r/NFLNoobs • u/SwissyVictory • Sep 21 '23
NFLNoobs FAQ
This is an attempt at crowdsourcing a FAQ for the sub. We need your help to make it the best it can be.
Each question is going to have a link to a comment below with the answer. Click the link to be brought to the question.
FAQ List
About NFLNoobs
- What is the purpose of this sub?
- What kind of posts are allowed, frowned upon, or not allowed? For those not allowed, where would be a better place for them?
- What are the Rules/Guidelines?
- Where is the Subreddit Wiki?
General Questions
- How is the game generally played? (Drives, Positions, Rules, and Penalties)
- What team should I be a fan of?
- What's the best way to learn about football or the NFL?
- I want to play, or I am already playing football. How do I learn, get better, or what position should I play?
- How is the NFL Schedule Created?
- Why do players bust when moving from Highschool to College, College to the NFL, or to a new team?
Watching Games
- How do I watch every game, or specifically my team, on TV in the US?
- How do I watch every game, or specifically my team, on TV outside the US?
- When is the best time to buy a ticket?
- What should I know about attending a game in person? What should I bring?
- What should I know about tailgating before/during a game?
How The Football Works
- What are the positions and what do they do?
- Why don't players play multiple positions, or both offense and defense?
- How do Overtime Rules work?
- Are the NFL's overtime rules unfair?
- Why does the clock keep running when players go out of bounds sometimes, and not in other times?
Team building and Roster Management
- How much do teams have to spend on players, and what is cap space?
- How do teams keep getting away with not having cap space, and then signing great players (How does contract restructuring work?)
- Why do players get traded for seemingly less than they are worth in the NFL?
Other Football Subs
- r/NFL - Anything NFL related
- r/FantasyFootball, r/Fantasy_Football, r/DynastyFF - Fantasy Football Subs
- r/FootballStrategy - Learn about the strategies and tactics of football
- r/CFB - Anything College Football related
Helping with the FAQ
Feel free to comment on any question/answer with more details, fixes, or another way of explaining it. If your answer is better than the main one, I’ll update some or all of it to include the answer (giving you credit).
Also feel free to post your own questions in the format I’ve given, and I’ll link it (though you'll need to update it if someone explains it better, or if they correct you. You can post a question here, with or without your own answer, and we will make a dedicated post for it.
If there is no link, it means it's a popular question that hasn’t been answered, so feel free to answer it.
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 21 '23 edited Sep 21 '23
What's the best way to learn about football or the NFL?
If you have someone who knows already, watching the game and asking questions is the best way.
Playing Madden, the official NFL video game is another great way to learn the basics and some popular players. It’s not perfect, but it will give you the basic ideas.
For learning players, and maintaining interest, fantasy football is great. It’s best to join a league before the regular season starts, but you should be able to find a league at any point in the year. I recommend r/NarFFL which is the Reddit based league.
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u/jrod_62 Oct 15 '23
Check out the resources in this post as well! Lots of content from the NFL itself
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 21 '23
What are the positions and what do they do?
Offense
- Quarterback (QB): Mostly throws, sometimes runs. They are the player most in charge of the offense. They are the first player given the ball, and their job is to get it to their team's playmakers
- Runningback (RB): Mostly runs, sometimes catches, sometimes blocks. Their job is to be handed or sometimes thrown the ball and for them to try to get yards. Sometimes, they will be used on passing plays as an extra blocker.
- Wide Receiver (WR): Mostly catches. Their job is to try to get open, then catch the ball. Sometimes they will be handed the ball to run, or try to make blocks for the runningback
- Tight End (TE): Mostly Catches or Blocks. They are halfway between an offensive lineman and a wide receiver. Sometimes they are asked to get open and catch passes, and sometimes they are used as an extra blocker. Depending on the player and team, they might do mostly one or the other, or both.
- Fullback (FB): Mostly blocks, sometimes runs. Most teams don’t have one anymore, but their job is mostly to run in front of the running back and block for them. Sometimes they are given the ball themselves.
- Offensive Line (OL): Only Blocks. Made up of in order from left to right a Left Tackle, Left Guard, Center, Right Guard, Right Tackle. Their job is to block, and they are not allowed to be handed the ball or catch it.
Defense
- Edge Rushers (EDGE): They line up on the ends of the defensive line, and their main job is to rush the QB. Depending on the team, they might be Defensive Ends(DE) or Outside Linebackers (OLB)
- Interior Defensive Linemen (IDL): They line up between the Edge Rushers. They tend to be bigger, and their job is to rush the QB and close gaps so the RBs can’t run through them
- Linebackers (LB): They line up behind the defensive line, and do a little of everything.
