Basic Football for Dummies
American football or football, a more popular name among Canadians and Americans, is a strategic game of earning points by way of advancing the ball beyond the opponent’s goal line. Each successful attempt gives a team point’s.
Although the game seems complicated for people who don’t know a thing about football, it is actually a very simplistic game by nature, complicated only by current advances in strategies and game play. Thus, if one understands how the basic football goes, it would be easy to traverse through the complicated image it often gives to football dummies.
The main objective of the game
The game’s main and only objective is to score points by advancing the ball towards the goal line of the opponent. There are two ways by which this can be facilitated. First is by carrying the ball over the goal line of the other team and second, by throwing the ball to a teammate who is in a strategic zone or somewhere near the goal line.
The scores can be earned through different means as there are different types of scores. The most popular is the touchdown which embodies the whole idea of delivering the ball mano-a-mano towards the opposing team’s goal line by painstakingly tackling opponents. Other types of scoring are extra point conversion, two point conversion, safety, field goal and the rarely used method of fair catch kick.
The Football Field
If you’re trying to learn football just for the sake of understanding the game, then it is not important to learn the technicalities of the field, the measurements and the exact dimensions. But for basic knowledge, the following details might be helpful:
- The entire field is 120 yards by 160 yards but the playing field occupies only 100 yards.
- The stripes running across the entire field have 5 yards interval but markings are made every 10 yards.
- At both ends of the field are the goal line, this is where all players go to score.
- The goal posts are located at the most rear section of the playing field.
- The entire playing field is divided by the 50-yard line from which descending yardage markers begin.
The Teams
There are two teams for each game, each with a maximum of 11 players each. Each team may be composed of specialized teams such as defense team, offense team and other teams with special objectives.
How does the game begin?
The game will begin by first determining which team is on the offensive. The ball will then be kicked by either team. The game will end when the time runs out. The winner is the team with the higher score.
Tags: american football, basic knowledge, football field, football players