The Lazy Genius Podcast - Bonus: The Lazy Genius Guide to Understanding Football

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

We’re doing something a little different around here today with a bonus episode! We might start playing around with some of these that are deeply specific in the future, or it might be just this one. But I have had enough of you ask me to explain football so I present to you The Lazy Genius Guide to Understanding Football. Helpful Companion Links Download a transcript of this episode. This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo, chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Every Day with Amazon. Hello, welcome to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I am Kendra Adachi, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today we're doing something a little different. This is a bonus episode.

We might start playing around with some of these that are like deeply specific kinds of episodes in the future, or it might just be this one. I don't know. But I have had enough of you ask me to explain football that I'm going to do a little bonus episode on Understanding Football. Now, let me be clear here. I am not an expert. I am not an athlete. I have never, I have never been able to successfully throw a spiral. And I cannot adequately explain what a nickel and dime offense is without asking someone or the internet for clarification. I don't know everything about football, mostly because no one does. Football is like really complex.

There are so many variations and plays and nuances. But you don't have to. to know all of those in order to enjoy or understand the basics. So that is what we're going to do today. I'm going to explain the basics of football, mostly what the downs mean. That's what gets you. It's just so many numbers and they're very inconsistent. But I do love, love making football more palatable for people who like to sit on the couch on a Sunday afternoon or on a Thanksgiving day afternoon and not feel completely lost. Football becomes like way more fun as a viewer once you understand the basics. So let's talk about the basics. Okay, here we go. Ready? Number one, I'm going to go real basic. The objective here is to score more points than the other team. Now, this is the foundation of most

sports endeavors. You want to score points and you want to score more than the other guys. There is one broad way that you score points in football, and that is that you move the football as a team from your end of the field or your territory into the other guy's territory, like enemy territory. And when you cross the line, when you cross a specific boundary with the football, you get points. Now, how you cross that boundary determines how many points you get. Okay. So the two main ways that you actually score points in football are a touchdown and a field goal. A touchdown is when your team moves the football across the actual goal line.

The goal line is when the field, like literally when you're watching the NFL, the field moves from green to like very colorful. every field has two goal lines, one at each end, one for each team. And if the ball crosses that goal line in an appropriate football way, you know, then the team scores a touchdown. A touchdown is worth six points. Now, you might be like, no, wait, I thought a touchdown was seven points. Because scoring a touchdown is the hardest way to score in football. It's like you get a prize after.

When a team scores a touchdown, they get like a bonus turn. It's kind of like bowling a strike. You get a strike, you get another chance to go. You get a bonus turn. The same is true when you score a touchdown in football. You score a six point touchdown. And then you get a choice. You get a choice to either kick an extra point, which is exactly what it sounds like.

You kick the ball through the goalposts at that field. And if the ball goes through those goalposts, you get an extra point. you kick an extra point. Now your other choice is you can score two extra points if you choose what is called a two point conversion. That is when the ball starts at a specific part of the field that's very, very close to the goal line. And the team has one chance, only one chance, to get the ball over the goal line.

It's kind of like the team has the chance to score another touchdown, but you just get two points for it instead of six. So the main way that you score in football that you will see is a touchdown followed by an extra point. That's usually how things go. That's why most touchdowns are thought of as being worth seven points. Okay. Are you with me?

With me so far? Okay. The other main way that you can score in football is if you kick a field goal. A field goal is when you kick the ball from wherever you are on the field. And if that ball goes through those big yellow goalposts at the end of the field, field, then you get three points. Now, the closer you are to the goal posts, the more likely you are to score a field goal, which is, again, three points. Okay. Now, there is one other way to score in football, and that is a safety, which is worth two points, but we're not going to get into that quite yet.

What we need to understand now is how you move the ball down the field. Okay, so imagine you have the offense of one team versus the defense of the other, right? The offense has the ball, they are in charge of the ball. That is called possession. They have possession of the football. You'll hear that a lot. Now that is unless they become very careless and they lose that possession, which is called a turnover. They lost their turn. The other team gets a turn now. Now, if you think about movement of a ball and other sports, most sports have rules about how you do that, about how you move the ball. Like in basketball, you have to dribble or pass. You can't just like walk with a ball in your arms. There are rules of how you move a basketball. In golf, you move the ball by hitting it

