American Football - tell me about

2) The offensive coordinator and head coach normally share offensive playcalling duties, but there are times when the QB can tell the play won't work based on the defense's alignment. In those instances, the QB calls an audible (Peyton Manning does this often), ie calling a new play at the line of scrimmage. Defensive playcalling is called by the defensive coordinator, and if they need to audible, the middle linebacker handles it.

3) Not sure I understand this one.

I think you have a fumble confused with an incomplete pass, which is a pass that is not caught and is therefore a dead play. There are also occasions when the O fumbles the ball and it goes out of bounds. Offense maintains posession.

2)who calls the moves? QB, Head Coach, Defence Coach etc.

Offensive Coordinator these days...

3) Receiving kicks. Sometimes a touchdown, sometimes a return (this REAlly confuses me.

A kick return is always a kick return. Sometimes it's returned of a touchdown. Sometimes it's just returned for 10 or 15 yards...

On a kickoff (the ball kicked off a tee from the kicking team's 30-yard line) the ball: a) is live and may be recovered by the kicking team after it travels ten yards, b) may not be kicked out of bounds without a penalty (receving team gets the ball on its own 40-yard line).

Sometimes the guy who catches the ball (almost exclusively on punts) makes a "fair catch," i.e. he must be permitted to catch the ball without interference and cannot be hit, but cannot advance the ball. This is to prevent the catchers from being killed.

(a punt that goes out of bounds becomes the receiving team's ball at the point where it crossed the plane of the sideline)

I have this feeling things really got unnecessarily complicated the more technology became involved. Like instant replay, so that if it seems the player isn't down & has fumbled the ball, now we get to sit there and wait while they do a challenge and rerun the video twenty times. Guys, just don't fumble the ball.

Someday I will learn all the names of the formations. someday...

A touchback can also happen if the defense recovers a fumble or an interception in their own end zone.

As to playing teams in the other "league": The NFL contains an AFC and an NFC, but they're really just two meta-divisions within the same league. Teams play the teams in their own division (i.e. the NFC East) the most frequently, and the teams in the other "meta-division" (i.e. the AFC East) least frequently, and the teams in their own "meta-division" but not in their division (i.e. the NFC West) with a middling amount of frequency.

I believe that under the current schedule, teams play 4 games against teams in the other conference (AFC. vs. NFC), 6 games within their own division (2 against each of the other 3 teams) and then 6 games outside of their division but within their conference.

THis is also a piss poor rule whose alternqative was the best thing about ye-auld XFL

As previously mentioned, a "fumble" only occurs when the ball is in the possession of a player and only when they are not making an attempt to throw the ball in a forwards direction. If you lateral (a pass made to another player that is horizontal or behind the player throwing) and the ball is not caught, its fair game for either team to pick up. If the ball is touched during a kickoff return by the team recieving, but is not picked up, and carried, it too is fair game. However, if one is in the act of throwing a ball in a forwards direction, and the ball is knocked out, or, if the forward passer has the ball in the clinch (imagine making a forward pass and not doing so, but having your hand not yet meet your body), it is not a fumble, but instead ruled an incomplete pass.

I'm sure I lost you there.

>>3) Receiving kicks. Sometimes a touchdown, sometimes a return (this REAlly confuses me<<

I think you're getting "touchback" confused with "touchdown". A touchback occurs during a kickoff when the recieving team fields the ball within their own end zone and simply kneels on it. No points are awarded and the ball is moved to the 20 yard line. The ball *must* be fielded in the end zone. If it is fielded on the playing field and brought back into the end zone, it is a safety, and the kicking team recieves 2 points. To further confuse matters, during kickoffs, the recieving team may choose to waive off a return and take a "fair catch", which allows the player to catch the ball and not be hit. However, after catching the ball, the play is dead and the spot at which the ball was caught is the new place of possession (penalties not withstanding). If the team chooses to return it, they may score for a touchdown, if they avoid the 11 players of the opposing team who will most certainly be trying to tackle them.

Hope that gibberish clears some stuff up.

-
Alan

am i correct in thinking the ball would get placed at the yard-line at which the fumble occured, rather than where it went out of bounds ?
(otherwise an offence could 'fumble' its way to a first down)

ha i've been enjoying NFL on UK TV for 20 seasons and i still don't get alot of the positional/play jargon or understand the occasional rule/decision - it took me longest to understand how good clock management works and why timeouts get used at certain points by defences

i still haven't absorbed the relevance of the off-centre left/right hashmarks - does the ball get spotted on these according to which side of the field the previous play finished at ? if an offense is getting to field-goal range can they play for getting it onto one side or the other in the preceding play, to allow for the footed-ness of the kicker ?

the attention to refereeing and the replay stuff is one of the things i like most about NFL - i hate this 'it's all in the game' excuse some ppl use to wave away dodgy decisions in sport - & it is a bursty/intermittent game by design so it doesn't exactly spoil the 'flow' to wait 2 mins for accuracy - they keep waiting that long for commercials don't they ?
(actually, is that true - do the officials call 'timeouts' during televised games for the networks to run ads?)

i'm amazed at just how much detail the commentators can spot on any given play

Exactly. This is even more important in the college game, where the hash marks are wider and the kickers poorer.

