugby league for
an explanation of the play-the-ball and the limited tackles rule).
A set of downs begins with a first down, which is given to a team either after it has just gained possession
on the previous play, or it has gained the necessary yardage from a previous set of downs. On a first down, the team with
possession is given four downs to gain 10 yards (they have "a first and ten", meaning that it is first down, and they need ten
yards to get another first down). The line a team must reach in order to gain a first down is technically called the line
to gain, although it is commonly called first down yardage. The team with possession is called the
offensive team, and the other team the defensive team.
Plays from scrimmage
Football players line up before the play during the 2002 annual Army-Navy college football game
Each down is a play from scrimmage. Prior to each play from scrimmage, the two teams line up on opposite sides of a
line of scrimmage, which is defined by the spot of the ball from the previous play. The spot is, in most cases,
the yard line at which the ball became dead on the previous play, plus or minus any penalty yardage. A down, or play from
scrimmage, begins with a snap and ends when the ball becomes dead for any reason. A snap is either a handoff
between the legs from the center to the quarterback, or it is a pass between the legs from the center to the quarterback, or
possibly to a player other than the quarterback, such as a punter or a holder for a field goal attempt. The ball may become dead,
ending the down, because a player in possession is tackled, or because his forward progress is stopped, or because he goes out of
bounds, or because a forward pass goes incomplete.
Advancing the ball
There are two methods that can be used to advance the ball while still maintaining possession:
- Running with the ball - The quarterback, who is the player that normally has the ball following the snap,
may run the ball but, more often, he either hands the ball, or throws a short pass to a running back, who then becomes the
ball carrier. Most other players on the offense have blocking assignments.
- A forward pass - A forward pass may only be thrown on
a play from scrimmage, and only from behind the line of scrimmage. It must be thrown to an eligible receiver
(any player who is not an interior lineman). A completed pass is one caught by an eligible receiver. The player
may run with the ball after catching it. An incomplete pass is any forward pass that either hits the ground or
goes out of bounds, at which point the ball becomes dead, and is spotted at the preceding line of scrimmage for the following
play. An interception is a pass caught by the defense, which transfers possession to the defending team, which
may then run with the ball.
It is important for the offense to run a variety of running and passing plays in order to keep the defense uncertain of the
next play. If the quarterback has two broken fingers on his throwing hand, for example, the defense can safely risk lining up in
a run defense for nearly every play, which should successfully squelch the offense's running backs.
Fourth down situations
If a team uses all four of its downs without gaining the yardage for a first down, possession goes to the other team. Fourth
down situations are therefore pivotal. The offense has three choices: "go for it", punt, or attempt a field goal.
Things the offense may decide to do on fourth down:
- "go for it" - despite the risk involved, a team may always elect to "go for it" on fourth down by making one
last all-out attempt to reach the first down marker, mounting a regular running or passing play to get there (just as they did on
the first three downs). This is most common when, thanks to a team's success on the first three downs, the distance required for
a first down is short; or when it is trailing late in the game by more than three points (the value of a field goal). The risk is
significant: failing to make the next first down gives the ball to the opposing team with what is probably much better field
position than a kick would leave them with. The safe thing to do is usually to kick the ball.
- punt - A team will punt in order to gain better field position.
- attempt a field goal - Field goal attempts must be made with the ball on the ground (they cannot be punted),
so a player called a holder holds the ball for a kicker. (In times past, a kicker might have
tried a "drop kick" -- that is, dropping the ball and kicking it after it bounces off the ground -- and if the kicker kicks it
through the goalposts, it is a field goal. This is difficult to do, as the ball is in the shape of a prolate spheroid and its
bounce is unpredictable. Nowadays, the only time you will see this is by a hurried kicker after a broken play.) Failed field goal
attempts, if they are short, can be returned by the opponent, but the ball usually goes past the end line and can't be returned.
If the field goal attempt fails, the ball is spotted at the original line of scrimmage, and possession is given to the other
team. (In the NFL, failed field goal attempts are spotted at the spot of the kick.)
A team will occasionally run a trick play on fourth down. They will line up as if to punt or attempt a field goal, but will
instead run the ball or pass it in an attempt to pick up a first down.
Specialized units and players
With its unlimited substitutions, American football is highly specialized, with most teams having three specialized units: an
offensive unit, a defensive unit, and special teams. There are many
specialized players within each units. Some players may only be used in certain situations. (for details see: offensive unit, defensive
unit, special teams.)
Penalties
Some of the more common penalties are listed below. In most cases the offending team will be assessed a penalty of 5, 10 or 15
yards, depending on the infraction. There may also be a loss of down for a penalty against the offense. A penalty against the
defense may result in an automatic first down. In some cases, the offense will be given the option of declining the penalty and
taking the yardage gained on the play. For some infractions by the defense, the penalty is applied in addition to the yardage
gained on the play. Most of a number of personal fouls, which involve danger to another player, carry 15-yard
penalties.