with a club. You cannot pick it up and throw it. In soccer, you move the ball by kicking it with your feet or bumping it with your head or chest, but you cannot pick it up with your hands or even let it touch your arms. So there are rules in all sports that involve a ball of how you can move the ball. Similarly, there are specific rules in football. of how you're allowed to move the ball. The two primary ways, they start from the quarterback position. The quarterback is like football triage. The quarterback is the captain, the guy in charge. The one whose hands must direct the ball. So the football is placed on the field, like on the ground. An offensive player called the center, he puts his hand on the ball. He is bent over. He is

angry, he is protective of that football. He is also in the center. It's why he's called a center. He is also in the center of a line of equally bent over angry, protective men. These men make up what is called the offensive line. It is a line of giant dudes who play for the offense of a team. And the center, who is in the center, listens very carefully to those funny sounds that you hear from the field. It's like three double 13 17, the quarterback is the one making those sounds. And those sounds are him using like code words to basically call a play or tell his teammates what they're doing.

That's what a play is. It's like this is what we have decided to do. You go here, you go here, you run this way, you block this guy, that's a play. Okay, now he says, the quarterback says, hut, hike, whatever, he grunts, something. and then the center whose hand is on the ball, he hikes the ball or he tosses it very specifically through his legs to the waiting quarterback, right? The quarterback catches the ball. And then here

is where the two movement choices come in. Okay. There are two general ways that the ball can be moved. The ball can either be passed from the quarterback to another player and not just any player. Like the quarterback cannot pass the ball to someone on the offensive line, or the referee will call a penalty of an ineligible receiver. So that's like, that's one of the rules. You can only pass to specific teammates. Those teammates are usually a wide receiver or a tight end. Those are the two positions that you would normally hear that would catch a ball. That player must catch the ball in the air.

And then they are allowed to run towards the other team's goal line or end zone. that's another word for the end of the field. They are allowed to run there until a defensive player takes them down, tackles them. Now for a tackled account, the offensive player's knee must hit the ground. Like they're holding the ball. They're thrown down. Their knee has to hit the ground.

Or progress on the ball has to stop. Like you've seen before, you know, there are six guys in black jerseys around one guy in a blue jersey. And the guy in the blue jersey, he might not be on the ground. like his knee isn't on the ground, but he's not going anywhere. Like he's, the progress has been stopped. And that's when you'll hear a whistle. And the ref is like, okay, good job, guys.

That's as far as you're going to go. Thank you. Now, that is a pass. That is a pass play. The quarterback throws the ball through the air to a receiver. And that receiver might run, might get tackled immediately, might not catch the ball at all. The second way a quarterback can triage the ball and move it down the field is with a run

play. A run is when, also sometimes called a rush, is when the quarterback literally hands the ball to a running back, that's the position, and the running back takes that ball and starts running with it. And then the same rules apply. He runs until he's tackled or the ball's progress stops. We'll be right back. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dacher Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, so to recap, there are two ways you can move the ball

down the field, right? You can pass it, you can run it. And both of the decisions originate with the quarterback. Okay, now let's talk about downs. Downs are the logistical guardrails that determine how long a team can keep the ball. How long do they get to have their turn? Okay. When an offense gets the ball at the start of their turn and an offense will have many turns in a game, many, many, turns, they get, listen carefully, here it is. They get four tries to move the ball 10 yards. Okay, four tries to move the ball 10 yards. Now, a football is 100 yards long. So a team gets four tries to move 10 yards. If they move 10 yards in one try, two tries, three tries, whatever, how many tries within four? Then they get a new set of four tries

to move 10 yards. These tries are called downs. So the most common down language you will hear is first and 10. Okay, first and 10. You'll see first and 10 at the 35 yard line, whatever. The first number when you see third, you know, first and 10, second and three, third and 17, like whatever. The first number in that phrasing is the down that they are on, the try that they're on. Okay. That's the first number. The second number is how many yards they have left to go in order to get a new set of turns or a new set of downs in order to keep playing. So if you see second and six, that means the offense is on their second turn. Remember, they have four.

They have four before they have to give the ball back to the other team. So they're on their second turn. And they need to move the ball six more yards. So a team might start at first and ten. Both teams line up around the football. The quarterback makes his noises. and let's say he passes to a receiver, but the receiver does not catch it. Okay, that's one of their turns.