Yes. More than likely, you'll see the team try to center the ball with a couple of running plays.

>>the attention to refereeing and the replay stuff is one of the things i like most about NFL - i hate this 'it's all in the game' excuse some ppl use to wave away dodgy decisions in sport - & it is a bursty/intermittent game by design so it doesn't exactly spoil the 'flow' to wait 2 mins for accuracy - they keep waiting that long for commercials don't they ?
(actually, is that true - do the officials call 'timeouts' during televised games for the networks to run ads?)<<

You know, I'm not sure. Commercials generally only occur after lapses in play (touchdowns, field goals, 2 minute warnings, sometimes possession changes). I believe its just sort of relayed to everyone via radio, but I can't remember off the top of my head. Really, fans generally complain about this and would like less commercial breaks to keep the game flowing. Players typically don't mind as much because some of them make money off their spots that play TV. =)
-
Alan

It actually is where the ball goes out of bounds. While this is a great way to get extra yardage, it is also a great way to turn the ball over (since the shape of the football makes it very difficult to ensure that you'll get a good bounce). I'm sure that if you throw it intentionally on the ground forward, you'll get penalized for an illegal forward pass, also.

ha i've been enjoying NFL on UK TV for 20 seasons and i still don't get alot of the positional/play jargon or understand the occasional rule/decision - it took me longest to understand how good clock management works and why timeouts get used at certain points by defences

On defense, there are certain formations that go w/ the down situation; if a team must get 10 yards or more, the defense shifts to a dime ($0.10), where one linebacker is taken out and an additional defensive back is in. There's also nickel formations (5 yards).

As for why a defense will call time out (if I'm reading what you say as not understanding it yet) is because near the end of a game and their team is losing, the opposing offense wants to get rid of as much time as possible on the clock. So the D stops the clock by calling TO.

QB - guy who throws the ball, has his hand underneath the balls of a bentover man.

Wide Receiver - Tall & strong guy who runs past line of scrimmage and catches balls thrown to him.

Running Back - shorter than WR & stronger; QB hands him the ball and he runs.

Offensive linemen - fat guys on offense who line up on scrimmage.

Tight End - bigger and stronger than WR. They are hybrid of lineman and WR.

Defense:
Cornerback/Safety - smaller but faster (sometimes) guys who cover the receivers; in tandem, they are known as the secondary.

Defensive linemen - fat guys on defense who line up on scrimmage.

Linebackers - usually very strong, buff guys who play in between the secondary and the defensive linemen.

one thing that still gets me is that 'zone defence' seems to be so generally lame compared to man-to-man or blitzing: i've lost count of the number of games i've seen where a team needing to make a comeback late in the game seems able to go into a no-huddle or so-called '2 minute' offense, and is almost ALLOWED to march down the field into field-goal or redzone positions, just by getting receivers past the first-down marker on each play, and chucking the ball to them - all that seems to happen is the defence concentrates on tackling R's asap after the catch is made & stopping them tacking on yards after. Is the idea that this is 'safer' coverage, that it avoids D's being burned by one big play ?

but there seems little advantage to that approach with a Field-Goal sized lead: and aren't you always more at risk of being scored against by an Offense in the redzone than one that's further away ?

Also - why don't offenses run this fast & efficient more often, if they can do it under certain situations ?
Is the disadvantage to them that they can't get recovery-time or personnel swaps between plays either ?
(But since O's generally get less tired than D's they can manage without them for longer ?)

Beyond even this, there is also assignments called on the line for both defense and offense.

Often times, if the offensive center (who hikes the ball) will signal to others in the line on who to pickup, if it looks like a blitz.

Depending on a defensive audible, sometimes an interior defensive tackle or nose tackle (position title really dending on type of alignment) will signal for a change into a stunt on a rush, which usually is that the two linemen will cross into different holes.

"but there seems little advantage to that approach with a Field-Goal sized lead: and aren't you always more at risk of being scored against by an Offense in the redzone than one that's further away?"

Once an offense is in the red zone, the defense cannot be spread out as easily, as there is less field to cover. Which means linebackers and sometimes safetys can cheat up a bit and cover underneath short passing or runs much easier, cutting down gains. This limits the efficiency of an offense and is why announcers often point out how often teams can or cannot get touchdowns when in the red zone.

"Is the idea that this is 'safer' coverage, that it avoids D's being burned by one big play ? "

Yes. A team that can execute a zone defense late in the game, usually forces a team to throw short passes in the middle of the field, keeping the ball in play burning off time of the clock and slowing down progress. The zone works much better when the offensive team doesn't have their timeouts to stop the clock or has a quarterback that can't get the team moving quick in a no huddle offense.

The best quarterbacks running a no-huddle two minute offense, don't get phased by the zone and can eat it up. Peyton Manning and the Colts offense really works better in these situations, especially this year. There are clubs like the Colts occasionally now and the Bills and Bengals in the past that used no huddle offenses quite often.