rules Archives - Page 5 of 9

How do free throws work in basketball?

Dear Sports Fan,

How do free throws work in basketball? It seems like usually a player gets two shots, but then sometimes it’s only one. Can you explain?

Thanks,
Justin

Dear Justin,

A free throw is one element of the penalty given to a player who commits a foul in basketball. The player who the foul has been committed on, if he or she is given a free throw, gets to shoot the ball from the free throw line without any interference from the defending team. The free throw line is fifteen feet away from the basket and, although it is a few feet long, most players shoot from the middle of it, so that they have a straight shot at the basket. Each made free throw is worth one point. Free throws are a valuable commodity because they are among the easiest shots in basketball. Towards the end of games, they become even more valuable to the team that’s behind because they are a way to score without any time elapsing. There are a bunch of different ways to earn a free throw. It’s technical but not incredibly complicated.

Any time a player is fouled while she is shooting (or in the overly technical jargon of sports, “in the act of shooting”) she is awarded the same number of free throws as points she would have scored if her shot had gone in. Usually this is two free throws, but if she was shooting from behind the three-point line when she was fouled, she would get to shoot three free throws. If, despite being fouled, the shot goes into the basket, the basket counts for two or three points (depending on where it was shot from) and the shooter is given a single free throw in recognition of having been fouled. This is called an “and one” and we wrote an entire (and somewhat entertaining, if I remember right) post about it. Fouling a three-point shot is never a good idea, because the expected value of a three-point shot is lower than three successive free throws. Figure that a good three-point shooter will make between 30% and 50% of their three-point shots. One way of looking at this percentage is to imagine that every time they shoot a three, you should expect their team to get between 1 and 1.5 points from that action. Most good shooters make around 80% of their free throws, so if they are given three of them, using the same logic, you should expect them to earn 2.4 points. Fouling a three-point shot that goes in is just about the worst thing you can possibly do, because it gives the other team the chance to earn four points in a single possession.

Depending on the situation, a player that is not shooting the ball when they get fouled may still get to shoot free throws. The most common reason for them to shoot free throws is if the fouling team has fouled too many times in that period of the game. In the NBA, teams are allowed four fouls per quarter before non-shooting fouls earn free throws. In college basketball, it’s a little more complicated. A team is allowed six fouls per half before the other team starts earning free throws. From foul seven to foul nine the player that has been fouled must make their first free throw in order to earn a second. This period is called the bonus or one-and-one. After the ninth foul in the half, any player who gets fouled earns two free throws, just like they would in the NBA after the fourth foul of the quarter. This is called the double bonus. The only other oddity about free throws is the one that is shot as the result of a technical foul. A technical foul is given for a violation of the rules that doesn’t involve physical play within the game. The two most common reasons for technical fouls are arguing, cursing, or otherwise antagonizing a ref and for staying under the basket on defense for more than three seconds without actively guarding an opposing player. When a technical foul is called on one team, the other team gets to choose any player on their team to shoot one free throw and then the game picks up wherever it left off.

As we mentioned in the opening, the clock stops while free throws are being shot. This leads to some tactics at the end of the game that are useful but often very unappealing to watch. If a team is down near the end of the game, they may choose to foul the other team, intentionally giving them free throws but stopping the clock. The idea is to trade free throws for time. Instead of letting the other team run 24 seconds in the NBA or 35 seconds in college basketball off the clock, the trailing team can foul almost immediately, stop the clock, and get the ball back after the free throws. If the team that’s up misses a few free throws and the trailing team can hit three pointers when they have the ball, they can sometimes catch up. When the alternative is certain defeat, even a long-shot strategy like this one is better. Sometimes teams will adopt this strategy earlier in the game if they feel they can take advantage of a player’s inability to hit free throws. Except for technical fouls, the player who gets fouled has to shoot the free throws, so fouling a particularly inept free throw shooter can be an advantage. The most famous example of this was when it was used against Shaquille O’Neill and it picked up the nickname, “Hack-a-Shaq.” Like how the suffix “-gate” is used generically for all scandals now, the prefix “hack-a-” is used for any version of this tactic now.