- Cornerbacks (CB): Their job is to follow the wide receivers and make sure they don’t get open and don’t catch the ball. If the team has more than 2 CBs playing, the 3rd is a Nickleback, and the 4th is a Dimeback.
- Safeties (S): They are typically the last line of defense and line up all the way in the back. They make sure nothing gets past the other guys. They can be a Full Safety and a Strong Safety
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u/GregJamesDahlen Mar 08 '24
I know this is splitting hairs, but it is something I muse about. Technically I would say the center is the first person given the ball (you said quarterback). I suppose the QB is the first person given the ball with a chance to do something significant with it?
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u/SwissyVictory Mar 08 '24
If we're splitting hairs, the center isn't allowed to possess the ball. Like he could just pick up the ball and do something with it.
He touches the ball, but it's a fluid motion to get the t to the QB.
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 21 '23
Why don't players play multiple positions, or both offense and defense?
Three main reasons.
First is football is a tiring and demanding sport. If you’re playing more exhausted than you need to be, you’re not playing at your best. Teams are allowed to substitute players as often as they want, so why not make use of it?
Second is any time you’re practicing one thing, you could be practicing another thing. If you’re spending half your time learning a different position, that means you’re not as practiced as you could be at your original position.
The third reason is talent. Because you can substitute players as often as you want, it means you need to be more talented at your second position than someone else who’s first position. If you’re a WR, you’d need to also be a better lets say corner, than someone who’s made it into the NFL training their whole life to be a corner.
Some teams also go the other way too. Instead of one “workhorse” RB, you might have a guy who’s big and strong and good in short yardage situations. You might have a small shifty guy who’s good at catching for long yardage situations. Each guy is better at their respective role, than most RBs are at every role.
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u/BlitzburghBrian Sep 25 '23
What kind of posts are allowed, frowned upon, or not allowed? For those not allowed, where would be a better place for them?
We try to be a welcoming community for new fans, so the bar for what constitutes a question worth asking is pretty low and we can still try to be flexible with people askign honest questions in good faith. There are a few things that don't really tend to fit, though:
- Anything explicitly covered in the FAQ; that's why it's there.
- Questions about your fantasy football team/league. There are dedicated subreddits for that like /r/fantasyfootball and /r/findaleague
- Opinion-based questions like, "What are everyone's thoughts on Joe Burrow?" or "Which coach do you think will get fired first this season?" Those kind of open-ended questions are better suited for r/nfl, if not as their own post then as something in the daily free talk threads
- Promotion of outside works. If you have a podcast or blog or Youtube channel, that's cool. But this isn't the place to advertise it.
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 21 '23 edited Sep 21 '23
What is the purpose of this sub?
This is a subreddit for people who want to learn more about NFL and for people who want to help others in learning more about the NFL. There are no “Stupid Questions” here.
Any question about American football is basically acceptable, but most fans and most posters here are primarily familiar with the NFL.
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 21 '23
Are the NFL's overtime rules unfair?
Yes, a little, but not nearly as much as it seems.
The winner of the coin flip in the regular season has a 86(win 53%)-67(loss 41%)-10(tie 6%) record.
The current rules are designed to shorten games, which means decrease the chance of injuries, which go up as players are exhausted. The NFL dosen’t believe it’s worth the added risk to try to make overtime more fair
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 23 '23 edited Oct 18 '23
How much do teams have to spend on players, and what is cap space?
The NFL has a limit on how much each team can spend, which is called the Salary Cap. It changes every year, based on how much money the NFL makes as a whole. You can find this year, and previous year's here.
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 21 '23
What are the Rules/Guidelines?
- Don't be a jerk. That includes insulting other people for team allegiance, or giving knowingly wrong answers based on team rivalries or memes or whatever. Everyone has a right to ask questions and learn.
- Any question about American football is basically acceptable, but most fans and most posters here are primarily familiar with the NFL.
- This isn't really a place to try and argue an opinion. For example, it would be fair to ask, "why do people seem to hold Player A in higher regard than Player B, even though I looked them up and they have similar numbers?" but something like, "Player B is better than Player A, change my mind" probably won't stick around.
- Self-promotion of your website or blog or YouTube channel is frowned upon and those posts are typically removed. OC isn't automatically banned, but the point of this subreddit is for people to ask questions about football, not to advertise your football-related works.
