"Baseball is easy to fathom, not like football, which people explain to me at great length and I understand for one brief moment before it all falls apart in my brain and looks like an ominous calculus problem."
-Eve Babitz, writer
Fair enough.. I'll try to be simple.
In football, the team with the ball will try to score and the other team (without the ball) tries to stop them.
Each team is allowed a series of plays on offense. That may seem sort of obvious but this concept of a series of offensive tries (as in baseball "innings") is a key distinction between the American game and rugby or soccer, or basketball, or hockey, all of which are free-flowing. In those games, teams exchange possession of the ball, back and forth, without any specific structure. Both baseball and American football, however, have rules about when teams are on offense and when they are on defense.
If the team on offense is stopped before they score, the ball is handed over to the other team and other team, now "on offense", tries to score. There are rules that determine when one team must relinquish the ball.
(In most organized football there are entirely different squads of specialist players who play only on the offense or only on the defense. This wasn't always the case but it was found to be more exciting for spectators to have specialists as opposed to have players play on both offense and defense. In the OFL, players play both offense and defense)
Where play starts on the field: Wherever the runner (who caught the ball during the kickoff) was tackled, now becomes the spot where regular play begins. The two teams will face each other at that spot across an imaginary line called the "Line of Scrimmage". The line runs across the field, from side to side like the yard markers drawn on the field. Players cannot cross this line until the ball is put back into play. They line up facing each other like soldiers on an old battlefield.
The play begins: The ball is put into play when one player on the offensive team flips the ball from the ground to another player (usually a player called the "Quarterback"). This toss of the ball (basically a backwards pass) starts the action up again. It's called a "snap" or a "hike". The moment the ball leaves the ground, the action starts again.
The play itself: Once the ball has been "snapped" and the action resumes, players are no longer restricted to one side of the "Line of Scrimmage". Players can go anywhere on the field. The offense will try to move the ball down the field in the direction of their opponents' goal area (the "end zone"), the defense tries to stop them. The Quarterback who has received the snap can either run with the ball can hand the ball to a teammate, or can throw the ball forward to a teammate. If he/she does throw a pass, and it is caught, the play keeps going until the player with the ball is tackled (or tagged) or goes out-of-bounds. Once that happens, all play stops. A new "Line of Scrimage" is created, exactly where the ball-carrier was tackled. The teams line up across from each other from this new Line of Scrimmage again and wait for the ball to be put back into play again with a new "snap".
The Quarterback can throw the ball forward as far as he/she wants but must do so from behind that invisible Line of Scrimmage. If a player with the ball runs past that Line of Scrimmage and then throws the ball forward it is a penalty. However, a backwards pass is legal from anywhere on the field at any time. Once the ball is in play, players could toss backwards passes to each other all the way down the field.
If a forward pass misses the receiver and hits the ground instead or flies out-of-bounds, the play is whistled dead. If a backwards pass misses the receiver and hits the ground, it is still in play, and, like rugby, every one just keeps playing, madly diving for the ball, which often bounces oddly.
Note: A pass from the Quarterback can be caught by players from either team. It is a "live ball" and available to anyone. If a pass by the Quarterback is caught by the opposing team it is an "interception", and can run back the other way for a score for the defense. The same thing happens if an offensive player either drops the ball while running (a "fumble"), or if a backwards pass is misplayed and hits the ground, or if the ball is physically pulled out of the arms of the ball-carrier by a player on the other team. If a ball is "fumbled", it is considered a loose ball and the other team may recover the football. This is one way the defensive team can gain possession of the ball. Defenses try very hard to intercept the quarterback's passes and also to knock the ball out of the other team's hands, causing a fumble.
The more common way of getting the ball back, however, is explained below in the "Downs" section.
The Play Ends: Play is stopped when the runner/pass receiver either has been tackled or runs out-of-bounds; or when a forward pass from the Quarterback hits the ground or flies out-of-bounds. (A pass which is not caught is called an "incomplete" pass.) At that point the ball is considered "dead" and the play is over. The teams line up again at the spot where the runner/receiver was last tackled/tagged. The next play begins when the ball is again "snapped".
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