The last tactic teams use when they choose to give away free throws is actually adopted by teams that are winning in the last few seconds of a game. If a team is up by three points, they may choose to intentionally foul a player to give up two free throws with the knowledge that two points cannot hurt them. The risk of this is that if the player they try to foul can immediately jump up and shoot and convince the ref that they were in the act of shooting a three pointer, they could be given three free throws. In disastrous, doomsday scenarios, that player might also be able to make the three point shot, earning an extra free throw for a fourth point and the lead. That’s what happened to the Indiana Pacers against the New York Knicks in the 1999 playoffs:

So, yes, free throws can be given out in quantities of one, two, or three. There are lots of different rules that dictate when and how many are given but they are mostly understandable. Free throws are a good way of penalizing teams who foul but they lead to some tactics at the end of the game that are almost always (with some notable exceptions) ugly, boring, and unsuccessful.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Why did the NHL get rid of the two line pass rule?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why is the two line pass rule gone in the NHL?

Thanks,
Jordan on Fancred

Dear Jordan,

The other day, I wrote a post about the history of rule changes in the National Football League. In football, the majority of rule changes have been intended to keep football players safe from injury. The National Hockey League (NHL) has been more split in its motive for changing rules. In hockey, some rule changes are intended to increase the safety of hockey players and some are motivated by a desire to increase goal scoring. I would say the rule changes are split pretty evenly between those two reasons. In 2005, following a year-long lockout that resulted in the loss of the 2004-2005 season, the NHL introduced a set of rules aimed at increasing the number of goals scored. The removal of the two line pass rule was one of these changes.

The two line pass rule, in place from 1943 to 2005, prohibited teams from passing the puck from their own defensive end of the rink to a teammate who was already on the other team’s side of the rink. It was actually very much like an offside rule. In our post on offside rules from sport to sport, we reduce offside rules to a simple trio: a line, an event, and an order. This works remarkably well. The two line pass rule stated that a player could not receive a pass from a teammate in their team’s defensive zone if he was over the halfway line before the puck crossed the line. Like the current offside rule in hockey or in some ways the icing rule, the two line pass rule was intended to prevent a team from cherry picking by leaving one player near the goal the team is trying to score on. Hockey is a team sport, the rules seem to be saying, you must move the puck up and down the rink as a team.

The problem was that defenses learned to use this rule to their advantage. They knew a team was not allowed within the rules to pass from behind the blue line that separates their defensive zone from the middle third of the rink called the neutral zone to the other side of the red halfway line. To stymie their opponents, teams would clutter up the area between those lines with as many players as possible to prevent passing. They didn’t have to worry about anyone getting behind them and skating easily for an easy chance on net because passing to a player in that position would be illegal. This tactic was called the neutral zone trap and it was both highly effective and passionately hated for creating low-scoring, boring hockey games.

By eliminating the two line pass rule, the NHL felt it was encouraging longer passes, more dynamic offensive plays, and eliminating a defensive strategy that made its sport less fun to watch. The jury is still out on whether it worked. There are three arguments against the rule change. First, scoring has not increased. After a short bump following the rule changes, the goals per game average fell back down to where it had been before the two line pass rule was eliminated. So far this year, an average of 2.76 goals are scored per game, which is right in line with the averages in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The second argument against the removal of the two line pass is that it goes against the other key motivator for rule changes. Getting rid of the two line pass rule has made the game more dangerous for its players by allowing for faster play that takes place over a larger area of the rink. As we know well from football, a faster moving, more free flowing game is exactly what causes brain injuries and concussions to be such a problem. Some have called for the NHL to bring back the rule to slow the game down and make it safer. Last, it’s also possible that getting rid of the two line pass has made the game less interesting to watch. Oh, sure, it seems crazy given that those neutral zone trapping teams were famously boring, but the alternative is not great either. Passing through the neutral zone is still a dicey proposition fraught with the dangers of having an opponent steal the puck, so teams have adopted a tactic where they send a player up to their opponent’s blue line, rifle a hard pass up to him, and have him simply deflect the puck into the opponent’s zone and then chase it. It’s safe and legal but it doesn’t have the artistry that was required when the two line pass rule was in effect.

Thanks for asking,
Ezra Fischer

Why is it hard to make football safer by changing its rules?

