If you’re unfamiliar with some of the basic rules which govern American football, Ryan Grigson continue reading on to discover a handy, fool proof guide to understanding American football.
After all, there’s nothing worse than having to sit and watch a sports game, when you don’t understand the objective of the game or its rules.
Understanding American Football:
1. The major objective of American football is to try and score as many touch downs as possible
For every touch down which a team scores by successfully getting a player to place their football on to their team’s end zone, they will earn 6 points for their team. After scoring a touch down, the lucky team who just scored a touch down will try and earn an extra bonus point, by trying to kick a football through the uprights.
However, there is another way in which players can earn points for their team. In American football the second way to earn points, is to score a field goal. However, field goals are only worth 3 points, which is half the amount of points which players score if they manage to complete a touchdown.
2. Unlike most other sports, defensive players can also earn points for their team
While in the vast majority of sports such as basketball and soccer, defensive players can not score points for their team by preventing their opposition from scoring, in American Football, defensive players are able to score valuable points for their team. Which makes American Football even more exciting to watch.
You may be wondering how a defensive player can earn points for their team. If one or more defensive players manage to successfully tackle an offensive player to the ground in their opponents end-zone their team will be awarded 2 points for their valiant efforts.
3. Each team fields 11 players
At any given time, there should be 22 players on the field, 11 players from each team.
4. Each game takes over an hour to play
American football is comprised of four, fifteen minute periods. However, when the ball is thrown or kicked out of play, the time on the official’s stopwatch is paused. So most games of professional football usually take a minimum of one hour to play out. Also keep in mind that in a professional game, players will be given a 15 minute half time break in order to recuperate from running around on a large field for 15 minutes.
5. Time outs are a tactical part of American Football
In each half of the game, the coach of a team can use three time outs, in order to get their team to regroup and discuss possible strategies. Often, when a coach chooses to utilize their team’s time outs, can decide which team ends up victorious and which team suffers a crushing defeat.
If you previously knew nothing about the objective of American Football and its basic rules, hopefully you now have a basic understanding of America’s number game sport. After all, you’ll have so much more fun watching football, if you understand some of its rules.