Given the time of year and the relative number of hot mamacitas on that read this blog, I decided to write something that you can all use:
A Chicks Guide To Watching Football
I’m going to make you understand football – to break it down like a fraction so never again will you be stumped as to WTF is going on out there on that screen that your man is glued to like flies on shit. In true UML style, let’s begin with the actors.
| ACTORS | RESPONSIBILITIES |
| The Game Of Football | It’s not as much about the hitting and running as you might think. At the NFL level especially, they’re all pretty much equally talented. Here it’s all about confidence, motivation, and smarts. It’s a chess match of sorts. |
| Football Players | They are the ones who actually go out and do the hitting. Most sound like dumb jocks, and outside their “area of expertise” and they pretty much are, but a lot will surprise you and the kind of stuff they have to know is not easy. Age ranges from 22 to the mid 30s |
| Football Head Coach | More often than not, the guy yelling and giving the pep talk speeches and making sure all the players are mentally ready. Usually a guy in his 40s, 50s, or 60s. Almost all are crotchety because if they lose, the city, the media, the owner, and e’erybody on talk radio will be on their ass! |
| Football Coordinators | There’s one for offense, one for defense, and one for special teams. The offense and defense guys actually stay up in one of the booths in the stadium so they can see things happen and prepare their next move. Chess Match. They communicate down to the field and into the QB’s helmet with a radio. |
| General Managers, Presidents | These are the behind the scenes guys who make it happen. They have to sign new players, draft them from college, and make sure they aren’t losing money. You wonder why teams are always clamoring for new stadiums? It’s because new stadiums gives them new ways to make money. I’m sure pretty soon you’re gonna see commercials in the toilet! |
| Owners | The fat cats. Used to be these things were family owned, but now it’s become so competitive that the only ones who can afford teams now are multi-millionaires and billionaires who made their money in other businesses and use the team part as a plaything, but also part as another fun way to make money. |
| Fans at the stadium | Man, I don’t know the last time you went to an NFL game, but it is EXPENSIVE. There’s the traffic to get there. The parking which is ridiculous. The food and concession prices which are more than at the movies. And then there’s the ticket prices. OMFG. Yet some people shell out money to buy season tickets. Die hards these people are. I am not. I’ll do it for my college team (an order of magnitude cheaper), but not for the pros. |
| Fans watching on TV | These can be anywhere, at home in the city where the team is, at a local bar, or maybe cheering on from some other city watching on DirecTV’s NFL Package. These guys are slowly but surely converting from watching on the cheap 20 inchers that I have to glorious High Definition sets where you can see the sweat fall through the facemasks. For some people it’s important. Gives you the feeling that you’re into the game, fulfilling all your fantasies of being that sports star and rekindling the fading memories of the day you scored 4 touchdowns for Polk High. |
| Fantasy Football Fans | Fantasy Football has been described as the D&D for football fans. It’s basically a game where a bunch of guys get together and pick certain players from different teams who they think will do well throughout the season and keep a score of how many yards they got, how many touchdowns they scored, etc. The guy with the most points wins. Yay! I think it adds a new dimension to games that you wouldn’t normally watch. |
HOW DID FOOTBALL COME ABOUT
While many similar games have been played throughout history, Football as we knew it started out in England at various academic institutions using different rules. Traditionally the foot was used to advance the ball but there were rules where you could catch the ball as well before scoring. At one such school in the city of Rugby, England, the rules were such that you could throw the ball around to teammates before getting tackled. After a while it was decided to standardize the rules under an association, and the Football Association was born (1863). And that’s when the big schism happened in football, as the two main types of football were divided into the association rules and the rugby rules. Association was eventually shortened to assoc and that’s where the name Soccer comes from, as in “you’re either a Soccer or a Rugger.” From there football spread in its various forms to Aussie Rules in Australia, Gaelic Football in Ireland and Gridiron football in America.
Gridiron football (played in the NFL, NCAA and the Canadian Football League) is a descendant from the rugby rules, modified somewhat. They call it gridiron because of all the lines painted across the field. The first football game in America is said to be the Princeton vs Yale game in 1869 playing mostly the soccer style. But it was Haaaaahvard University that, in a game against McGill U of Canada, played the rubgy style for the first time in 1875. Harvard convinced the other schools in late 1876 that Rugby Rules were the way to go.