They lost one. They're on their second turn now. They're second down. And because the pass was not caught, they call that an incomplete pass, by the way. That means that the offense didn't chip away at the 10 yards they're trying to get. So now the numbers will be second and 10. It's their second turn and they still have 10 yards to go. Okay.

that let's say the next play is a run play and the running back moves the ball forward three yards. That means it's now third and seven. They did not get 10 yards yet. So they're still in their four turns. It's their third turn and they have seven yards to get. So that's third and seven. Okay. Now here's an important thing to know about four downs.

If it's a team's fourth down, which means it's their last. try, right? They don't get the yards they need. Then they have to give the ball to the other team wherever they are on the field, wherever the offense is on the field, wherever they are. It doesn't matter. So if an offense is, let's say, close to their own end zone, which is actually not the end zone they score. Remember, you score the other team's end zone. You invade their territory. So if a team, an offensive team is backed up, you'll hear that from commentators. If they're backed up in their own territory. They don't want to spend their fourth down trying to move the ball a little bit, right? Because if they miss it, the other team is going to get the ball super close to where

that other team can score. And this is where we introduce the punt, the punt. A punt is when a team that is on their last turn, they're on their fourth down, they want to move the ball as far away from the other team is they can. It's when they kick the ball as far as they can from where they are. It's almost like it's like a childish game of keepaway. It's like they kick the ball so far on their last turn so that when the opposing team gets their turn, they just have a longer way to go. Now, you might say, why wouldn't they kick a field goal? If a team can't score a touchdown and they're too far away, can they kick a field goal on their fourth turn? Yes, they can. and many of them do when they're close enough to the goalposts to make it.

But if they're just too far away, they will punt. So most of the time when it's fourth down, you'll see a team punt. They'll punt the ball away. They'll kick it far away from their own territory, from their own end zone to make it harder for the other team once that other team gets their turn to score. They've got a longer way to go before they score. Okay. Now, a difference here is let's say it's towards the end of a game.

Let's say the offensive team is down a touchdown. They're behind the other team by seven points. And let's say there's only like a minute or two left in the game. Okay. There's not a lot of time left. That team will be in what you will hear a commentators call four down territory. That means that a team will use all. four of their downs to try to move forward always because like what's the point of punting the game is

almost over and they need to score so they will risk they will risk turning the ball over to the other team because they want to score points and so they're going to use every single chance they get they're going to use every down that they can okay so to recap a team gets four tries to move 10 yards Now they can move way more than 10. They can run the length of the field in one play. 10 is not a limit. It is a minimum requirement. Okay.

Now, one thing that's important to know is what is called the line of scrimmage. The ball is placed in a very specific position on the field. It's where a knee went down. It's where a player caught the ball after a punt and said, you know what, this is good. I'm going to call a fair catch and I'm not going to run with this. This field position is good. field position is where the ball is.

And the referees are in charge of placing the football in the most accurate position they can based on wherever a player's body was when that player was holding the ball. Now, at the start of a play, or at the start of a turn, you know, one of those four turns, one of those downs, at the start of that, the ball is placed on the line of scrimmage. then what happens, the reason it's called that is because the offense and defense line up on either side of that line of scrimmage, on either side of the ball. The defense is like, no, you cannot come this way with your ball. And the offense is like, watch me.

And then they all crash into each other. So the funny thing about football that I find absolutely fascinating is that if a team is at third and one, okay, it's their third turn. They have one yard to go, right? They don't need a huge play. They don't need a touchdown. They literally just need to carry the ball one yard past the line of scrimmage. One yard.

That's it. Talk about start small. That's why football is so complex from a coaching and playing perspective. There are so many variables, so many kinds of plays you can run. We have talked about quarterback sneaks or play action, or if the quarterback is in a shotgun position, we don't have to do that right now. But all of those variables make the game super, super interesting. But the place you start is right here.

We start small right here. You just need to understand that there are rules of how a team can move the ball. They pass it or they run it. And that they just can't keep the ball forever, right? There have to be some guidelines on how long you get to have a turn. If you can't move the ball 10 yards and four tries, sorry, you lost your turn. The other team gets a shot now. As long as you understand that, you can keep up with football.

You can learn the other stuff slowly as you like loosely know what's happening in a game. You don't have to know nickel and dime defenses. You don't have to know what it means when somebody says the quarterback is in the pocket or strong side versus weak side. You don't have to know that stuff. You can enjoy the game without those things. Okay. Two more glossary terms real quick.