This week, we’ve published three posts about the impact of brain injuries on football. Each post has been setting the stage for tomorrow’s post on how to fix football. The first post set the stage by establishing that brain injuries suffered by football players are severe and can be life-threatening. The second explored how, why, and when brain injuries occur during a football game. What are the factors that contribute to their frequency? In the third post we answered the seemingly rhetorical but important question of why the leaders of football and the National Football League, specifically need to take this issue seriously; that brain injuries threaten the very existence of football as we know it. Today, we’ll take a look at the history of rule changes in football and some of the factors that make finding a rule-based way of preventing brain injuries so difficult.

There are a million ways to change football to reduce or eliminate head injuries. It’s easy! In fact, there are some versions of football that we’ve been playing for years that have very few brain injuries. Why not convert the NFL to a touch football or flag football league? Or we could think outside the box and allow tackling but play on a field made of rubber, filled with water four feet deep. Technology could provide another way forward. Each player could be fitted with sensors and a virtual reality headset and then left in individual padded rooms, each 120 yards by 53 yards big. They could safely play a virtual game of football that was as athletically challenging without any risk of injury.

Of course, I’m not serious about any of these suggestions (although, I would pay a lot of money to see the football-in-a-pool game played). Each would, in its own way, be unacceptable. Brain injuries in football are a problem in part because people love football so much. If a less prized activity was damaging its participants, it would be much easier to change it or write it off completely. Our goal is to find a way to reduce or eliminate football’s brain injuries without stealing football’s essence.

In this mission we should be heartened by one element of football’s history: it’s constantly changing rules. For more than a hundred years, football organizations have changed the rules of football, sometimes quite significantly, to improve the safety of its players. Some of these rule changes are obvious in their intent, like the move in the mid-60s to shift the goalpost from on the goal line to behind the end zone. This was a protective measure to keep players from running full speed into concrete or metal goal posts. Likewise, rules like the 1962 prohibition against grabbing another player’s face mask and the 1980 rule against (I kid you not) clubbing an opponent’s head or neck with your fist, were obvious safety measures.

The problem that we face today is that many of the safety measures introduced since 1906 sought to make football safer by reducing the time players spent literally engaged with each other. The theory seems to have been that players running in space were safer than players grappling and wrestling with each other. As we know from our coverage of how brain injuries happen in football, as sound as this logic sounds, it runs almost totally counter to the truth when it comes to brain injuries. The more space there is for players to run, the faster they go, and the faster they go, the worse the collisions with other players are for their brains. Let’s take a quick trip through the history of football rule changes. Note how each safety measure encourages less close grappling and more running freely around the field.

In 1906 a rules committee was brought together to save football. In the past five years, 45 people had died playing football, 18 in 1905 alone. Political pressure, coming from as far up as President Theodore Roosevelt, was sending a strong message: “Make the game safer or face it being outlawed.” The two biggest changes the committee made were to legalize the forward pass and change the distance required for a first down from five yards to 10 yards. These may not seem like safety measures but before then, without the forward pass and needing only to get five yards to earn a first down, football resembled nothing more than hand-to-hand combat. The play was packed into a small space where kicking, punching, tearing, and gouging could leave players with broken ribs, necks, or skulls. Spreading the game out was meant to prevent these types of injuries.

This idea has continued into modern football. In 1974, a rule was created to limit defenders to touching a wide receiver only once when more than three yards from the line of scrimmage. In 1978, this was extended to five yards. Also that year, offensive linemen were allowed to block with their arms extended instead of having to be body-to-body with the defender they were trying to block. In 1979 the NFL got more particular about how players could block each other, eliminating blocking below the waist on kicking plays. In 1987 offensive linemen were protected from having one player dive at their knees while another engaged them higher up. In 1989 defensive players with a clear path to the quarterback were prohibited from hitting them in the knees. In 1992 defenders got a little protection when offensive blocking below the thigh was made illegal. In 1995 the chop block and lure blocking techniques were prohibited. In 1999 blocking from behind was prohibited. It wasn’t quite a rule change, but in 2004 refs were instructed to begin actually enforcing illegal contact, pass interference, and defensive holding rules. In 2007 the penalty for blocking a wide receiver below the waist was expanded from 5 to 15 yards.