So what happened? Changes in the game were introduced over time. The rugby scrum became a scrimmage, some of the more dangerous elements were eliminated, and it became legal to throw the ball forward instead of kicking it. Clearly, they were onto something with the throwing because they decided to make the ball slimmer to accommodate slimmer hands, allowed for more substitution (which eventually lead to specialization of players for offense and defense) and introduced all sorts of rules to make it more enticing to throw the ball and less enticing to run or kick. And that’s why football hardly uses the foot anymore.
HOW DO YOU PLAY?
Each team can have no more than 11 players on the field at a time. The field is 100 yards long and about 50 yards wide. At each end is what’s called an endzone that’s 10 yards deep. Behind each endzone is a goalpost that’s about 10 yards wide and about 15 feet off the ground. The basic intent of football is to score more points than the other team. A touchdown (running the ball or catching it in the endzone) gives you 6points and a field goal (kicking it through the goal posts) gives you 3. After every touchdown, you can try for an extra point by kicking, or for 2 points by running or passing. Kicking it is almost automatic and is taken for granted. Running or passing is not and is usually saved for only when you’re down at the end of the game.
The game is 60 minutes long divided into 4 quarters of 15 minutes each. Teams switch sides after each quarter. A kickoff happens at the start of the first and third quarters, as well as after every score. The kickoff is basically just kicking the ball to the other team so they can run it back and get tackled. When you have the ball, you send your offense out – the offense includes the quarterback, running backs, receivers, and blockers. In order to keep the ball they have to make first downs, i.e. move 10 yards down the field. Because teams are usually chicken shit, if they haven’t made the 10 yards after 3 tries (also called downs) they’ll kick (punt) the ball to the other team so as not to make it easy for them to score. The defense will prevent them from scoring, getting a first down or maybe even try to get the ball from them with an interception (catching the ball from the other teams quarterback) or causing a fumble (losing possession of the ball while running).
OFFENSIVE POSITIONS
Quarterback(QB) – The main guy on offense he calls the plays, directs the team, and distributes the ball. Peyton Manning and Michael Vick are QBs.
Running Back (RB) – The guy behind the QB who runs with the ball. These guys take a beating every play because when they’re not running, they’re blocking guys from getting to the QB. Includes Fullback,Halfback. Reggie Bush, Larry Johnson, and Ladanian Tomlinson are examples.
Wide Receiver (WR) – the skinny, fast guys who lineup away from all the action, and run down the field and catch the ball form the quarterback. These are the divas of the team. Includes Flanker, Split End, Slot Receiver. Randy Moss, T.O. and Chad Johnson are examples.
Offensive Linemen (OL) – These guys block. They’re the biggest guys on the field usually. When the running back runs, they run out ahead and clear a path. When the QB is going to throw, they protect him from being hit. These are the guys that do the dirty work so others can shine. There are 2 tackles on the outside, 2 guards and a center in the middle. The center hikes (snaps) the ball. The rule is – you have to use these 5. No variations, but you can bring in extra if you alert the referee. Kyle Turley is the only name I think people would recognize.
TightEnd (TE) – These guys catch the ball and block. Jeremy Shockey and Antonio Gates are TEs.
The standard offense would be to have 2 WRs, 1 TE, 5 OL, 1 QB, and 2 RBs for a total of 11.
DEFENSIVE POSITIONS
Defensive Linemen (DL) – These guys are the biggest guys on defense.They are the ones who take on the offensive linemen, sack the quarterback (tackle him behind the line of scrimmage) and tackle the running backs. You will not see these guys chasing wide receivers toooften. Includes Ends and Tackles. Michael Strahan and Dwight Freeney are linemen.
Linebackers (LB) – The jacks of all trades on defense. The Middle Linebacker is usually called the defensive quarterback – he looks over the offense and calls the plays for the defense. Linebackers do everything from covering receivers (preventing or making it hard for them to catch balls) to chasing running backs to going after the quarterback. Includes Inside or Middle and Outside linebackers. Teddy Bruschi, Zach Thomas and Ray Lewis are linebackers.
Defensive Backs (DB) – They cover the receivers and knock down passes,and sometimes try to intercept the ball. They’re the skinny, fast ones.Includes Safeties and Cornerbacks. Troy Palomalu, Ed Reed and Champ Bailey are DBs.
The standard defense would include 4 DL, 3 LBs, and 4 DBs, or 3 DL, 4 LBs, and 4 DBs.