- Note: The neutral zone is the space defined by lines drawn through the ends of the ball parallel to
the yard lines when the ball is spotted and ready for play. No player may legally have any part of his body in the neutral when
the ball is snapped, with the exception of the center.
Penalties against the offense
- False start (5 yards) - a lineman moving before the snap in a way that simulates the start of the play
- Illegal motion (5 yards) - having more than one back in motion at the snap, or a man in motion moving
forward at the time of the snap
- Illegal shift (5 yards) - not being set before the snap
- Illegal formation (5 yards) - having fewer than 7 players on the line of scrimmage
- Delay of game (5 yards) - allowing too much time to elapse before the snap
- Ineligible receiver downfield (5 yards) - a lineman beyond the neutral zone prior to a forward pass
- Illegal forward pass (5 yards and loss of down) - thrown from beyond the neutral zone, or a second forward
pass on the same play.
- Holding (10 yards) - illegal use of the hands or arms while blocking
- Offensive pass interference (10 yards) - interfering with a defender attempting to catch a pass
- Intentional grounding (10 yards and loss of down) - throwing the ball into the ground to avoid being
tackled
- Illegal block in the back (10 yards) - an illegal block from behind and above the waist
- Clipping (15 yards) - an illegal block from behind and below the waist
- Illegal block (15 yards) - usually a "crackback block".
Penalties against the defense
- Offsides (5 yards) - making contact with an offensive lineman before the ball is snapped. or being in the
neutral zone when the ball is snapped. The offense can decline the penalty and take the yardage gained on the play.
- Running into the kicker (5 yards) - during a kick from scrimmage
- Pass interference - in the NFL, an automatic first down and the ball is moved forward to the location of the
interference -- a devastating penalty if the play was a long pass. In college and high school football, 15 yards and an automatic
first down.
- Piling on (15 yards)
- Roughing the kicker (15 yards) - tackling the kicker after he has kicked the ball
- Roughing the passer (15 yards) - tackling the quarterback after he has thrown a forward pass
Penalties against either team
- Too many players on the field (5 yards)
- Grabbing the face mask (5 or 15 yards) - if intentional, 15 yards; if unintentional, 5 yards. Just touching
an opponent's face mask, without grabbing it, is not illegal.
Development of the game
American football in its current form grew out of a series of three games between Harvard University and McGill University
of Montreal in 1874. McGill played by the
Rugby Union code while Harvard played the Boston Game, which was closer to Association Football. As often happened in those days of far from
universal rules, the teams alternated rules so that both would have a fair chance. The Harvard players liked having the
opportunity to run with the ball, and in 1875 persuaded Yale University to adopt Rugby Union rules for their annual game. In 1876 Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, which used the Rugby Union
code, except for a slight difference in scoring.
In 1880 Walter Camp introduced the scrimmage in place of the rugby
scrum. In 1882 the system of downs was introduced to thwart
Princeton's and Yale's strategy of controlling the ball without trying to score. In 1883 the number of players was reduced, at
Camp's urging, to eleven, and Camp introduced the soon standard arrangement of a seven-man offensive line with a quarterback, two
halfbacks, and a fullback.
On September 3, 1895 the first
professional football game was played, in Latrobe,
Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club. (Latrobe won
the contest 12-0.).
By the 1890s interlocking offensive formations such as the flying wedge had made the
game extremely dangerous. Despite restrictions on the flying wedge and other precautions, in 1905 eighteen players were killed in games. President Theodore Roosevelt informed the universities that the game must be made safer.
In 1906, two rival organizing bodies, the Intercollegiate Rules Committee and the Intercollegiate Athletic Association, met in New York; eventually they agreed on
several new rules intended to make the game safer, among them the addition of a neutral zone between the scrimmage lines and a
requirement that at least six players from each team line up on them. The most far-reaching innovation they considered, though,
was the legalization of the forward pass. This was very controversial at the time, much derided by purists. As an alternative
means of opening out the play, Walter Camp would have preferred widening the field; but representatives from Harvard pointed to
recently constructed Harvard
Stadium, which could not be widened, and the forward pass was adopted; it has come to shape the whole history of American
football, as opposed to its cousins around the world.
In 1910, after further deaths, interlocking formations were finally outlawed; and in
1912 the field was changed to its current size, the value of a touchdown increased to 6
points, and a fourth down added to each posession. The game had achieved its modern form.
Beyond recreation and entertainment
Football and drugs
Contemporary football players are larger than their predecessors of only 30 or 40 years ago. It is quite normal, for instance,
for all the members of the offensive line of a major college or professional team to weigh more than 300 pounds (136 kg.),
whereas in the 1960's linemen who weighed only 270 pounds were common. The increase in player size has led to a increase in the
frequency and severity of injuries.
Since nutritional standards and weight-training technique were already quite advanced even in the 1960's, it has been
conjectured that much of the increase in the size of the players is the result of the widespread availability of illegal anabolic steroids, which facilitate increased growth of muscle tissue. Such
drugs are widely available even to high school players.
