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  • Chances are you know all about football and you love it.

  • But how much do you know about American football?

  • In this video we're going to sit down with my husband David who's an expert on American football

  • and we're going to learn some vocabulary terms about football and also a little bit about the game.

  • Last year, I was posting about football a little bit more than normal

  • because our team, the Philadelphia eagles, won the super bowl.

  • So I was posting about it on instagram and this kind of thing.

  • And some people wrote to me and said: I find American football so confusing.

  • I live in the US, people talk about, it I’d love to know a little bit more about it.

  • So I thought let's make a video. So here we are, in the fall, beginning the football season.

  • So David, can you sort of step me through a little bit about the game?

  • Now unfortunately, or fortunately, the NFL, they're very good or very tight

  • about their own footage so I can't put in footage of different plays in this kind of thing.

  • But we'll do our best to describe what's going on

  • and we'll also talk about some interesting things that happen with the pronunciation

  • of some of these words and phrases.

  • So let's start where the game starts and that's with a kickoff.

  • And that is when one team kicks the ball

  • almost the entire length of the field, the other team catches it, and they run as far as they can.

  • Now, not to get picky here but is that really the beginning of the game, or is the beginning of the game a coin toss?

  • >> Yes, that's picky. >> okay.

  • >> But it's also true? >> Before the game...

  • Well, it's true. Before the game, there's a coin toss

  • to determine which team is going to receive the kickoff and which team is going to kick off.

  • So they all go out onto the middle, cause this doesn't happen in soccer, does it?

  • Yeah.

  • It does?

  • Mm-hmm.

  • A coin toss happens in soccer?

  • Yeah.

  • Well, then everyone already knows that term.

  • I don't know if it's a coin toss.

  • I mean it was when I was a kid.

  • That's how it got determined.

  • Like in the world cup, what do they do?

  • I would guess there's still a coin toss.

  • Because sometimes, there may be an advantage with the wind,

  • or with the angle of the light where you may want to be

  • at one end of the field for the first half or the second half.

  • So whoever wins the coin toss gets to choose.

  • You can choose whether they want to start with the ball or whether they want to choose which end.

  • Okay.

  • So you've kicked off the ball to me, I’ve run it down to the field; your guy tackled me, what's next?

  • So the whole point of football is to score as many points as you can.

  • And the way to score the most points is by scoring a touchdown.

  • And a touchdown is where you have the ball and you cross over the other team's goal line,

  • into the end zone, we'll talk about those two words in a bit,

  • but a touchdown is worth six points that's the most points you can score with any play in football.

  • So yeah,

  • it's interesting to know that in football,

  • different ways that you can score points get you a different number of points.

  • So you want the big one. You want the touchdown.

  • Exactly.

  • Okay, so the first three words we've gone over: kickoff, touchdown, end zone.

  • These are all compound words.

  • A compound word doesn't have to be a single word; it can be two words together.

  • And in a compound word, stress is always on the first word.

  • So, touchdown.

  • I also want to point out with end zone.

  • End zone.

  • What do you notice, David?

  • The d disappeared.

  • Right.

  • So we often drop the d when it comes between two other consonants

  • and I listened to a whole bunch of examples online of people saying this phrase.

  • No one says the d consonant.

  • So this is a case where we would definitely drop that D, just connect the n right on to the z. End zone.

  • So, what exactly is the end zone?

  • Well, the end zone is the ten yards that extends past the rest of the field to play a football.

  • American football field is a hundred yards long.

  • Mm-hmm.

  • And then on each end, there's an additional ten yard area and that's the area that you have to get into.

  • That's the end zone.

  • That's the area that you have to get into in order to score a touchdown.

  • Okay.

  • So you can either run into the end zone,

  • or you can catch a ball in the end zone, make sure your feet are inside that end zone line.

  • That's right.

  • In order to get your points.

  • That's right.

  • So I’ve received the kickoff but I haven't scored yet.

  • I've run down, I’ve gotten tackled, and it's time to start playing again.

  • What happens?

