football players

American football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, is a competitive team sport. The object of the game is to score points by advancing the football into the opposing team's end zone. The ball can be advanced by carrying the ball, or by throwing or handing it from one teammate to the other. Points can be scored in a variety of ways, including carrying the ball over the goal line, throwing the ball to another player past the goal line or kicking it through the goal posts on the opposing side. The winner is the team with the most points when the time expires and the last play ends.

Outside of the United States and Canada, the sport is usually referred to as American football (or sometimes as gridiron or gridiron football) to differentiate it from other football games, especially association football (soccer), Rugby League, rugby union and Australian Rules Football. In Japan, it is referred to as "amefuto" (an abbreviation). American football evolved as a separate sport from rugby union in the late 19th century. Arena football is an invented variant of American football. Canadian football, which also descended from rugby, is closely related to the American sport with a few key differences; the word "football" in Canada can mean American football or Canadian football depending on context.^[1] Many in both Canada and the northern United States consider American and Canadian football to be variants of the same game.

Popularity

Since the 1960s, football has outranked baseball as the most popular spectator sport in the United States.^[2]

The 32-team National Football League (NFL) is the most popular and only major professional American football league. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, is watched by nearly half of U.S. television households and is also televised in over 150 other countries. Super Bowl Sunday, the day of the game, has become an unofficial February holiday in the U.S. Football is also the most watched sport on television in the country.

The NFL also operates a developmental league, NFL Europe, with teams in five German cities, and one in the Netherlands.

College football is also extremely popular throughout North America. Four college football stadiums seat more than 100,000 fans — which regularly sell out. Even high school football games can attract five-figure crowds in some areas. The weekly autumn ritual of college and high-school football — which includes marching bands, cheerleaders and parties (including the ubiquitous tailgate party) — is an important part of the culture in much of smalltown America. It is a long-standing tradition in the United States (though not universally observed) that high school football games are played on Friday, college games on Saturday, and professional games on Sunday (with an additional professional game on Monday nights — see Monday Night Football).

Certain fall and winter holidays — most notably Thanksgiving and New Years' Day — have traditional football games associated with them.

Football is also played recreationally by amateur club and youth teams (e.g., the Pop Warner little-league programs). There are also many "semi-pro" teams in leagues where the players are paid to play, but at a small enough salary that they generally must also hold a full-time job.

Pro football is played in the United States and in the above-mentioned NFL Europe league. The professional Canadian Football League plays under Canadian rules. The sport is popular as an amateur activity in Mexico and American Samoa and to a lesser extent in Japan, Europe and Australia.

Organized football is played almost exclusively by men and boys, although a few amateur and semi-professional women's leagues have begun play in recent years.

Players

Main article: American football positions

As noted above, most football players have highly specialized roles. At the college and NFL levels, most play only offense or only defense.

Offense

• The offensive line consists of five players whose job is to protect the passer and clear the way for runners by blocking members of the defense. Except for the center, offensive linemen generally do not handle the ball.
• The quarterback (QB) receives the ball on most plays. He then hands or tosses it to a running back, throws it to a receiver or runs with it himself.
• Running backs line up behind or beside the QB and specialize in rushing with the ball. They also block, catch passes and, on rare occasions, pass the ball to others.
• Wide receivers line up near the sidelines. They specialize in catching passes.
• Tight ends line up outside the offensive line. They can either play like wide receivers (try to catch passes) or like offensive linemen (protect the QB or create spaces for runners).

Not all of these types of players will be in on every offensive play. Teams can vary the number of wide receivers, tight ends and running backs on the field at one time.

Defense

• The defensive line consists of three to six players who line up across from the offensive line. They try to tackle the running backs before they can gain yardage or the quarterback before he can throw a pass.
• At least three players line up as defensive backs. They cover the receivers and try to stop pass completions. They occasionally rush the quarterback.
• The other players on the defense are known as linebackers. They line up between the defensive line and defensive backs and may either rush the quarterback or cover potential receivers.

Special teams

The units of players who handle kicking plays are known as special teams. Two important special-teams players are the punter, who handles punts, and the placekicker or kicker, who kicks off and attempts field goals and extra points. It is rare, but not unheard of, for these two positions to be filled by the same player. The reasoning behind this is because the kicking actions of the punter and placekicker are very different. It is even possible for a team to carry three kickers. One to punt, one to kick off, and one to handle PATs and field goals.

Basic strategy

Main article: American football strategy

To some fans, the chief draw of football is the chess game that goes on between the two coaching staffs. Each team has a playbook of dozens to hundreds of plays. Ideally, each play is a scripted, strategically sound team-coordinated endeavour. Some plays are very safe; they are likely to get only a few yards. Other plays have the potential for long gains but at a greater risk of a loss of yardage or a turnover.

Generally speaking, rushing plays are less risky than passing plays. However, there are relatively safe passing plays and risky running plays. To deceive the other team, some passing plays are designed to resemble running plays and vice versa. There are many trick or gadget plays, such as when a team lines up as if it intends to punt and then tries to run or pass for a first down. Such high-risk plays are a great thrill to the fans when they work. However, they can spell disaster if the opposing team realizes the deception and acts accordingly.