Over more than 100 years, the way that football players engage each other has moved from fighting to grappling to tackling to hitting and now to colliding. Every rule that has limited the times and places that players can make contact with each other has contributed to giving players more time and space. For an athlete, time and space equal speed. Speed makes for an exciting game but it also makes for more explosive collisions when players do meet up.

Even as we acknowledge that historic rule changes, even those put in place for player safety, have made the game more dangerous, it’s hard to imagine undoing them. Sure, it’s better to break an ankle than bruise a brain, but would we really make the dangerous practice of blocking below the thigh legal again? In an era that is so concerned about player safety, changing the rules of football to legalize more brutal but less damaging forms of violence does not seem like a good way forward.

The problem is that continuing to add prohibitive rules to football might not work either. There are two problems with continuing along the path of outlawing more and more different forms of hitting. First, given the freedom and athleticism of offensive players, defenders are reaching a limit. They simply don’t have time to get their bodies into a position to hit someone the right way all the time. The defender is moving at high speed, the running back or wide receiver is moving equally fast. Penalties, fines, and suspensions won’t prevent all the dangerous hits in the game, much less the subconcussive injuries caused by the offensive and defensive lines clashing, or the fluke injuries that result from the game’s chaos. These types of prohibitive safety rules are also unpopular among football players and fans. Central to the popularity of football is a culture of toughness. There’s no sport that is more reliant on its players to sublimate their bodies, thoughts, and desires to the team. No football play works thanks to one player, each play is the product of eleven players moving in lockstep. Even the greatest football player in the most important position is relatively unimportant compared to a great player in another sport. Wide receivers cannot catch passes thrown poorly and quarterbacks cannot throw if they don’t get good blocking. The violence of football is important to its culture because it reinforces the core truth football teaches, that no single person is as important as a team.

If we cannot undo the decades of well-intentioned, safety-first rules that have counterintuitively made football into an even more dangerous sport for its players’ long-term health and we cannot protect them by continuing to prohibit even more forms of violence, then what can we do to save football? Tomorrow I’ll suggest a single, small change that would unilaterally make football safer without changing the essential nature of the game. We can save football.

What is a "football move"?

Dear Sports Fan,

What the heck is a “football move”? I think I understand that a wide receiver making a catch has to catch the ball and then make a “football move” to get credit for it but I don’t get what a “football move” is. I mean, we’re watching football players play football, right? Isn’t basically everything a “football move”? Isn’t the catch itself a “football move”?

Thanks,
Alexander

Dear Alexander,

You ask a very reasonable question. It’s one that puzzles most football fans and even some football players. The phrase “football move” doesn’t actually appear in the NFL rule-books at all but it is used popularly to explain a rule that dictates whether a player has caught the football or not. This rule has always been a little controversial and it became even more so when it virtually decided a playoff game between the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys earlier this year. In plain English, the rule states that in order to be considered a completed catch, a player has to catch the ball and maintain control over it long enough to do something else before the play is considered to be a completed catch. Here’s the rule in NFLese:

A forward pass is complete (by the offense) or intercepted (by the defense) if a player, who is inbounds:
(a) secures control of the ball in his hands or arms prior to the ball touching the ground; and
(b) touches the ground inbounds with both feet or with any part of his body other than his hands; and
(c) maintains control of the ball long enough, after (a) and (b) have been fulfilled, to enable him to perform any act
common to the game (i.e., maintaining control long enough to pitch it, pass it, advance with it, or avoid or ward off an
opponent, etc.).
Note 1: It is not necessary that he commit such an act, provided that he maintains control of the ball long enough to do so.
Note 2: If a player has control of the ball, a slight movement of the ball will not be considered a loss of possession. He must
lose control of the ball in order to rule that there has been a loss of possession.

I know, I know, the NFL is run by lawyers with a distinct flair for the obtuse. Still, the rule is actually not that hard to understand. I’ll do my best to explain it.

