WHO INVENTED FOOTBALL?
Walter Camp is actually credited with inventing football. He was a former player and coach at Yale and developed the basic rules by combining soccer with rugby. But it wasn’t until Rinus Michel invented the rule of 11 men on the field during play that the game developed into what it is today.
HOW MANY MINUTES ARE ACTUALLY PLAYED IN AN NFL FOOTBALL GAME?
Even though there are 60 minutes on the game clock, players only play an average of 11-12 minutes out of those 60 minutes.
HOW MUCH DOES A PLAYER GET PAID FOR WINNING THE SUPER BOWL?
The winner of the 2010 Super Bowl (XLIV) received $83,000 and losers took home $42,000. To compare, in the first Super Bowl, the winners took home $15,000 and the losers got $7,500.
WHO PLAYED IN THE FIRST SUPER BOWL?
The Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10.
WHEN DID THE AFL-NFL MERGER OCCUR AND WHEN DID EXPANSION TEAMS BEGIN JOINING THE NFL?
The AFL-NFL merger occurred in 1970. At that time there were 10 teams in the AFL and 16 teams in the NFL. To even the number of teams among the two new conferences (AFC and NFC), the Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Colts, and Cleveland Browns agreed to move from the NFL to the AFC so there could be 13 teams in each conference. There have been six new expansion teams to enter the NFL since the merger:
- 1976 – Tampa Bay, Seattle 1995 – Carolina, Jacksonville
- 1999 – Cleveland (The team previously in Cleveland moved to Baltimore in 1996)
- 2002 – Houston (The team previously in Houston moved to Tennessee in 1997).
HOW ARE PLAYERS VOTED INTO THE PRO BOWL AND HOW MUCH DO THEY GET PAID?
The Pro Bowl consists of players who receive the most votes from the following formula: 1/3 fan voting, 1/3 players voting, and 1/3 coaches voting. Each player the winning Pro Bowl team gets around $45,000 while players on the losing team get about $23,000.
WHAT ARE THE MOST POINTS EVER SCORED IN A REGULAR SEASON GAME?
The most points scored in one game were by the Washington Redskins who beat the N.Y. Giants 72-41 in 1966.
ARE PLAYERS CONSIDERED “DOWN” WHERE THEIR KNEE HITS OR WHERE THE BALL HITS?
What matters is where the ball is when any part of the player’s body besides their foot or hand touches the ground. If the player is stopped and pushed backward, his forward progress is where the ball is marked down, not where he gets pushed back.
WHAT IS THE CORRECT SIZE OF AN AMERICAN FOOTBALL?
A football is 8” in diameter and 14” long and weighs about 1 pound. A bit of useless knowledge: the football has exactly 5,398 dots or dimples.
WHAT IS THE WEST COAST OFFENSE?
The West Coast Offense, as developed by former San Francisco 49ers head coach Bill Walsh, is a finesse offense that utilizes a short passing game designed to control the ball. In most conventional offenses, the idea is to run the ball to draw the safeties and linebackers in closer to the line of scrimmage, thus opening up passing lanes for a vertical attack. The West Coast Offense does just the opposite, using a quick, horizontal passing attack to set up the running game. It also relies heavily on the ability to flood a defense with more receivers than they can cover and allows the quarterback to move around a lot more than conventional offenses.
WHAT IS THE YELLOW LINE ON TV?
The yellow line you see on the field while watching the game on TV is the virtual first down line. The yellow line is not visible to the players on the field but rather “superimposed” by the network you are watching. If the offense reaches this yellow line, they have earned a first down.
WHAT TYPE OF SHOE DO MOST PLACE KICKERS WEAR IN THE NFL?
Kickers tend to wear soccer shoes on their kicking foot.
HOW MANY FOOTBALLS ARE USED DURING ONE GAME?
NFL rules require that the home team have 36 balls for outdoor games and 24 for indoor games available for testing with a pressure gauge by the referee two hours prior to the starting time of the game to meet with league requirements. Twelve new footballs, sealed in a special box and shipped by the manufacturer, will be opened in the officials locker room two hours prior to the starting time of the game. These balls are to be specially marked with the letter “K” and used exclusively for the kicking game.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FREE KICK AND THE KICKOFF?
A kickoff is a free kick. Whoever recovers a kickoff gains possession of the ball. The ball must travel 10 yards down field before the kicking team can touch it unless the receiving team touches it first within 10 yards. If the kickoff doesn’t travel 10 yards down- field the receiving team is not obligated to attempt a return.
WHAT ARE THE RULES FOR AN ONSIDE KICK?