Because anabolic steroids have dangerous side effects, the National Football League tests its players for steroids, and
penalizes those who are caught. However, it has recently emerged that new varieties of steroids are being developed in
clandestine laboratories, which elude existing drug tests. Hence there is a kind of "arms race" between the scientists who
develop new kinds of illegal steroids and those who develop tests to detect them.
Injuries
Despite the helmets and heavy padding worn by all players on the field, injuries are common in football. An "Injury Report"
section is ubiquitous in American newspapers' sports sections, detailing, for each injured player on each team, his injury and
the amount of time he is expected to be out. Around the middle of each week, subject to a fine, all NFL teams report the status
of their injured players as "out" (will not play in the coming game); "doubtful" (25% chance of playing); "questionable" 50%
chance of playing); or "probable" (75% chance of playing). (Similar systems are used in all American professional sports.)
The NFL has a roster limit of 53 players per team during the season; 45 of which dress for a game plus an "emergency
quarterback" who only plays if all the quarterbacks on the 45-man roster are out of the game. Players who are injured are
frequently among the eight that do not dress. If it becomes certain that a player will not play for the rest of the season, the
team may put him on the "Injured Reserve" list and replace the player on the roster.
An average of about eight players die each year in the United States as a result of injuries received in games at all levels.
About 160 concussions occur every season, and the National Football League now collects benchmark measures of awareness for each
player, which can be used during a game to judge whether he has been concussed.
Injuries sustained by football players often are permanent. Many former football players experience pain, sometimes severe,
that lasts for the rest of their lives. Many players require surgery, even multiple surgeries, for injuries experienced years
earlier.
Interestingly, newspaper reporters who have interviewed former football players who are crippled or in pain as a result of
their former sport find that a player will never (or virtually never) express regret over his choice of career. The players often
state that the thrill of playing football was worth the price of a lifetime of subsequent pain.
Deaths and long-term disability attributed to illegal use of anabolic steroids have become a new factor in this picture,
starting in about the 1990s.
Instances of heat-related death, especially during professional practice sessions, have begun receiving press attention in the
decade of the 2000s, and led to new standards intended to respond cautiously to possible
danger signs that traditionally had been ignored. There is also the prospect that conventional first-aid technique has been in
error, and an apparatus to circumvent this: apparently efforts to cool an overheated patient quickly, by wetting a large fraction
of the body, are misguided, with the sudden chilling of the skin causing the body to reduce superficial circulation, and making
that chilling near the surface ineffective at cooling the core of the body and thus the brain. A device suitable for professional
teams has been developed, that provides for rapid cooling of small areas of skin where large blood vessels are near the surface,
and is proposed as a means of cooling the blood quickly without evoking the reflex of isolating the body surface from the
core.
What's it all about?
Football is in many ways a sport apart, among those traditional in America. George Carlin has monologized at length on its contrasts with baseball, which is traditionally called "the American pastime":
Football is about "ground control" and played on a "gridiron" of exact dimensions, while baseball is about "going home", and
played in "parks" that are all different from one another, and so on. Such observations, however humorous, would be widely
regarded as at least hints about some of the nature and significance of the game.
Character building
It is a widespread American doctrine that participation in team sports, including football in particular, inculcates
worthwhile habits and values in the players. Leadership (at least for quarterbacks and exemplary players), identification with a
group, aggressiveness where called for, the setting of personal goals, and sustaining commitment to these, are often
mentioned.
Football scandals
There is a long history in the second half of the 20th
century of controversy over the tension in college football between values important to the institutions' academic missions
and the team's win-and-loss record. Many observers attribute to football skill a excessive role in winning admission for
prospective players; they by and large regard this as an ongoing scandal. Measures that are seen as effective in maintaining
players' academic eligibility but not in furthering their graduation or competence in their fields of study attract similar
criticism.
In the decade of the 2000s, the increasing economic stakes in sports, changed
attitudes outside football regarding acceptable behaviour towards women, and the perception of uncontrolled use of steroids, all
have played a part in an increase in public concern about football's role. Many suggest that the status and other rewards
accruing to players encourages arrogance in general, and in particular, both an assumption of privilege and an expectation of
immunity from consequences. It is also suggested that
- steroid-using players are markedly more aggressive both on and off the field,
- their teammates and opponents grow accustomed to excessive aggression, and
- both groups are predisposed to treat women they encounter, especially in the presence of their sports colleagues, in a
disrespectful, aggressive, and sometimes sexually coercive manner.
This issue came to a head early in 2004 during a series of sex scandals that rocked the
football program at the University of
Colorado. The school's head football coach, Gary Barnett, in responding to the charge by his only female player that a teammate had raped her, accused her of being an incompetent player. Almost
immediately after his remarks, Barnett was placed on administrative leave, but was later reinstated after a committee that
reviewed the Colorado football program placed most of the blame for the scandals on higher-ups. The aggressive image of football
and the amounts of money involved can support the perception of its being the "last bastion" of sports administrators likely to
wink at abuses; close scrutiny and drawing of parallels with Barnett can be expected in any case that is claimed to suggest
coddling anti-social players.
See also:
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