It has been suggested that football is the sport that most closely resembles real war strategically.^{citation needed]} It is by far the most popular sport in the American military. In fact, the United States Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy, and the United States Air Force Academy each field football teams that participate in Division I-A of the NCAA. Army and Navy have a particularly historic rivalry.

Physicality of the game

American football is a collision sport. To stop the offense from advancing the ball, the defense must tackle the player with the ball by knocking him down. As such, defensive players must use some form of physical contact to bring the ball-carrier to the ground, within certain rules and guidelines. Tacklers cannot kick, punch or trip the runner. They also cannot grab the face mask of the runner's helmet or lead into a tackle with their own helmet. Despite these and other rules regarding unnecessary roughness, most other forms of tackling are legal. Blockers and defenders trying to evade them also have wide leeway in trying to force their opponents out of the way. Quarterbacks are regularly hit by defenders coming on full speed from outside the quarterback's field of vision.

When played by adults, the high level of physical contact in football makes it more dangerous than other major American team sports, although among younger players the injury rate in football is lower than in soccer and similar to the rate in baseball.^[3] To compensate for this, players must wear a good deal of special protective equipment, such as a padded plastic helmet, shoulder pads, hip pads and knee pads. These protective "pads" were introduced decades ago and improved ever since to help minimize lasting injury to players. However, increased padding has allowed players to make harder hits; though there are fewer minor injuries in American football than in other codes of football, some types of serious injuries such as spinal cord injuries are much more common. It is interesting to note, however, that association football (soccer) players suffer concussions about as often as American football players.^[4]

Despite protective equipment and rule changes to emphasize safety, injuries remain very common in football, due to its physical nature. Twenty-five football players, mostly high schoolers, died from injuries directly related to football from 2000-2004, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research. Concussions are common, with about 41,000 suffered every year among high school players according to the Brain Injury Association of Arizona. [1]. The game is particularly risky when played by amateurs without proper gear, such as is common amongst Americans in backyards and parks across the country.

Some have criticized American football as a violent sport. American football is indeed quite physical in comparison to other major American team sports, such as basketball and baseball. Tackle football is often banned in American schoolyards in favor of touch football, which uses two-hand touching instead of tackling; or flag football in which a player is "tackled" when an opponent pulls a flag off a belt attached to the player's waist. School physical education classes often use the "two-hand touch" version of the game, leaving the tackles to the school's official after-school sports program which can provide the appropriate gear and supervision.

The level of physical aggression and risk of injury has also made football less appealing to some females, as they generally lack the muscle and body mass to compete without serious risk. ^{verification needed]} The tackle nature of football also tends to favor the largest and strongest players, along with the fastest. The average weight of players in the NFL has increased in recent years.

All these factors have brought the sport into controversy in the past few decades, joining the group of other "violent" and thus controversial sports such as wrestling, hockey, and boxing. Critics argue that these sports emphasize size, physical strength, and brute force, and also that they breed aggression and unhealthy competitive attitudes in children. Others argue that such sports teach sportsmanship and teamwork, and though contact sports are all violent to some degree, they always emphasize skill and strategy over mere belligerence.

History

Main article: History of American football

Both American football and soccer have their origins in varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, and American football is directly descended from rugby football.

Rugby was first introduced to North America in Canada, brought by the British Army garrison in Montreal which played a series of games with McGill University. (See Comparison of American football and rugby union and Comparison of American football and rugby league.)

Both Canadian and American football evolved from this point. For an in-depth overview of the differences and similarities of Canadian football and American football see: Comparison of Canadian and American football.

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 rugby football while Harvard played the Boston Game, which was closer to soccer. 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 rules for their annual game. In 1876 Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, which used the rugby code, except for a slight difference in scoring.

(The game played between Rutgers and Princeton Universities on November 6, 1869 is sometimes described as the first football game in the U.S., although it "bore little resemblance" to today's football [2] because it was played using a variation of the then-rules of Association Football, i.e. "soccer." Both Rutgers and Princeton stopped using those rules within a few years and adopted the rules of rugby as played at Harvard and its competitors, which they continue to use.)

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 and the practice of teammates physically dragging ball-carrying players forward 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. To force them to respond to his concerns, he threatened to pressure Congress to make playing football a federal crime.

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 possession. The game had achieved its modern form.

Problems

Main article: Issues in American football

Injuries are more common in American football than in many other sports, although rule changes made in the past 90 years (for instance, the elimination of "horse-collar tackles") have gradually lowered the rates of injuries. In addition, protective equipment has become better - for example, the optional leather helmets introduced during the 1890s have been replaced (in several stages) by required high-tech padded plastic helmets with bars protecting the face. Modern field turf is seen as another danger-adding element in the game of football. Artificial turf offers less "give" than grass, and can exert much greater forces on the players' bodies. While it guarantees a certain state of the play field, and enables players to run faster, it has also been shown to cause more injuries, most notably ankle injuries.

Steroid use has become an object of debate in professional, college, and even high school football leagues.