The first thing to understand is what this rule is attempting to do and why they are important. This rule is tries to set an objective line between a play that is not a completed pass and one that is. This is important because there are four possible outcomes when a quarterback throws his teammate the ball and they are widely varied in terms of their effect on the game:

An incomplete pass — if the quarterback throws the ball and no one catches it — means that the play stops and the offense gets the ball back where they started that play only instead of first down, now it’s second or instead of third, now it’s fourth.
A complete pass — when the quarterback throws the ball and his teammate catches it — means that the play continues until the receiver of the ball runs out-of-bounds or is tackled.
A complete pass followed by a fumble — after the quarterback’s teammate catches the ball, he runs around and then drops the ball — the play continues but it’s a free-for-all; whoever picks up the ball gets it, including the defensive team.
An interception — when a member of the opposing team catches the ball — the play continues and the defender can run with the ball but when he is tackled or goes out-of-bounds, his team gets to play offense.

These categories seem obvious but they get tricky at the edges. For instance, it’s intuitive that if the quarterback throws the ball and it hits the ground, it’s an incomplete pass. Likewise, if the quarterback throws the ball and it bounces off his teammates head and then hits the ground, it’s still an incomplete pass. But what if it bounces off his teammate’s hands as he’s trying to catch the ball? Still an incomplete pass but now we’re starting to feel less sure of things, right? Now, if the receiver catches the ball and runs for ten seconds, dodging defenders the whole time, and then drops the ball, that’s clearly a fumble. But what if he only runs around for five seconds? Still a fumble? What about four? What about three, two, one? Somewhere, there has to be a line between an incomplete pass and a catch followed by a fumble.

The NFL chose to define that boundary as when a player “maintains control of the ball long enough” after catching the ball and landing in-bounds to “enable him to perform any act common to the game.” Since the game in question is football, that phrase has been condensed in popular usage to a “football move.” In other words, a player has to catch the ball and hold it for long enough for him to theoretically do something else with it before it’s considered a catch. Of course, players on a football field don’t stand still very much of the time when a play is happening. This is why the last twist on this rule came into being. People don’t say that a receiver has to “catch the ball and then hold it long enough to make a football move”, they say that a player has to “catch the ball and then make a football move”. Since the NFL did not define how many seconds (or more likely tenths of a second) would be long enough to make a football move, the rule has shifted (for the purposes of reasonable enforcement) to be that a player has to demonstrate possession while he makes a football move after the catch.

I guess the only question we’re left with is “why should this be the definition of a catch?” I like to think about it like this: until a player is able to show that he’s done catching the ball and is ready and able to do something else on the field, he’s still in the process of catching the ball. Once a player is able to move on from catching the ball to dodge defenders, change direction or speed, or dive forward, then they’re done catching the ball.

Make sense? If it does, you’re ahead of everyone else. I think eventually we’ll see the NFL simply set an amount of time, probably three tenths of a second that a receiver must possess the ball before the play is considered a completed pass. That, plus biological sensors in the ball and everyone’s gloves will solve this issue for us once and for all. Until then, enjoy the debates about what exactly constitutes a “football move” and whether so-and-so made a catch or not.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

The Super Bowl is just around the corner. If you’d like to learn more about football, sign up for our Football 101 course to learn the basics of the game or Football 201 to learn all about football positions.

What is a false start in football?

Dear Sports Fan,

What is a false start in football? I get that it’s a penalty against the offense and that when it happens the play stops before it even starts but what I don’t understand is why it’s called or what a team can do to avoid it.

Thanks,
Chelsea

Dear Chelsea,

You’ve got most of it already but I’ll fill in the rest as best I can. A false start is a penalty in football that can only be called against the team with possession of the ball. The penalty for a false start is that the offense has to move the ball back five yards (or half the distance to their own goal line if they are within five yards of it) and start the play over again. A false start penalizes the offense if one of their players moves in an illegal way before the ball is snapped to start the play. One thing that’s cool about the penalty is that its inflexibility exhibits and reinforces one of the primary characteristics of football: it’s stop and start, tactical nature.

