I enjoy playing and watching a lot of sports, but football is definitely not among them. For me, watching a bunch of massive dudes running around trying to give each other concussions gets old, fast. But when Super Bowl Sunday rolls around every year, somehow I find myself caught up in all the hype and often do sit down to watch it with friends or family. That’s when my lack of knowledge about the sport, the teams, and the players really catches up to me. #fakefan
So this year, I thought I’d be proactive and do a little research to help myself and anyone else who needs a crash course on football and this year’s Super Bowl . And with all this new info, hopefully you can make some insightful comments to the football fanatics in your life and trick them into thinking you actually care about the game.
Here’s what you need to know:
The Game
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This year is Super Bowl LIII (That’s 53 for those of you who don’t know your Roman numerals!)
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It’s on Sunday, February 3, and kickoff is at 6:30pm ET.
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It’s being hosted in Atlanta, Georgia at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons.
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If you’re only interested in the non-football related festivities, Maroon 5 is performing during the halftime show, with Travis Scott and Big Boi as special guests.
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And of course, you can expect some fun commercials from big brands like Pepsi, Doritos, M&M’s, Pringles and a whole bunch of car companies that will show heavy-duty trucks driving through deserts and stuff.
The Teams
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On one side, we have the Los Angeles Rams, coming from the NFC (National Football Championship) West with a record of 13 wins and 3 losses this season.
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They’re a relatively young team in the league and have proven themselves to work hard to come back when they’re down a few points.
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Some notable players include quarterback Jared Goff and Aaron Donald on defense.
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Their opponents are the New England Patriots from the AFC (American Football Championship) East, and their record was 11-5.
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This is their third straight Super Bowl, and if they win this year, they’ll be tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most Super Bowl wins for a franchise.
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They have a strong offense with Tom Brady as quarterback and Rob Gronkowski running tight end.
The Rules
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There are 11 players for each team on at once, and the field is 100 yards long with an end zone of 10 yards on either side, both of which contain raised goal posts.
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Time on the clock is 60 minutes, divided into 4 quarters (15 min quarters).
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There are many different types of players; some play offense, some play defense, and some have specialized roles for certain situations. They all have different fancy technical terms, all of which are way too much to get into here.
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Before the game starts, there’s a coin toss to determine who kicks the ball to who first.
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Goal for team on offense is to move down the field by running with the ball or receiving it as a pass from the quarterback, and the defense is trying to stop/intercept them.
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Offense has 4 “downs” (like 4 tries), to advance at least 10 yards towards the end zone. If they succeed, they get a new set of 4 downs, and if not, the ball is turned over to the other team so that they get a chance to play offense.
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Players try to run into the endzone with the ball or catch the ball while standing in it.
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Downs/plays end when the ball hits the ground, goes out of bounds, or the player holding the ball drops at least to their knees.
Ways to Score
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Touchdown: Scoring these is the main objective in football, as they’re worth 6 points. After scoring a touchdown, you can try for extra point conversion attempts that will get you one or two more points, respectively
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Two-point conversion: The scoring team has one attempt to score again from two yards outside of the end zone
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One-point conversion: The scoring team will attempt to kick the ball between the goal posts from the 15 yard line
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Field goal: This is also when the ball is kicked between the goal posts, but it’s worth 3 points and is often completed during the 4th down when a touchdown hasn’t been scored.
Obviously there’s much more to the game, most of which I figured wouldn’t make most sense if I, someone who still doesn’t fully understand the game, tried to explain it. And at the end of the day, if you just want to keep your innocence and cheer for the team with the nicer jerseys, you do you. Happy Super Bowl-ing!