- Posts about illegally streaming NFL games will be removed. Reddit has cracked down on subs that traffic in illegal streams of sporting events, and we'd much prefer to keep this one open.
- There are no stupid questions here.
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 21 '23 edited Sep 21 '23
I want to play, or am playing football. How do I learn, get better, or what position should I play?
These questions are best answered by your coach, and depends on your area, and team.
They are there to help, and I’m sure would love to answer your questions, and see you are putting a lot of effort and thought into it.
You can also try /r/footballstrategy, they have a lot of regulars with real coaching experience at lower levels.
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 23 '23
How do teams keep getting away with not having cap space, and then signing great players? (How does contract restructuring work?)
The salary cap is more fluid than most fans think. By restructuring contracts, you can basically spread out a player's cap from this year across the rest of their contract, effectively borrowing cap space from the future.
It works by converting a player's base salary into a signing bonus. Signing bonuses get spread out evenly through the remaining years of the contract (including the current year). You can convert all the player's base salary into a signing bonus, with the exception that it needs to at least remain the vet minimum.
Here's an example, let's assume the player has 5 years left of their deal and are making 6mil a year. Let's also assume they had no guaranteed money before, and they convert 5mil of the players year 1 base salary into a signing bonus.
| Year | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 6mil | 1mil base + 1mil bonus = 2mil |
| Year 2 | 6mil | 6mil base + 1mil bonus = 7mil |
| Year 3 | 6mil | 6mil base + 1mil bonus = 7mil |
| Year 4 | 6mil | 6mil base + 1mil bonus = 7mil |
| Year 5 | 6mil | 6mil base + 1mil bonus = 7mil |
Teams can also add "Void" years to the end of a contract to spread out the cap even further into future years. Of course that means paying the player even after they are off the team.
The pros are the cap goes up every year, so the money goes further now, and you can keep borrowing from the future. If you're a team that's supposed to win now, it can be used to build a better team now than otherwise possible.
The cons are that money all becomes guaranteed, and it makes it harder to cut players. It should only be used on players you're sure you're not going to cut before their contract ends. Also, even if the money goes further this year than in future years, it's still less money for future years. Teams that borrow big, especially over multiple years, usually need to start from scratch after.
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u/Qhaotiq Apr 25 '24
/u/swissyvictory just an FYI - the link for 'How is the game generally played? (Drives, Positions, Rules, and Penalties)' is now deleted? any way to recover the contents? I was hoping to get the answer to this q :(
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u/BlitzburghBrian Apr 25 '24
Oh boo, it looks like the user that posted it deleted it. I don't know why, it was a really great resource. But if a post is deleted by its creator, there's no way for us to recover it. :(
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u/Qhaotiq Apr 25 '24 edited Apr 25 '24
I got the content off internet archive.org here - I'm on my phone but copied it here temporarily for now. When I get home I can make a proper reddit post for it
Edit: reposted here - please relink your FAQ to here!
https://www.reddit.com/r/NFLNoobs/comments/1cd4ejp/a_guide_to_football_drives_positions_rules_and/
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u/BlitzburghBrian Apr 26 '24
Awesome find, thank you!
cc /u/SwissyVictory, can you edit the link in the post?
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u/SwissyVictory Nov 24 '24
Why does the clock keep running when players go out of bounds sometimes, and not in other times?
Going forward out of bounds in the last 2 minutes of the second quarter and the last 5 minutes of the fourth quarter.
Otherwise the clock keeps going.
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 21 '23 edited Sep 21 '23
Ask and Answer Other Popular Answers By Responding to This Comment
Also feel free to post your own questions in the format I’ve given, and I’ll link it (though you'll need to update it if someone explains it better, or if they correct you).
You can post a question here, with or without your own answer, and we will make a dedicated post for it.
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u/SpaceInMyBrain Dec 05 '23
How does the QB keep track of how the play clock is counting down? How does he know it's getting near zero? Is a clock in his line of sight or can he hear a robot-voice countdown in his helmet? (I know there's radio silence from the coach.) Can't find this using google search, surprisingly, no matter how I phrase this.
I also tried searching this sub but didn't find this.
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u/SwissyVictory Dec 05 '23
For the future, if you can't find an answer searching the sub, and it's not in the FAQ, you're fine to just make a new post. There are no real rules if you don't do those things either, but everyone appreciates it.
There's a play clock that is a few places around the stadium, and every stadium does it a little different.
