Indoor American football
- This article is about the sport of Arena Football. See Arena Football (video game) for the EA Sports video game of the same name.
Arena football is a sport invented by Jim Foster, a former executive of the United States Football League and the National Football League. While attending an indoor soccer game in 1981 at Madison Square Garden, he developed the basic rules of the sport. Over the next five years, he continued to modify the rules, and play some test games, until he was ready to launch the Arena Football League in 1987. The league spawned a minor league called af2 in 2000. Other people have started their own indoor football leagues. These leagues do not technically play arena football, however, because of the patent on the rules (specifically for the rebound nets [1]) that Foster obtained in 1990.
Rules of the game
Arena football is very similar to American football, so only the important differences between its rules and those of the National Football League are articulated here. In addition to differences relating to the reduced field size, other rule changes were intended to make the arena game faster-paced and higher-scoring.
The field
Arena football is played exclusively indoors, in arenas usually designed for either basketball or ice hockey teams. The field is the same width (85 feet) as a standard NHL hockey rink. The field is 50 yards long with 8-yard end zones. Depending on the stadium in which a game is being played, the end zones may be rectangular (like a basketball court) or curved (like a hockey rink). There is a heavily padded wall on each sideline, with the padding placed on top of the hockey dasher boards. The field goal uprights are 9 feet wide, and the crossbar is 15 feet above the playing surface. Taut rebound nets on either side of the posts bounce any missed field goals back into the field of play. The ball is "live" when rebounding off these nets or their support apparatuses.
A player is not counted as out of bounds on the sidelines unless they are pushed into or fall over the boundary wall.
The players
Each team fields eight players from a 20-man active roster. Players must play both offense and defense except for the quarterback, kicker, an offensive specialist and two defense specialists.
Substitution Rules
Other than specialists and kickers, a player may enter the game once per quarter. For players who start the quarter, they may be substituted for and then re-enter, one time. For a substitute, once he enters and then leaves, he may not return.
If a player enters and leaves, from the moment of he leaves the player is considered "dead" and cannot return to play until the designated time is served.
- For two-way players "dead" time is one quarter
- For specialists "dead" time is one half
Exception: a "dead" player may participate on kickoffs, or as long snapper or holder. In 2006, the AFL changed its substitution rules such that free substitutions are now allowed on all kickoffs.
Formations
Four offensive players must be on the line of scrimmage at the snap. One offensive player may be moving forward at the time of the snap. Three defensive players must be in a three- or four-point stance at the start of the snap. Two defenders serve as linebackers called the mac and the jack. The mac may blitz from the side of the line opposite the offensive tight end. The Jack cannot blitz and cannot drop back into coverage until the ball is thrown or the quarterback pump-fakes or is no longer in the pocket. The Jack must stay within the box designated by the outside shoulders of the offensive line, the line of scrimage, and 5 yards back from the line of scrimage.
Ball movement
The ball is kicked off from the goal line. The team with the ball is given four downs to gain ten yards or score. Punting is illegal due to the size of the playing field. A receiver jumping to catch a pass needs to get only one foot down in bounds for the catch to be deemed a completed catch. Passes that bounce off the rebound nets remain live. Balls that bounce off the padded walls that surround the field are live; the end zone walls were not live until the 2006 season. The defending team may return field goal attempts that bounce off the rebound nets.
Scoring
The scoring is the same as in the NFL with the addition of a drop kick field goal worth four points during normal play or two points as a post-touchdown conversion. Blocked extra points and turnovers on two-point conversion attempts may be returned by the defensive team for two points.
Timing
Current timing rules
The clock stops for out-of-bounds plays, incomplete passes, or sacks only in the last minute of each half (there is only a one-minute warning, as opposed to the two-minute warning in the NFL) or due to penalties, injuries or timeouts. The clock also stops for any change in possession, until the ball is marked ready for play; for example, aside from in a half's final minute, time continues to run down after a touchdown, but stops after an extra point or two-point conversion attempt. If a quarter ends as a touchdown is scored, an untimed conversion attempt takes place. Halftime lasts 15 minutes (12 minutes on games shown on NBC). The play clock is 35 seconds, starting at the end of the previous play.
The clock also stops in the last minute of the game if the offensive team has the lead and fails to advance the ball past the line of scrimmage. This prevents the offensive team from merely kneeling down or running other plays that are designed solely to exhaust the remaining time rather than to advance the ball downfield, as often occurs in the outdoor game.
In overtime, each team gets one possession to score. If after each team has had one possession, one team is ahead, that team wins. If the teams are tied after each has had a possession, the next team to score ("sudden death") wins. Each overtime period is 15 minutes, and continues from the ending of the previous overtime period.
Previous timing rule changes
Prior to the 2006 season, there was one 15-minute overtime period, and if it expired with the teams still tied, the game was recorded as a tie. There were two ties in AFL history prior to the 2006 rule change:
- July 14, 1988: Chicago Bruisers 37, Los Angeles Cobras 37 (when this game was played, the overtime period was 7 1/2 minutes long)
- April 8, 2005: Nashville Kats 41, Dallas Desperados 41
Prior to 2006, the play clock was 25 seconds, and it began on signal from the referee.
Popular culture
Due to its young age as a sport, few popular culture references to arena football exist. It is, however, established as a high school sport in the motion picture version of Starship Troopers, and most of the lead characters play the sport, with a game taking place as an early scene in the film. In addition, Van Montgomery, a character on the TV sitcom Reba (2001-present), was employed for a time as an arena football player.
EA Tiburon has recently developed the first mainstream arena football game under the publisher EA Sports. The game was released on February 9, 2006 (or, according to the EA Sports site, February 7, 2006) and features licensed players and arenas from the Arena Football League. Midway Sports did publish an arena football game in 2001 (Kurt Warner's Arena Football Unleashed). This game was poorly received, both by traditional videogamers who saw it as an unneeded ripoff of NFL Blitz, and by arena football fans who did not like the rule changes and arcade nature of the game.
In 2001, Jeff Foley published War on the Floor: an average guy plays in the Arena Football League and lives to write about it. The book details a journalist's two preseasons (1999 and 2000) as an offensive specialist/writer with the now-defunct Albany Firebirds. The 5-foot-6, self-described "unathletic writer" played in three preseason games and had one catch for -2 yards.
Fatalities
Los Angeles Avengers player Al Lucas died, presumably due to a spinal cord injury, on April 10, 2005 in a game against the New York Dragons. Although it might be attributed to the rough style of arena football, the tackle, during a first quarter kickoff, was not very different from those in stadium-played American football. Lucas was 26. It is the only fatality in the AFL's history.
The only fatality in af2 history was Bakersfield Blitz FB/LB Julian Yearwood on July 19, 2003. Julian came out of the game in the 1st quarter allegedly claiming that he wasn't well, collapsed, and was later pronounced dead at Via Christi St. Francis Hospital after medical personnel worked to resuscitate him.