Cost of specialized helmets, uniforms, and pads dwarfs the costs of gear for such other sports as baseball, basketball, track, and soccer. Many believe that football teams based in schools and public recreational leagues consume far more than their fair share of the sports budget, although sales of tickets to college (and to some extent high school) football games often make it a revenue-producing sport, absorbing all or part of the cost of equipment.

Leagues, Organizations, and Associations

United States

Football is played at a number of levels in the United States. These include the following:

• National Football League (NFL) - the top-level men's professional league
• College Football - played at many U.S. colleges and mostly governed by the NCAA. Other organizations include the NAIA and the NJCAA.
• Arena Football (AFL) - professional indoor-football league.
• Alliance Football League - semi-pro/minor league playing in Tennessee, Georgia, West Virginia, and Virginia
• American Football Association - semi-pro/minor league
• North American Football League - Amateur minor league with more than 100 member organizations since 1996
• Women's American football - since 2000, there has been a surge of women's professional leagues.
• High School Football - played at most U.S. High Schools
• Pop Warner or youth football - involves younger children who are too young to play high school, generally in middle school.
• Sprint football - players must weigh no more than 172 pounds
• Okinawan Football League - Various football teams made up of U.S. servicemembers
• Mid Continental Football League - semi-pro league playing in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan.

Canada

• Canadian Football League (CFL) - Top-level of professional Canadian football
• Canadian Junior Football League (CJFL) - amateur Canadian football league
• Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) - university level Canadian football
• Alberta Football League
• Quebec Bantam Football League

Internationally

American football is also played in many nations around the world. These include:

• International Federation of American Football International governing body for American football with 45 member associations from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. The IFAF also oversees the American Football World Cup which is held every four years. Japan has won the first two World Cups held in 1999 and 2003.
• Europe
  • NFL Europe - professional league in Europe, playing for the World Bowl (XIV in 2006)
  • European Federation of American Football European organization who runs the Eurobowl (XX in 2006)
  • German Football League
    • List of American football teams in Germany
  • American Football in the Netherlands
    • American Football Bond Nederland (AFBN)
    • List of American football teams in the Netherlands
  • Britain
    • British Collegiate American Football League (BCAFL) - Fast-growing college football league in the UK
    • British American Football League (BAFL) -Higher League of American Football in the UK
  • Irish American-football league
  • Norway American Football Federation
  • Finnish Maple League (Vaahteraliiga) - Over 20 teams on three different levels. NCAA rules
• American Football New Zealand - national body of American Football in New Zealand
• Gridiron Australia - national body of several state-level leagues
• Mexican College Football League or ONEFA - played by many Mexican colleges, with essentially NCAA rules
• Israeli Football League (IFL) - Three teams, Haifa Underdogs, Tel Aviv Pioneers, Tel Aviv Sabres
• Japan's X-League

Alternate Rulesets

Other kinds of American football with modified or derived rules:

• Arena Football League - mid-level men's professional league played indoors. There is also a "minor league" for Arena Football called AF2.
• National Indoor Football League - Similar to Arena Football, but with some rule modifications and generally featuring lower echelon players.
• Nine-man football, eight-man football and six-man football - variations of high school football, usually played in sparsely populated areas (especially in rural areas of the west)
• Amateur and youth league football
• Flag football and Touch football - non-tackle; almost exclusively amateur

Defunct Leagues

Professional leagues that no longer exist:

• All-America Football Conference (AAFC, 1946-1949) (2 teams are now in the NFL)
• American Football Leagues (AFL), four separate ones: I:1926, II: 1936-37, III: 1940-1941 and IV: 1960-1969. The fourth AFL (1960-1969) merged with the NFL in 1970 and now exists (mostly) as the AFC with several new teams. The old NFL appeared as the NFC.
• World Football League (WFL, 1974-75)
• United States Football League (USFL, 1983-1985)
• World League of American Football (WLAF, 1991-1993 — reformed as NFL Europe)
• XFL (XFL, 2001)

Further information: List of leagues of American football

Misc. Terminology

Further information: American football glossary

Footnotes

1. ^ An Association for Canadian Studies survey finds that more Canadians watch the National Football League than the Canadian Football League (PDF file), but both codes are popular in Canada.
2. ^ MacCambridge, Michael. America's Game, Random House, 2004.
3. ^ http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/110/3/e28
4. ^ http://darwin.nap.edu/books/0309083443/html/1.html

References

• Digest of Rules. National Football League. Retrieved on December 28, 2005.
• History and the basics. National Football League. Retrieved on December 28, 2005.
• Playing with the Percentages When Trailing by Two Touchdowns. Montana State University. Retrieved on December 24, 2005.

See also

• American football strategy
• National Women's Football Association
• Canadian Football League
• German Football League
• American football glossary
• List of American football players
• Pro Football Hall of Fame
• List of defunct sports leagues
• Fantasy Football
• Gridiron football
• Arena Football
• Official (American football)

External links

• NCAA [3] (complete college football rules are available as a PDF file)
• Movie of 1903 football game between the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan
• Chronology of many events in the NFL
• National Football League Official Signals.
• Annual Survey of Football Injury Research