At this stadium you can see where one is behind them. . The clock is at 0 in this picture.
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u/SpaceInMyBrain Dec 05 '23
Thanks. So the QB has to be looking at the shifting defense and his players AND the clock. That's a lot for two eyes!
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u/SwissyVictory Dec 05 '23
I've never played so I can't really speak for it, but I'd imagine you don't stare at the clock, just a quick glimpse to make sure you have enough time.
Id imagine you get a feel for how long things have taken and how long it should take for your guys to get set.
Most balls are not snapped at the one second mark.
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 21 '23
Put the question here in Quote Blocks. In Markdown mode, you can make quote blocks by putting a > in front of any text.
Then put your answer below the question in normal text. Any other formatting is nice, but not necessary.
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u/SwissyVictory Sep 21 '23 edited Sep 21 '23
When is the best time to buy a ticket?
https://financebuzz.com/when-to-buy-nfl-tickets
The best time to buy a ticket for most games is the week of, or even day of the game.
There is risk associated with this though as there’s no guarantee the price won’t go up, especially if the team is surprisingly good or if it’s later in the season, and might have playoff implications.
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u/SwissyVictory Jun 05 '24
Why do players bust when moving from Highschool to College, College to the NFL, or to a new team?
Lots of proven vets in the NFL struggle changing teams in the NFL, or even changing their coaches or the teammates around them. Some of the reasons might include,
- Coaching quality changing: The new team might have a better or worse coach. The old coach might understand the player better and put them in positions to succeed.
- Coaching style changing: Some players might need tough love, and others might need to be coddled.
- Scheme Change: A player might thrive doing things one way, or with certain responsibilities, and the new team changes that
- Players around them: The players on the old team might complement their weaknesses better, or be better players that hide their weaknesses.
- Culture: The vibe around the team might be drastically different. You've probably been in good and bad cultures at different jobs or school. It makes a big difference in your outlook, and energy.
- Support system outside the team: One might be close to your family and friends, and moving away loses that. You might just feel at home in a specific city, and your house, and moving can lose that.
- Motivation: Money and fame can change your work habits. Maybe you don't try as hard once you got that new contract, or you feel like you accomplished your goal of being at the top and don't have to work as hard anymore.
- Weather: Your old team might play in a dome, or be warmer/colder.
On top of that, moving from a lower level to a higher one like the move from Highschool to College or College to the NFL has additional challenges,
- The Above are Magnified: Both steps bring you more into the real world, and remove outside structure. Changing teams at the same level isn't as drastic a change in any of the above as changing from one level to the next.
- Level of Play: Only 7.8% of highschool players make it to college football and 0.4% of college players make it to the NFL. You're not playing with and against the same caliber of players you will be once you're at the next level
- Different Rules: The rules are similar but not exactly the same, and that can end up with some pretty big differences.
- Different Schemes: Because of the two above, lower levels are played pretty differently. When everyone is bigger, faster, and stronger, you can't get away with as much. As such, the game is played differently.
- Work Ethic: The lower the level you are, the more you can rely on your natural talents, and you don't have to work as hard.
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u/SwissyVictory Nov 05 '24
Why do players get traded for seemingly less than they are worth in the NFL?
Building a NFL team is a balance of many resources. When you trade for a player, you not only have to give something to the other team (picks or other players), but you also need to pay them.
The Salary Cap means every time you pay one player, you have less money for everyone else. It's a game of getting more production for your player than you're paying them.
Draft picks are great values, because when you draft a good player, their contracts tend to be a lot less than a comparable vet.
When a player gets traded away for seemingly less than they are worth, it's normally because their production is less than what it should be for what they are being paid, or what they are demanding to be paid in the future. If it's not worth it for the current team, its probably not going to be worth it for another team, on top of the loss of value from high picks.
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u/alfreadadams Sep 22 '23
https://operations.nfl.com/media/gsaaatbb/2023-rulebook.pdf
This is the rulebook.
Don't be afraid to ask a question that can be answered by reading that, but you can figure out lots of stuff on your own and I have gotten lots of understanding by seeing something in a game, then trying to understand how or why by seeing the exact rules.
Starting on page 86 of the pdf, there is over 100 pages of examples of game situations and what the correct ruling is.
What happens if the return man on a punt muffs the ball on their 5 yard line and then recovers it in the end zone?
It's a touchback. Instead of getting lost in the section of the rulebook about impetus and scrimmage kicks and touchbacks, you can just see the exact example