Talk about the line play. The offensive and defensive lines are less visible and get less glory, and football nerds love to say “It’s all about the line play.” It usually is.
I need a “than” clause here. They are less visible than what is? The quarterback?
They swap. That’s the easiest thing to figure out – I mean, once you watch, you’ll see what I mean. The offense has the ball. The defense doesn’t.
Less visible than the action surrounding the ball carrier. Everyone’s eyes tend to be drawn to the ball, often to the point of missing more important matchups along the offensive line or elsewhere.
Actually, given the level of cluelessness (no offense) about football that you seem to have, might I suggest a little homework assignment? There are two college football games on ESPN tonight (there will be college games every night for the next week or so, in fact). Watch a little bit to get a feel what happens, along with some of the very basic rules you don’t know.
No offense taken about the clueless remark. I can’t watch the games tonight but I have already made arrangements to record them.
For bonus points, paint your face and dress up like this guy. I’d say go shirtless, but that’s pretty pathetic in a dome.
Be careful not to mix sports terminology, if you can help it; last Sunday I was watching football at a local bar and one of the waitresses came up to me and asked the score. I told her (“our” team was losing), and she looked up at the TV for a second and smiled, saying, “Well, it’s still the third inning!”
:smack:
A punt is when the offense kicks the ball downfield as far as they can to the other team, within certain rules. This is done when the offense doesn’t think they can either score a field goal or gain enough yards for a 1st down. The idea is that if the ball will go to the other team anyway, the offense wants to make it harder for them to score.
As for the analogy, I’m not sure what your boss was getting at. Maybe he wanted to quote an equally unreasonable amount on the trade in, but low instead of high. I know a little more about sports than you, but sports metaphors still escape me.
Another thing to remember is that when the two teams line up, the offense (the team with the ball) is calling last-second adjustments to their plan. To make this difficult, the fans of the team on defense will make a lot of noise. So if you’re supporting the Vikings, don’t make the mistake of yelling when they have the ball - you’re supposed to yell when the Eagles have the ball.
The analogy would be “We’re not going to make a sale on this negotiation. Let’s just put an end to this negotiation and start working on the next one.”
The Vikings player wearing the number 28 is named Adrian Peterson. He won the NFL rushing title this year (the running back who ran for the most yards). He’s really, really good. You should act like you already know that. At some point refer to him by the nickname “All Day” (or A.D.). You’ll sound like you know what you’re talking about.
The head coach of the Vikings used to be the offensive coordinator (the coach who coaches offense) for the Eagles. The current head coach for the Eagles was his boss.
The quarterback for the Eagles (he wears the number 5 and throws the ball) is Donovon McNabb. He’s also had a very good career. He’s been to one Superbowl, but he lost. At some point, say “McNabb’s lost a step.” be sure to say this when he’s running away from something. You’ll sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Refer to the officials as “zebras,” and refer to the penalty flags as “rags.”
Don’t suggest anything about a team being able to kick a field goal unless they’re inside the opponents’ 35 yard line. You’ll sound like an idiot if you suggest that a team should kick a field goal from the 50.
If the two teams are lined up to snap the ball and the officials blow the whistle before the play starts, it’s almost always a false start on the offense. Say “false start,” as soon as you hear the whistle and you’ll sound like you know what’s going on (you don’t have to know what a false start is, just say the words.
The Vikings have horns on their helmets and wear purple. The Eagles will be wearing white because they are the visitors.
You can never go wrong in the Metrodome by observing that the Packers suck. It makes no difference that the Packers aren’t playing or that their season is over.
The temperature in the Metrodome is quite comfortable even in the winter. 60,000 bodies generate a lot of heat.
The burly Mascot costumed as a Viking is named Ragnar.
You might see people wearing Vikings helmets with blond pigtails dangling from the sides. These are called “Helga horns.”
This is what a Vikings fan looks like. Do not be alrmed if you see one. You will probably see many. They are harmless. Just yell “Purple!” or “Packers suck!” and you will be fine.