The first is a sack. A sack is when the quarterback is holding the ball. He's looking around. He's trying to figure out who's going to pass to. And a defensive player gets to him before he can pass and tackles him behind the line of scrimmage, which means the team lost yards. Oh, no.

So now they're in the red. Now they have to go more than 10 yards. Because the 10 yards begins from wherever the line of scrimmage is on the first down. If the ball starts on the 47-yard line and a quarterback gets sacked at the 35-yard line behind him, 12 yards back from where he started, that means the new line of scrimmage is at the 35-yard line where the quarterback was sacked, but that team has now, they have to go 22 yards now. They have to go the 10 from where they started plus the 12 they lost from the sack.

You will know, by the way, how the refs are measuring those 10-yard. because there are two giant orange sticks on the sideline connected by a chain that is, you guessed it, 10 yards long. So when they say bring out the chains, which makes me want to say bring out jet-ed, that means the football's location is so close to that 10-yard mark that they have to bring the chains onto the field and measure super, super close so they can really, really tell if a team gets a new set of downs, if they can keep playing. but a sack back to the glossary thing a sack is when a quarterback is tackled while holding the

football and loses yards one other term that i mentioned earlier is the safety so a safety is when a defensive player tackles an offensive player who is holding the football in the offenses end zone that painted part of the field on the other end so it's kind of like a reverse touchdown. If you can keep an offensive team backed up into their own end zone where they have literally the entire football field to go in order to score a touchdown or a field goal, and you tackle the quarterback or a running back who's holding the ball, but is inside his own team's end zone, inside that painted part past the goal line, if you tackle him, you earn two points for your team. It's called a safety. And that's the only other way that you can score in

football other than a touchdown or a field goal. Okay. One final thing. Penalties. Okay. There are rules in football. And if you break one of those rules, it's called a penalty. You'll know there's a penalty because one of the reps will throw a flag. You'll see a flag on the play. That's what you'll hear someone say. So each ref has a yellow flag in his or her belt. There are female NFL referees, by the way. Yes, her is correct. I'm such a huge fan of this. And that ref will throw his or her yellow flag onto the field, like right away, when they see another player breaking a rule.

Okay? So, like, for example, when an offensive player starts moving before the ball is hiked, because they're not allowed to do that. They have to be like super dupe still. That's a false start. There's a penalty for that. When a defensive player pulls on the jersey

of an offensive player is trying to catch the pass, catch the ball, That's called pass interference. That's a penalty. When a player has a beef with another opposing player and like taunts them or pushes them or something, that is called unsportsmanlike conduct. That is a penalty. So you will see penalties happen all the time.

Okay. Now, usually the consequence for a penalty is a loss of yards, like a five or 10 yard penalty, which means the team, if a penalty is against. the offense, the team that has the ball. If they do something wrong, if they break a rule, their penalty is they have to add another five or ten yards to the length that they're trying to go in their four turns. Okay. Or let's say it's a defensive penalty.

Sometimes a penalty, if the defense does something like truly egregious, it results in what is called an automatic first down. So that means, like let's say an offensive. team. It's third down in 26. It's third and 26. You guys, it's their third turn. Remember, most people are punting on their fourth turn. So really it's their last turn to move forward, you know, to actually try to make something happen. 26 yards is a super long way to go in one turn, you know. But let's say there's like a pass interference penalty on the defense. The offense gets an automatic first down. They automatically get to start over at first and 10. So penalties

can be like a really, they can be a really big deal. Speaking of what's a really big deal, this is a lot. How are you feeling? How are we doing? Here's what I want you to do. I want you to watch a football game this weekend and just pay attention. Watch the way the teams move. Be like, that's a pass. That's a rush or run.

Like just sort of name those simple things. Practice the downs. You know, look at those numbers and go, you can say to yourself or out loud, you're like, okay, it's their second turn. They have to go seven yards. Like practice understanding those things. Start small with football. Just get used to unlaw. understanding the downs. Just get used to understanding like it's offense and defense and they're moving

the ball. Like start there. Then you can start adding other stuff if you want, but you don't have to. You can actually really enjoy football with a pretty basic understanding. And downs are what gets you. So I hope that this clarifies that a little bit. And that is this bonus episode of the Lazy Genius Guide to Understanding Football. Thank you for listening to this bonus episode. I hope you had as much fun as I did. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter. lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra. I'll see you Monday. You ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life? Because when you're living a B or B plus life,

you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.