NFL A beginners guide

Let’s start with a bit of history. In 1970 the NFL and the AFL merged and became the American Football conference and the National Football conference (NFC and AFC) under the banner of the National Football League.

These 2 conferences are further split into 4 divisions of 4 teams each (East, West, North and South), giving us 8 total divisions and 32 total teams.

These teams play 17 regular season games that span 18 weeks (each team has a bye week off in the regular season) 

These games are split as below

· Six games against divisional opponents (one home and one away for each team in their division)

· Four games against teams from a division within its conference – two games at home and two away

· Four games against teams from a division in the other conference (i.e. NFC for AFC and vice versa) these are two home and two away 

· Two games against teams from the two remaining divisions in its own conference – one at home and one away (matchups are based on division rankings from the previous NFL season)

· The recently installed 17th game is an additional game against a non-conference opponent from a division that the team is not scheduled to play (these matchups are based on division rankings from the previous NFL season)

The NFL also plays international series games in the UK, Germany and Mexico 

Playoffs

Once the regular season (17 game schedule) is completed the NFL playoff’s start 

The playoffs are made up of 

The 8 division champions in each division (team with the best overall record)

Plus 3 wild card teams determined by who has the next best records in each conference giving us 14 total teams for the playoffs.

The number one seed in each conference will get a bye week before playing their first playoff game 

One important note is that once in the Playoffs the teams will only play their own conference teams with the Superbowl being the matchup between the NFC and AFC champions

 Gameplay consists of a series of downs with a team having the aim to use these downs to get to the opposition end zone and score a touchdown

A team will have 4 chances or downs to move the ball 10 yards or more and secure another set of downs moving down the field with either passing plays or run plays.

A team is made up of offensive (attacking) and Defensive players with 11 members of the team being on the field at any one time 

A touchdown is worth 6 points and occurs when a team gets the ball in the opposition end zone 

after a touchdown the successful team has an opportunity to score either an extra point by kicking the ball through the uprights for 1 point or to run a 2 point play trying to either pass or run the ball in.

So a successful touchdown can be worth between 6-8 points 

Of course it is the defenses job to stop this from happening and they will do this in a variety of ways, from intercepting the Quarterback of the other team and taking possession away, sacking the quarterback (tackling with the aim to move them back on the field or get a strip sack where they take the ball away) or forcing the opponents to punt the ball away on fourth down or turning the ball over on downs if the opposition offense decides to go for it on fourth down.

If teams are at fourth down and feel like they are in range they can attempt to score a field goal (worth 3 points) this is done by kicking the ball through the uprights much like an extra point however this is normally attempted when the team gets within 50 yards of the end zone 

Teams can also score points if they tackle the opposition quarterback inside their own end zone this results in 2 points for the defensive team

The NFL Draft 

Like most American sports, the NFL and it's teams seek to build their teams through the drafting system. 

Put simply this is when teams will pick the best up and coming college players to join their teams

With the NFL being a parity driven team they give draft picks dependent on your record of the previous season. So the worst team (by win loss record) in the NFL will get the first pick and so one with the winner of that years Superbowl getting the last pick in each round.

The draft is made up of 7 rounds of picks

Draft picks are not set in stone though and can be traded with other teams either for players or to move up or down the draft board 

Other team building methods 

The draft isn't the only method of building your team in the NFL there is also

• Free Agency
•  undrafted players 
• and trades with other teams

The NFL as mentioned above is a parity driven league designed to ensure each team can be successful in any given year.

They do this in a variety of different ways

• Overall Salary cap - each team has to stick to a yearly salary cap that they cannot exceed - 2023 salary cap is set at $224.8 million (this stops teams from just signing all the best players on massive contracts)
• Draft pick allocation - the worst team having the first pick in each round
• Business structure - the league negotiates national merchandise, licensing and TV contracts and this is shared equally amongst the 32 NFL teams regardless of performance