  • Right.

  • So you are going to try to go down the field in a series of downs.

  • So 'down' is a way to say a number of plays.

  • Um, a down is the start of action and then the action ends on that play.

  • So this is a big difference from what the rest of the world calls football.

  • In American football, there's this constant starting and stopping.

  • There are individual plays, whereas international soccer, is marked by this constant flow of play.

  • And so it's a big difference.

  • So in American football, you have this series of downs, you get four downs, or four plays,

  • to try to get ten yards.

  • If you can make it ten yards you get a fresh set of downs, meaning that you get four more downs,

  • and now go that next ten yards.

  • - You start over. - Right.

  • And you go from however far you made it.

  • So let's say you didn't just make ten yards, which you made 25 yards, then my next try is from that spot,

  • and you get four tries, or four downs.

  • Exactly.

  • To try to move ten yards again.

  • Now, if you don't... If you don't get it, what happens?

  • So if you get to your fourth down.

  • >> Mm-hmm. Last try. >> Right.

  • And you feel like you're too far away to make it that additional yardage to get to that 10 yard mark,

  • you can choose to either punt the ball, meaning you're going to give the ball back to the other team.

  • Or if you're close enough to the end zone, you might try to kick a field goal.

  • Ok let's first talk about the punting.

  • So that's when you don't think you're close enough to make a field goal,

  • but you want to punt it, which means kick to get it as far away as you can for the other team.

  • So you're not just giving them the ball,

  • you're like: okay I’m going to give it to you but I’m going to knock it as

  • far away as I can from where you want to be.

  • You want to back the other team up as far as you can.

  • And punting is different than a kickoff, right?

  • Because in a kickoff, you're...you place the ball on a little tiny tripod.

  • - Tee. - Tee.

  • Just like in golf.

  • And for a punt, you drop it from your hand and kick it.

  • Right, so you're actually kicking the ball out of the air after you've dropped it.

  • Okay.

  • Now would there be two different players who would do those two different kinds of kicks?

  • Yeah.

  • They're almost, I don't know if I’ve ever seen it be the same person.

  • Wow.

  • - So specialized, isn't it? - Yeah.

  • You're going to kick this way, we're going to call you that.

  • Exactly.

  • Okay.

  • The punter and the kicker.

  • Okay.

  • So, actually, yeah. You never say kicker for the person who punts, that's the punter.

  • So that's, that's the one case where you're at your last try but you can't make a field goal.

  • Now if you think: I might be close enough to make a field goal.

  • That's only three points, but it's better than none and what is a field goal?

  • So if field goal is when,

  • again, this is the ball being kicked off the ground, someone holds it for you in this case, it's not on a tee.

  • Someone holds the ball and you try to kick it through the uprights.

  • So the uprights are those big giant u-shaped things at the end of each end zone.

  • Goal post, another word.

  • Goal posts.

  • And what you try to do is kick the ball between them.

  • So if you're able to kick the ball between those goal posts, you get three points.

  • Okay.

  • Half a touchdown.

  • Right. Exactly.

  • And then if you score a touchdown or you score a field goal, then the next play is

  • you're kicking it off to the other team.

  • Exactly.

  • It's their turn to try to score.

  • Mm-hmm. You got it.

  • So we talked about downs as individual plays but another football vocabulary word

  • is a 'drive', and a drive is a series of downs.

  • So after you receive a kickoff, and you go down the field, and you are having a series of plays,

  • that entire possession, the whole time that you have the ball, that's called a drive.

  • Okay.

  • So it's from the time you receive the kickoff to the time you either score a point or have to punt.

  • Right.

  • Or the other team gets the ball.

  • - Right. We'll talk about in a second. - Yes. We will.

  • Okay. So that's a drive and I just want to point out with a d or a consonant cluster,

  • it's really common to pronounce that as JR.

  • So rather than ddd-- drive, its jjj-- drive, drive.

  • Wouldn't you say that's the more common pronunciation?

  • Definitely.

  • Yeah so let's talk about the different ways that you can advance the ball.