An onside kick is basically a crapshoot to try and get the ball back for your team. When the ball is kicked, it must travel at least 10 yards or touch the receiving team player before the kicking team can try to recover the ball. Because of the way the ball is kicked at the receiving team, there is a chance the ball can bounce erratically and the kicking team can then recover the ball, giving them another chance to score.
HOW DOES THE INJURED RESERVE LIST WORK IN THE NFL?
The injured reserve is a list of players who are injured and unable to play. NFL teams are allowed 53 players on the roster and use the reserve so they can keep a player on the team but not take up a roster spot. If someone is on the injured reserve, that player cannot play for the rest of the year.
WHAT DOES THE TERM “FRANCHISE TAG” MEAN?
A franchise tag is usually reserved for one of a team’s best player. It’s a designation given to a player by his team to keep him from leaving via free agency. According to the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, the player must be paid the average salary of the top five players at his position. Each team can only designate one player per year as a franchise tag.
WHAT DETERMINES WHETHER A SUPER BOWL TEAM IS THE HOME TEAM OR THE AWAY TEAM?
NFC teams are the home team in odd numbered years. AFC teams are the home team in even numbered years. The Super Bowl has once been played in a stadium close enough to one of the participants that they had a minor home field advantage. In Super Bowl XIX the Miami Dolphins were beaten by the San Francisco 49ers in Stanford Stadium in Stanford, Calif., just 23 miles from their home stadium.
HOW IS THE NFL DRAFT ORDER DETERMINED?
The draft order is determined by how the teams finished in the previous season. The Super Bowl winner automatically gets the last pick in the first round while the team with the worst record gets the first overall pick in the draft. Teams are is allowed to trade their draft slot with another team.
WHAT DOES THE TERM “OTA” MEAN?
OTA refers to “Organized Team Activities.” It can be anything from an organized training session or mini-camp, to team-oriented recreational activities (whole team goes bowling, to a movie, etc.) Each team is allowed a limited number of off-season OTAs per the Player Association’s bargaining agreement as these OTAs usually take place during the players’ off-season.
WHEN IS FOOTBALL SEASON?
Football season never truly ends, but traditionally training camp breaks out the middle to end of July with preseason games starting in mid-August. The regular season generally starts in September with 16 games and a three-week playoff to the Super Bowl in February.
HOW MANY PLAYERS CAN BE ON PRACTICE SQUAD?
Each team may keep up to eight players on its practice squad.
HOW MANY YARDS DOES THE FOOTBALL TRAVEL TO GO ACROSS THE GOALPOST IN A PAT?
After a touchdown the ball is placed at the 2-yard-line. The kicker usually sets up seven yards behind the line of scrimmage, making the kick 19 yards from the goal post.
WHY IS DALLAS IN THE NFC EAST?
Despite being one of the franchises farthest west, the Cowboys play in the NFC East because they have a long-standing rivalry with the three other teams in the NFC East, in particular the Washington Redskins. Those rivalries trumped geography when the divisions were re-aligned in 2002 after the Texans joined the league.
WHAT IS THE PASSER RATING AND HOW IS IT CALCULATED?
The Passer Rating is probably the stat that can tell the most about the quality of any team’s quarterback. The Passer Rating is an average of completion percentage, passing yardage, touchdowns and interceptions with 158.3 being the highest rating and an average rating being 80.
The following is how it’s calculated:
-Divide a quarterback’s completed passes by pass attempts.
-Subtract 0.3.
-Divide by 0.2 and record the total. The sum cannot be greater than 2.375 or less than zero.
-Divide passing yards by pass attempts.
-Subtract 3.
-Divide by 4 and record the total. The sum cannot be greater than 2.375 or less than zero.
-Divide touchdown passes by pass attempts.
-Divide by 0.05 and record the total. The sum cannot be greater than 2.375 or less than zero.
-Divide interceptions by pass attempts.
-Subtract that number from 0.095.
-Divide that product by 0.04 and record the total. The sum cannot be greater than 2.375 or less than zero.
-Add the four totals you recorded.
-Multiply that total by 100.
-Divide by 6.
The final number is your quarterback rating.
WHAT’S A TOTAL QBR?
Total QBR is a statistical analysis created by ESPN that measures how important a QB is to a football team and how much his play determined whether the team won or lost. It’s much more complicated than the standard Passer Rating as it factors in the quarterback’s skill level per play. It’s new to the sport so it’s still heavily debated as to whether this will be a respected level of measurement of a quarterback’s value to his team. ESPN has never revealed the exact mathematic formula it uses to determine scores because it’s about 10,000 lines of computer code that uses factors such as if the QB made a throw under duress.