Just one more quick reminder – teh Vikings player number 28 will be the best player on the field. The Eagles player number 5 is the 2nd best. Know that much about the players if you know nothing else.
Good luck and enjoy your NFL playoffs experience.
PS if you don’t want your ticket, I’ll take it.
Not only do teams swap players for offense and defense, Sometimes they’ll substitute players for certain situations.
For example, pass plays tend to be all-or-nothing. (The receiver can catch the ball and advance many yards, or drop it and there is no gain at all.) If a team is in a situation where they need a long gain, they may bring in extra receivers. If a team needs only a short gain, they may bring in extra linemen to help block the defenders.
The defense may bring in their own substitutes to counter what the offense is trying to do. It may also be a ploy by the offense; passing when the defense expects a run, or vice versa.
Okay, I’m assuming you know absolutely nothing, so hopefully this won’t overwhelm you with information.
Each football team has three separate parts:
- Offense: A team is on offense when they have the ball.
- Defense: A team is on defense when the other team has the ball.
- Special teams: This refers to the kicking units of either team. When there’s a kickoff, punt or field goal (or extra point, which I’ll explain below), both teams have their “special teams” on the field.
An offense starts out with four “downs.” Each separate play is a down. Generally, barring a penalty, the offense will start off with ten yards to go to get a first down, giving them a new set of four downs to get the next ten yards, and so on. A general play in football starts off with the center (the guy in the middle of the line who starts out with the ball) “snapping” (handing through his legs) the ball to to the quarterback. One of the first things you’ll want to do is pay attention to the quarterback’s number and name, because you’ll hear it a lot. The quarterback will then either hand the ball to a running back, or attempt to pass it to another player (a wide receiver, tight end, or running back). The center, and the two large guys to either side of him, have the job of blocking defending players from reaching the quarterback before this occurs (if the quarterback is tackled behind the point where the ball was snapped, it’s called a sack, and causes the offense to lose yardage). The big guys, called “offensive linemen,” also have the job of moving defenders around to open up holes for the running back to run through on running plays.
If in three downs, the team has not gotten the requisite ten yards–which is often more than ten due to penalties and sacks–they have a decision to make. There are three things that can occur on fourth down, and what happens is a coaching decision based on where the ball is placed on the field, what the score is, and how far the team has to go to reach the “down marker,” which is an orange triangle with a big fat pole on the sideline that marks how far a team has to go to get the first down. Keep an eye on that during the game! There’s a number on top of the pole that shows what down it is, too. Anyway, I digress. Here’s the three things.
-
If there is a long distance to go to the down marker, and the team is not close enough to the goalposts to attempt a field goal (anything above 50 yards away from the goalposts, including the yards of the end zone, is risky), the team may choose to punt, or kick the ball away. This makes it so the opposing team has longer to go to get to the end zone for a touchdown, but will turn the ball over to them. The other team has a chance to return the punt, which means that they catch it and run it in the opposite direction to try to regain some of the field position. They can also fair catch, which can be safer if members from the other team are too close to attempt a return without the returner getting hit. A returner calls for a fair catch by waving his arm in the air before catching the ball. He can then catch the ball without worrying about being hit by a punt defender, but cannot advance the ball beyond the point where he catches it. At that point, his team then takes over on offense. A punt can be returned all the way for a touchdown. If a punt (or kickoff, which is the type of kick that happens after a team scores or at the beginning of a half) goes into the receiving team’s end zone and is caught, the returner can either try to run it out or kneel down. If he kneels down, his offense automatically gets the ball on the 20 yard line. If he chooses to run it out and gets tackled before the 20 yard line, you can safely say “What a moron! He should have taken a knee!”
-
If the offense is within that 50 or so yards from the goalposts, they can try to kick a field goal. The goal there is to have a player called a long snapper (kind of like the center on offense) snap the ball to a holder, who then gets the ball in position for the kicker to attempt to kick it through the goalposts in the back of the end zone. If the ball goes through the goalposts, the kicking team gets 3 points. But there’s a risk–if the kicker misses, the opposing team gets the ball at the position where the ball was placed before the kick! So sometimes a coach has to decide whether to punt and give their opponent bad field position, or attempt a long field goal, which could get the team 3 points but could also leave them with nothing and put the opponent in a better position.