  • So the most basic way and I think sort of the oldest way... The way that the game kind of

  • was invented was most of the time, teams ran the ball.

  • So a running play is when the quarterback hands the ball off to a running back,

  • who then runs and tries to get as far as he can go.

  • So within that is another vocabulary word which is handoff.

  • So the quarterback is going to hand off the ball to the running back, and that's actually a pretty tricky time.

  • It's an easy time for the ball to be dropped,

  • and if you're handing the ball off, or anytime you're running with the ball,

  • if the ball falls to the ground, anybody can get the ball, the other team can get the ball, that's called a fumble.

  • A fumble is when the ball is on the ground and it's loose,

  • and that's often times when you see a huge pileup of everybody because the ball is up for grabs.

  • So the handoff is different than a throw

  • because I’m literally not letting go of it until you have gained possession.

  • Right.

  • It's your direct possession to mine, there's no oxygen there.

  • - Right. - okay.

  • so the other way to advance the ball forward is by throwing it, and that's when the quarterback drops back,

  • meaning goes back a couple feet after getting the ball, and is going to throw the ball downfield.

  • If the ball is caught by one of his players, that's a completion, or a complete pass, completed pass,

  • and if it's not, if the player drops it, that's called an incomplete pass.

  • Meaning that you tried to throw it but the ball hit the ground instead of being caught.

  • And there's another thing that can happen when you throw the ball which is that the other team might catch it.

  • They might jump in front of you and instead of your player catching the ball,

  • the other team catches a ball that's called an interception.

  • Interception.

  • One other vocabulary word with throwing the football is 'spiral'.

  • Football is a really weird shape.

  • You know it's it's like tapered on both ends and that can be harder to throw, it can wobble a lot when it's thrown.

  • So you want it to be a nice spiral which means it just spins this way.

  • So the two points on either end, and it's spinning like this, and it just makes a nice straight arc to your receiver,

  • hopefully, hopefully not to the other team.

  • Right

  • David, what about when the quarterback is going to throw the ball and he doesn't get a chance to.

  • I've seen this happen so many times.

  • Right.

  • The quarterback drops back and goes backwards, and before he can get rid of the ball,

  • before he can make a pass, he gets tackled back in the backfield.

  • And that's called a sack.

  • Anytime that the quarterback loses yardage, goes backwards and is tackled before he can throw is a sack.

  • So a 'sack' is when you actually lose yards, you don't get to just start again at where you were.

  • If I’m the quarterback, and I get the football and I go back five yards looking for my guy,

  • and someone from the other team comes out of nowhere and sacks me,

  • then we have to start five yards back.

  • Right.

  • Really sad.

  • Right.

  • Okay, so the next word we're going to talk about is huddle.

  • So again, American football is broken up into distinct starts and stops.

  • And so before each play, both the offensive team and usually the defensive team will huddle up.

  • That means that they get really close together before the play starts and they discuss what's going to happen.

  • The offense is talking about what play they're going to run so that everybody knows what to do,

  • and the defense is making sure that they have their defensive assignments straightened out

  • so that everybody knows who's defending which part of the field, or covering which person on the offensive side.

  • So this never happens with soccer? No huddles in soccer?

  • Um, sometimes when there's a free kick.

  • Sometimes a couple of players will sort of huddle up and talk.

  • But for the most part, that happens at halftime than before the game.

  • Mmm-hmm.

  • Whereas in football, it happens between every play.

  • Right.

  • So very frequently.

  • Very frequently.

  • A recent innovation is for teams to do that less and less for offensive teams to huddle up less and less

  • with the idea being that if you just run your next play without a huddle, it's harder for the defense to keep up.

  • Because they didn't get a chance to huddle.

  • So how are you communicating your play in that case?

  • The quarterback is often yelling things out or you may, before you come on to the field for that drive,

  • you may script out five plays in a row that you're going to run,

  • and everybody knows it's these five no matter the situation, here's the five plays we're going to run.

