The Game of Football

Football, a physical game involving the tackling of opponents, is one of if not the most watched sport in all of America. Football's main idea and rules are relatively simple, the field is 100 yards long, and there is a zone on each end known as the touchdown zone. There are 11 people on each team and every person is assigned a position. When your team is on offense none of your teammates known as the “quarterback” will attempt to throw the ball to another teammate on the field. The opposing team will try and contest both the quarterback and the receiver to stop the pass from happening. If the receiver catches the pass, he must run to the touchdown zone without being tackled. If the player is tackled, the team will move up to that spot and continue play from there. A team can also run the ball, removing the risk of their receiver not catching it. To make the game more fluent, each team is given four chances to make it at least 10 yards up the field, if they fail to do that the ball will be turned over to the opposing team. If they make it they will have to do that for the other 100 yards of the field. A popular strategy among many teams is to closely guard a receiver in order to not only contest the throw, but actually intercept it. Intercepting the ball reverses possession and gives the opposing team the chance to run the ball down field after intercepting it. Once the interceptor is tackled the defense and offense switch and the race is back on! After the game progressed throughout time, new ideas were put into it, and with that came many different creative kinds of plays. Plays were routes thought up by couches on where and what everyone should do

when the ball goes live. Plays usually involve a quick move by a receiver to find and exploit an opening in the defense. Plays vary based on the situation the team is in, my favorite play is known as the Hail Mary. It got this nickname because teams usually use it when there's no other options, and they need the ball to go to far lengths, so they make the receivers go as far as possible and the quarterback throw as far as possible. This usually doesn’t work, but when it does it’s a very cool thing to see.