Comments on: The Basics of Football

By: Doris

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:04:10 +0000

Good for you Ruth, for learning and wanting to learn about the basics of the game. It’s never to late to learn and asking questions is always a great way to learn it. My husband loves any and all sports so I have learned a lot and continue to learn about whatever new thing he is watching!

By: ruth

ruth — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:53:01 +0000

Thank you, my son and grandsons played football. We never missed a game, but I didn’t really understand the technical aspects of the game this helped, especially the clarifications by Claire Colvin. You did forget to define some of the terminology in your tutorial.

By: Shelly

Shelly — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 04:26:44 +0000

Yay…thank you. This is very helpful.

By: Long Sarnacki

Long Sarnacki — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 03:45:43 +0000

It’s taken me a short while to read all of the comments, but I seriously loved the post. I am sure it will likely be very useful to me. It’s always a great surprise each time a post is both educational and entertaining! Thanks :)

By: halbcust

halbcust — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:32:15 +0000

The terms you used I will try to explain.
Conversion – In Football a team is given a set number of attempts (downs) to move the football 10 yards into the opposing teams teritory. In US football that is 4 and in Canadian 3 times.

A conversion is when a team accomphishes this. So for instance if your team moved the ball against my team 10 yards on your second try, that would be called a second down conversion.

A punt. This is the strategy that if the team believes they will not be able to convert on the last try (down) they may decide to punt the ball. This is mainly done to give better field position. They will determine this by how much yardage is needed to convert. The position on the field and also the relative success they have had in the past (specifically against this opposing team).Punting is also done when the team believes that they are out of field goal range.

Going for it is the term used when the team is on their last down they believe that the chance of conversion is good enough to risk the chance of losing possession of the ball. Going for it almost always means they will run the ball to try to convert. Running the ball is a lower risk play then passing and the hope of conversion is to maintain possession of the ball so that points will be socred.

So going for it means risking losing possession by trying to convert on your final try (down).

I hope that makes sense.

By: Claire Colvin

Claire Colvin — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:12:25 +0000

Jay – I am no expert, but in this context, punting is when a player drops the ball and kicks it downfield. The idea is to simply move the ball as far down the field as possible so when the opposing team takes their first down they have a lot more ground to cover. Ideally, they’d like to score with either a touchdown or a field goal but if neither of those is likely to happen on the fourth down punting at least makes it harder for the other guys to score.

If a team can move the ball at least 10 yards down the field then they get another four downs to try and move the ball another 10 yards. That’s a conversion – they have converted the third or forth down into a new first down.

When the author refers to “going for it” she means the team tries to push through and make the last few yards they need to either score a touchdown or complete 10 yards from the line of scrimmage.

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:24:19 +0000

This partly helped me but left me with more questions. Still unsure about what conversion is and punt. Also what do you refer to when you say “they go for it”. Which option? This website is not for full on dummies like me. needs more info. Thanks tho for a partial understanding. :)

By: Jessica Hargreaves

Jessica Hargreaves — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 11:38:14 +0000

I have to say thank you for this… I myself am a huge football fan, the boyfriend not so much… this helped him understand it better than I could!

By: Zoro Fredrickton

Zoro Fredrickton — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 00:34:33 +0000

This helped me a lot! I have a football test in gym, and I honestly thought I was going to fail it. Until I found this website. thank you so much