  • So two more vocabulary words that come up and are sort of hard to understand, one is redzone.

  • So the redzone is the area twenty yards out from your opponent's end zone.

  • That means that you're getting close to scoring a touchdown.

  • It's not actually red on the field but in in commentary, you'll hear that phrase used,

  • and it's used because it means that the offense is getting close to scoring a touchdown.

  • So what...

  • What's important about it is that if the offense gets that close, but can't score a touchdown,

  • that's actually kind of a victory for the defense.

  • You'll hear it said that the defense held them to a field goal.

  • They were in the redzone but they were held to a field goal.

  • It's kind of a: yes, you got three points scored on you but they didn't get in the end zone.

  • - Right. - They didn't score a touchdown.

  • - They could have and they didn't. - Right.

  • You know I’m thinking of one other term.

  • After you score a touchdown,

  • then well, two other terms, then you get a chance for another play

  • to get one more point and that's called an extra point.

  • Right.

  • Which basically means you have to score a second touchdown.

  • - No, I’m wrong... - Well, no, you have to...

  • That's a two-point conversion.

  • - That's a two-point conversion. - Okay

  • So when you score a touchdown, you get six points.

  • Usually, you try to then score what looks like a field goal,

  • but it's called an extra point, and how far away are you for that?

  • The NFL just changed it, I think now, you're ten yards away maybe for a kick.

  • - So ten plus the end zone would be twenty yards away. - I think that's right. Yeah.

  • Okay so after you score a touchdown, you'd get a chance to score again.

  • Either at one point by kicking it through the goal posts, goal posts.

  • Or you can do a two-point conversion, which means you're going to score another touchdown

  • either by running or by passing into the end zone.

  • Then you get two points for a total of eight.

  • Yes.

  • And one last term and that is special teams.

  • So we've talked a lot about the offense and the defense,

  • but then there are these other plays that are called special teams plays, and those are the kicking plays.

  • And the reason it's called special teams is because there are usually players who are focused just on those plays.

  • So using the kickoff as an example, the special teams would come on to do the kickoff.

  • And it's such a specialized skill that they have, you know, guys that are focused just on doing that.

  • Which I find crazy.

  • So you have a football team with like a hundred people on it.

  • And some of them literally only come out on the field for like two minutes at a time for a kickoff.

  • That's all they do, that's all they know how to do.

  • 15 seconds maybe.

  • 15 seconds.

  • And actually the way it works though is that the people on special teams are the backups to the other players.

  • And it's actually something that that teams use as a way to see who might evolve into becoming a regular player.

  • Um, you can kind of earn your stripes by being a solid special teams player.

  • Earn your stripes.

  • Great idiom.

  • Means to prove yourself.

  • So David you grew up playing soccer.

  • You love soccer.

  • I do.

  • You're a huge NFL fan.

  • If you had to choose, you can only watch one for the rest of your life, what are you choosing?

  • That's brutal.

  • I would have to choose an American football, I guess.

  • Really? I am shocked.

  • It's hard because my... The teams that I’m passionate about are here.

  • I mean international viewers are going to know that major league soccer is just kind of okay.

  • Yeah, in the US, soccer, professional soccer hasn't quite taken off the way other sports have yet.

  • Yeah, it's made a ton of progress.

  • Yeah, I mean it's, it's a lot more robust than it was.

  • It's a strong league but it's nowhere near the strong leagues in Europe and so that's...

  • But... You know, I wouldn't actually choose.

  • I would tell you're not allowed to make me choose.

  • Okay.

  • Well, David thank you for explaining some of the rules and vocabulary terms of American football.

  • Now, make sure you come back next week,

  • Tuesday morning, Eastern Time, because we're going to sit down again

  • and this time, we're going to be talking about idioms that are relating to football.

  • We have so many idioms that come from sports that we use in everyday life,

  • so next week you're going to get the chance to learn some of those.

  • - David thanks for being here with me. - You're welcome.

  • That's it guys, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

Chances are you know all about football and you love it.

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    林宜悉 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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