STRATEGY AND PLAYCALLING
How do you approach a game? Well it’s simple. There’s the David approach – try to be the faster, quicker team (usually when you have smaller quicker players) or the Goliath approach – where you throw your weight around and make the other team say Uncle. On offense the Goliath approach would mean running the ball more and basically making it a violent but low scoring game where the opposing team’s defense gets tired and other team’s offense doesn’t get on the field for long stretches of time. Football is a game of momentum, and wearing someone down slowly and methodically is a very big mental edge. It breeds confidence in your team and fear and intimidation in the other team.Kinda like what Bush did to the ‘Merican public around 2002.
To use the Goliath approach on offense you’d use more tight ends and less receivers. And you’d use your bigger running backs who can take a beating. To use it on defense, you’d have more defensive linemen and linebackers and less defensive backs.
But there’s always the lightening quick approach, where if you have the faster players, you go for broke and start throwing the ball all over the place trying for a big play. In this case, on offense you’d have more receivers – sometimes as many as 5. On defense, you’d have less DL and LBs and more DBs who can intercept and knock down passes, but not tackle as well.
The playcalls themselves are a whole ‘nother ball of wax. They’re coded based on different philosophies. Some use numbers and actions, others use names. 32 Dive above shows a running play. Some passing plays call the receivers X, Y, and Z. So the playcall will be something like X cross Y post Z screen. But this like high school. In the NFL it’s much much more complicated where common routes get hybrid names like Sluggo (slant and go) and Smash (inside / outside combination).
OTHER PHRASES YOU NEED TO KNOW
| Turnover – when you fumble the ball and the other team gets it, when you throw an interception, or when you don’t punt and can’t make the 10 yards for the first down it’s called a turnover. Also missing a field goal is considered a turnover. Backpedal/Dropback – this is when the QB slides away from the center and before he throws the ball. A bad dropback almost ALWAYS results in a bad pass and is very important to the Quarterback
Line of Scrimmage – it’s the spot on the field where each play, or down, starts from. It’s where everyone lines up and it’s the linen either team can cross before the ball is snapped. Blitz – this happens when the defense sends a linebacker or a defensive back after the QB. Blitzes are so commonplace nowadays that offenses have complex schemes to protect them and receivers have to look out so they run a different route (blitz breakoff) so the QB can throw the ball to them quickly. Instant Replay – if the referees make a call that the coach doesn’t agree with, the coach can challenge it and the referee will have to look at the instant replay to see if the call was correct. But if the call doesn’t get reversed, then the coach loses a time out. West Coast Offense – this was started by Bill Walsh with the 49ers and is basically a strategy (more David than Goliath) of using short passes instead of long passes and running the ball. It’s so complex that it is ties the QBs footwork with each receivers routes, so that the receiver is supposed to be at a spot on each step of the QBs backpedal. It is also designed to let the receivers catch the ball and make lots of yards running after the catch (YAC or RAC). Freaky but effective when done right. Down and Distance – 1st and 10 or 2nd a 3 -indicates how many plays left to get a first down, and how far (in yards) they need to get it. Huddle – before the play the offense bunches up in a circle and the QB tells them the play they’re going to run. These plays are called by the coordinator based on the situation in the game, the score, the down and distance, and the players that the defense has in. Chess Match. Audible – do you see all that barking the QB does when he get up to the line of scrimmage? Well if they play that he called in the huddle looks like it’s going to fail based on how the defense lines up, the QB will call an audible – which is basically a code word that each of the offense knows so that they do something different. Usually it involves turning a running play into a passing play but sometimes can mean telling a receiver to run to the left instead of the right. Division and Conferences – the NFL is actually the result of many mergers of football leagues. With these mergers, there developed two conferences with 3 divisions with teams from all over. A few years ago they realigned the conferences and divisions so that there is a North, South, East and West division for each conference. The cities and states that have more than one team usually have them in different conferences. For example – the NY Giants and the NY Jets are in different conferences. And the schedule rotates so that every team will play each other at least once every 4 years. Backfield – the area behind the offensive linemen. Tackling the QB in the backfield while he’s trying to throw is called a sack. Touchback – when one team kicks to another team, if the ball goes into their endzone and is not advanced, it’s called a touch back and the ball is placed on the 20 yard line. Safety – when an offensive player is trying to run the ball out of