In honor of this weekend, the glorious beginning of football season, I will address a serious personal shortcoming. It has come to my attention that Jen reached the quarter-century mark of her life without understanding the concept of downs. That this occurred on my watch is inexcusable, and for failing her I humbly apologize to Jen, her various boyfriends, her cats, and all the women in building 24 (the men being a miniscule subset of "her various boyfriends"). As my punishment, I'm going to create a football FAQ for novices. The first installment follows.
Although simple, downs are not at all transparent. As a child, it took me years to sift through the confusion and "get" it. I could have asked my father, but I intuitively understood that to do so would be akin to asking him why I had no penis. Not prepared to do that, either, I lumped it and tried to figure it out on my own. Let no reader of mine undertake this thankless enterprise.
Understanding downs
Before you understand downs, you have to understand the bigger picture, and since you're still reading, odds are good you don't. From goal post to goal post, a football field is 120 yards long. The 10 yards on each end are called the "end zone," and the 100 yards that separate them are what the whole game is about. Football is essentially a tug-of-war using a ball. A team tries to advance the ball to its own end zone, and if its progress stalls, it must give possession of the ball back to the other team, who will advance the ball the other direction. The progress of the advancement is measured in the dread "downs."
Downs are almost-but-not-quite synonymous with "plays." Think of a down as a chance to execute a single play. Each possession of the ball begins with four downs. If you don't advance the ball ten yards in four plays, the ball goes back to the other team. If you advance the ball ten yards (cumulatively) in those four plays, you're given a fresh set of four downs. This is when the ref says "First down!" and the crowd cheers. It's a minor milestone: progress has been made, possession of the ball has been retained, and we're that much closer to scoring. So a touchdown drive, then, will usually consist of several sets of downs, or in the vernacular, several first downs.
The jargon
To illustrate, let's say my beloved Steelers take possession of the ball on their own 20 yard line. It's first and 10, which means "first down in this series of downs, ten yards to go until we get another first down." We may have 80 yards to go before we score a touchdown, but we only need 10 yards to achieve a new set of downs. The quarterback, who you will not identify by commenting on his physical beauty, completes a 15 yard pass. The ball is on the 35 yard line. It's now 1st down and 10 yards to go again, or in the vernacular, "1st and 10 from the 35." He throws an incomplete pass. It's 2nd and 10. Duce Staley runs the ball for six yards, pulling his hamstring in the process. He'll miss six weeks, but it's now 3rd and 4 from the 41. The quarterback runs for 7 yards. First down! It's 1st and 10 from the 48. Got it?
If you're watching on TV, the first down is often represented by a bright yellow line superimposed on the field. If the team advances the ball to that line, it's a first down. Some network genius thought this made the games easier to follow, but personally, I find it distracting.
The confusing stuff
Punts. Say the quarterback was stopped for no gain on that last play. It's 4th down and 4 yards to go. If we don't make those four yards, the other team gets the ball right here on the 41, which is a disaster. For this reason, teams usually elect to punt (kick) the ball to the other team on fourth down, which moves the ball an additional 40 yards or so—in this case lengthening the distance they have to advance the ball from 41 to 81 yards.
Penalties. If a player breaks a rule, the refs assess a penalty that adversely adjusts the down and distance. For example, if an offensive player illegally grasps a defender, that's called "holding." The penalty: you replay the down, but the offense has ten more yards to go than before. So if Plaxico Burress is caught holding on 3rd down and 1 yard to go, it's now 3rd and 11 and Steeler fans are building a Plaxico effigy. The penalty adjustments vary wildly; just listen to the ref.
"...and goal."If the team advances the ball to within 10 yards of the end zone, sometimes no first down is possible. This is indicated by the announcer saying "and goal" instead of the distance to the next first down. So if the Steelers run the ball 20 yards to the 9 yard line, it's 1st and goal from the nine. After they run for one yard, it's 2nd and goal from the 8. And so on.
The orange stakes. If you look on the sideline, you'll see two failed jocks holding orange stakes, which are connected by a 10-yard chain. One stake denotes where the set of downs began, and the other stake denotes where the team has to advance the ball to achieve a new first down. So the team is always playing between them, right? Wrong. This is perfectly true...until penalties are applied and the team backs up so far that they're playing outside the two stakes. It confuses people, but now you know what's happening.
Next week: making insightful comments during a game