As we covered in our article answering What is a snap in football? every football play begins when the center snaps the ball backwards between his legs to another player. During the time before that happens, there are a separate set of rules that dictate what the teams on the field can do. For example, the offensive team is allowed to gather to talk (called a huddle) but not if there are more than eleven people in the group. The false start is a penalty in that set of rules that dictate what a team, specifically the one with the ball, can do before the ball is snapped. Roughly speaking, the offensive team is supposed to set themselves up in a particular way, pause, and then without moving, snap the ball to start the play. As you might expect, there are some technicalities and exceptions that dictate how this must happen: there must be at least seven offensive players set up right on the line of scrimmage (where the ball is set up at the start of the play); when the ball is snapped, one and only one player is allowed to be running around and he must be moving backwards or sideways and may not be one of the seven players set up on the line of scrimmage. The false start is called when one of a variety of things happen to violate these rules:

A player in the offensive line “moves abruptly” once they are set up. This rule is so minute that even a flinch of the head will be called a false start.
Any player on the offense moves “in such manner as to lead defense to believe snap has started.”
The quarterback moves or acts in a way that is an “obvious attempt to draw an opponent offside”. (on this one, you might rightly be thinking that TV commentators often talk about quarterbacks trying to draw the defense offside by shouting like they are about to start the play. This is true but because those shouts could theoretically convey information to the quarterback’s teammates, they are allowed even though we all know exactly what they’re trying to do. It’s a conundrum wrapped in an enigma.)

The false start is one of the most typical penalties in football. No single penalty defines the sport as well as the false start. If you wanted to explain football to a fan of soccer or basketball or hockey or any number of other sports, the easiest way to do it would be to say that football is like those sports except that everything stops between plays. When a player is tackled or runs out-of-bounds, the teams have forty seconds to set up again for the next play. It’s a stop-and-start game. This makes it look boring to a lot of people used to the fluidity of other sports but it’s also responsible for the complexity and tactical interest that football and really only football of all the sports has. If football is a game where the teams are supposed to stop and then set up in a static way before starting again then the false start is the penalty that makes sure the offense has really stopped before they start the next play.

The false start also represents a failure of synchronization. The players on the offensive side of a football team train tirelessly to move in exact unison. A successful offense is one that moves with precision as one unit. You’ll often see quarterbacks pass the ball to a spot, knowing that by the time the ball gets there, their teammate will be there to catch the ball. Every successful offensive play is a triumph of moving in unison. When players move out of time with each other during a play, the play usually fails. When one player moves out of sync before the play begins, it’s a false start and their whole team is penalized. One of the funniest things to see on a football field is what happens when the one player who moves out of time is the player who starts the play with the ball, the center. When this happens, all his teammates move while he stays still. The mistake is really the center’s but because the play doesn’t start until he snaps the ball, the foul is officially called on his teammates, like this:

Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer

16 days until the Super Bowl: Penalty Flags

One of the visually appealing elements of football is the way that fouls are signaled by the sports many referees. When a referee sees an infraction of the rules, they don’t necessarily blow whistles or make arm gestures like in other sports, instead, they reach to their belts, grab the small yellow flags they have tucked into their pants, and throw them onto the field. The gently arcing yellow flag is such a perfect visual expression of the emotion a foul call can create in players and fans. When you suspect the penalty is on the team you’re rooting for, the fluttering of the flag seems to happen in the slow motion of a horror movie. When you think the penalty is going to save your team’s bacon, the flight of the flag speaks of a desperately desired deliverance. What could be better?

Kirk Goldsberry of Grantland thinks it would be better if you knew right away which team the penalty was on. The problem, as he explains it, is that seeing a yellow flag “leaves a strange interval between the time a flag is thrown and the time that the charges are explained.” Players and fans know that a foul has been called but they don’t know which team the foul is on. Goldsberry things that “In the information age, this “flag lag” is one of the most annoying parts of the whole football experience. And it’s unnecessary.” His solution is an appealingly simple one:

Football needs two different colored penalty flags — one color for offensive infractions and a separate color for defensive ones…. [that way,] spectators, announcers, players, and coaches would all immediately recognize the guilty side, and consequently their emotions wouldn’t be held hostage by some unneeded informational embargo.

I love this idea! The NFL should absolutely do this. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time penalty flags have been tweaked. They were colored white in the NFL until 1965 and red in college football until the 1970s. Following a semi-tragic eye injury suffered by offensive lineman Orlando Brown (nicknamed Zeus, he died in 2011 at the age of 40,) NFL refs stopped weighting the flags down with BBs or ball bearings. Moving to a two color flag system would be a small but positive change that serves fans and players alike.