or pass the ball from the endzone (i. e. not the one they’re trying to score in) and gets tackled, it’s 2 points for the other team and called a safety (not to be confused with the position of safety) Play-Action – occurs when the offense acts like it’s going to run and end up passing. They do it to fool the linebackers and safeties into going one direction hoping that they’ll leave someone uncovered for the QB to throw to. Peyton Manning does this a lot. Fair Catch – when you punt the ball the guy receiving can waive his hands in the air before catching – signaling that he wants a fair catch – where he won’t run and can’t be tackled. The next play will start from the spot where he caught the ball. Play Clock – the offense has 40 seconds between the time the last play finishes and the next play needs to start. If you run out of time on the play clock, the offense will be assessed a 5 yard penalty. Forward Progress – in order to prevent injuries, there’s a rule that once a runner’s forward progress is stopped, the play is over and is whistled dead. But it also has the effect of giving the runner the best spot even if he runs to a point then gets pushed back 5 yards. |
THE BUSINESS OF THE NFL
The league has 32 teams and the season is 16 games long – spread out over 17 weeks. Why 17? So they can have an extra week of making money.That’s a total of 256 games per season plus 11 playoff games. With a full schedule for the week, there are 14 games on Sunday during the day on CBS and Fox, one Sunday Night game on NBC, and one Monday Night game on ESPN. Sometimes they’ll have games on Thursday, sometimes 2 on Monday, sometimes on Saturday and then of course there’s Thanksgiving. Some of those Thursday games will be on the NFL Network – so make sure you can get it – it’s 212 on DirecTV. Then there’s the Sunday Ticket. 
It really is God’s gift to the football fan. You can watch every game on Sunday live, and on one channel you can watch 4 at a time and there’s one channel where it moves in and out from game to game. Mind you – in order to not get screwed you need to make sure your billing address is not near major CBS or FOX affiliates or within 75 miles of an NFL stadium because if it is they will NOT show any game that’s been blacked out locally and they will NOT show you the game scheduled to be on your local affiliate even though the local station can change the game they’re showing at any time – a major fan watching loophole.
How does the NFL make money? Well football being once a week doesn’t inundate you with meaningless games during the regular season and gives a chance for the hype machine to work in between games, building intrigue. The NFL teams all split evenly the money they receive from TV rights fees and merchandising. So how do the owners make money? With the stadium.When they can sell tickets for $50 a pop at the cheapest, and $10 to park and $5 for a hot dog and $6 for a beer – it’s easy to make money. The newer stadiums all have luxury boxes – air conditioned rooms with a great view of the field for the corporate big wigs to go chill in and sip brandy (maybe even with Brandy). Those things command a pretty penny and the teams with old stadiums are always looking for ways to scam the town into paying for upgrades and renovations so they can find more revenue streams (you hear that San Diego). They always threaten to leave the town for LA which, remarkably has NO NFL TEAM cuz they just don’t care about football in LA.
So to force you to go to the games, they instituted what’s called a blackout rule. Any TV affiliate with a reach inside 75 miles from an NFL stadium cannot show that game locally if it’s not sold out 72 hours before kickoff. So if I lived in Ft. Pierce, Florida and I wanted to watch the Miami Dolphins game on, say, WPEC in West Palm Beach Florida- I’m SOL. 
Same thing with Charger fans in LA and Iggles, Giants and Jets fans in central NJ (if any of those teams ever didn’t sell out).
FOOTBALL FANS
Professional football started out in the midwest and then the northeast – and fans in Cleveland, Philly, New York and Green Bay are legendary for their rabidness (yes – if they bite you go directly to the ER stat). Tailgating and going to games there is as ingrained as breathing. Conversely in the south the love for football is usually around high school and especially college football, where the drinking and spitooing that doesn’t occur in a NASCAR infield happens the day before and day of a college football game. The pro teams in the south are relatively newer and not as rabidly supported – same on the west coast.
SUPER BOWL
The Super Bowl is the championship game played every year in late January or early February. It’s not usually the best game, but it has the best commercials because everyone is watching. 
It’s not as watched as the World Cup Final, but when you consider that really no other country except Canada has a high profile gridiron football league, getting the worldwide viewership it gets is pretty good. Super Bowl commercials are the most expensive in the US because they’ll get the most attention. It was Apple that announced itself to the world with it’s famous commercial about the Macintosh. And who can forget the Budweiser Frogs or the Bud Bowl.
SO THERE YOU HAVE IT
You’re either 10 times smarter now, or more confused that Michael Jackson in a girls scouts meeting.
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