-
The last thing that can happen on fourth down is that the team decides to go for it, and run a normal play to try to reach the first down. Generally, this happens when there’s only a short distance to go to reach the down marker, but it’s a little too far to attempt a field goal. Otherwise, it’s only attempted in desperate situations, such as when the team is behind in the fourth quarter and needs to score. If the team succeeds, they remain on offense with a new set of four downs. If they fail, the other team gets the ball on offense at the spot where the ball ended up after the play.
So the ultimate goal, of course, is to get a touchdown. Those are worth 6 points. After the touchdown, a team has 2 choices. They can kick an extra point, which is like a really short field goal and is worth 1 point, or “go for two,” meaning run one offensive play from the 2-yard-line, and if they get the ball into the end zone it’s a two-point conversion, worth…wait for it…2 points. Coaches have a whole chart on when the math makes sense to go for two as opposed to one. Don’t bother yourself with that, just know that it could happen.
An offense can turn the ball over through a fumble, where the ball is dropped and picked up by a member of the opposing team, or an interception, where the quarterback throws the ball and it’s caught by a member of the opposing team. In most cases when this happens, the opposition can advance the ball and it is up to the offensive players to then try to tackle the guy with the ball. This is highly amusing when a big fat defensive lineman gets the ball and tries to slowly rumble toward the end zone, but he’s so huge that the faster offensive players still have trouble tackling him.
Finally, if you watch a college bowl game to prepare for this, know that the overtime systems are TOTALLY different in college and pro football. In pro football, the overtime is very similar to normal gameplay, only it’s sudden death–the first team to score any points wins. This makes the pre-overtime coin toss very important! The game can go to multiple overtimes if nobody scores because it’s the playoffs–during the regular season, if nobody scores after one overtime, the game goes down as a tie. This is a relatively rare occurrence, but it happened this season, and the Eagles (the team in green you’ll be watching at this game) were involved in that tie. The quarterback, Donovan McNabb, did not know that an NFL game could end in a tie, which got him a lot of negative media attention. So just in case your game goes to overtime, you can always make the joke of “I wonder if Donovan McNabb knows that he doesn’t get to stop playing after one overtime!”
Hope that helped. Also hope it doesn’t trigger some length restriction.
One of my friend keeps insisting that baseball teams score points.
Man, just typing that now made my neck tense up.
Rags? 
Of course, I’ve only been following the NFL for 45 years, so I don’t know everything about it yet. 
Actually, the home team gets to choose - visitors don’t always wear white (though that may be true in MN).
Don’t act surprised if at the end of the game, the winning players dump their Gatorade cooler over their coach’s head. It’s traditional.
PatriotGrrrl, I’ll bet you ten bucks the winning coach doesn’t get gatoraded (or any other sort of liquid). I can’t imagine a team doing that after a wildcard win.
Dio - “rags”? Not anywhere I’ve ever watch football.
Yeah, the appropriate alternative term for flags is and always has been “laundry”.
The correct way to deal with this problem is to throw yourself upon the mercy of the group. You point out that although you are thrilled to be there (“I never had any idea how exciting the live atmosphere is from watching TV.”) you are somewhat of a novice at appreciating a live game. “So don’t all say ‘me’, which one of you is the real expert who will keep me on track?”
I have been to several games with one or more people not knowing what is going on. Us know-it-alls love explaining stuff. So by getting people to help you you will endear yourself to them.
Another plan of attack might be to just start drinking heavily the minute you get there and don’t stop until you’ve puked through your nose twice and passed out in one of the stalls in the mens room … bonus points for a stall in the women’s room.
That way, you won’t have to worry about the rules, and you’ll provide an added benefit of additional entertainment for the group.
This is, by the way, another football tradition enjoyed by more people than you’d be willing to throw up next to.