If you want to learn the basics of football in time for this year’s Super Bowl, sign up for our Football 101 course. It’s the easiest way to learn football, and I promise that by the time you’re through, you’ll be able to impress the football fan in your life with your newfound knowledge.

In this free course, you’ll learn all about why people like football, what down and distance are, how football scoring works, the inside scoop on fantasy football and football betting, how to decipher TV scoreboard graphics, and finally my favorite way to start having fun while watching football. At the end of the course you will get a fully unaccredited diploma of graduation, which you can hang on your wall with pride. If you enjoy the course, (and I hope you do!), I’d be thrilled to have you as a regular subscriber to our daily or weekly digests and for Football 201, coming soon!

Get started now

How does icing work in hockey?

Dear Sports Fan,

How does icing work in hockey? No matter how much hockey I watch, I continue to be confused by icing. It seems like the refs will just randomly blow the whistle sometimes when the puck gets shot down the rink and then the announcers say it’s icing.

Thanks,
Gil

Dear Gil,

In hockey there are two types of calls that the refs make. There are penalties and then there are infractions. When the ref calls a foul, he or she sends one or more players off the ice into the penalty box for two or more minutes. Infractions are for lesser offenses. They are like the misdemeanors of the hockey world. Of all the infractions, icing is perhaps the most important one. In this post, I’ll explain what icing is and why it is so important in hockey.

Icing happens a player sends the puck directly from their side of the rink all the way past the goal line on the opposite side of the rink without one of the player’s teammates touching the puck and without any player on the other team having had a chance to play the puck. The team that shot the puck down the ice is penalized for icing the puck by bringing the puck all the way back to their defensive zone to restart play. Additionally, the team that has violated the icing rule is not allowed to change players while the other team can. As you might be able to guess from the rule’s description and penalty, icing is a rule designed to slant the game towards the offense by constraining the defense. Without the icing rule, a team trapped in their own end of the rink, frantically playing defense, would be able to blindly shoot the puck the length of the ice to relieve the pressure the other team is putting on them. With the icing rule, a team that does this is stuck with the same (usually very tired) players on the ice while their opposition gets to roll out a fresh set of players to set up on offense.

One thing that’s a little bit tricky about the icing rule is that it is not based on intent, only geography. It makes no distinction between a desperate defensive player who flings the puck all the way from their own goal line and a player skating up the rink on offense who dumps the puck into their offensive zone intending to retrieve it, but lets the puck go just inches on their side of the ice by mistake. Both players would be called for icing but the second scenario is much harder to see. That could be why the rule seems random to you.

Before we go into why the rule is so important, there are two key wrinkles we should cover. First — a team that is on the penalty kill (is playing with fewer players on the ice because of a penalty or series of penalties) is exempt from icing. Down a man, they can throw the puck all the way down the ice with a clear conscience. Second — it used to be that icing would not be called until the team not icing the puck had skated back to their end of the rink and touched the puck. That led to some exciting races, because remember that if a teammate of the player who iced the puck touches it first, it’s not icing. Unfortunately, it also led to a lot of horrible injuries. Normally players will let up a little if they are skating directly into the boards, but if an icing call was at stake, they didn’t. Two players, skating full speed towards unforgiving boards is not good. So, in 2013, the NHL finally adopted the “no-touch” icing rules that were prevalent in other leagues. These rules dictate that when a puck has been iced, the icing team can still race to negate the icing penalty but the end point of the race is the red face-off dot closest to the puck, not the puck itself.

Icing calls are frequently pivotal in a hockey game because, second to fouls that give one team a numerical advantage, icing is the most punitive rule in the sport. Hockey is not nearly as territorial as, say, American Football, but having a face-off in a team’s offensive zone rather than the neutral zone or defensive zone can be a big deal. The fact that icing creates this situation while also giving the offensive team an opportunity to substitute players while the other team cannot, can be a very big deal. If you want to do a little study, watch a few hockey games and keep track of the number of times your team gets a legitimate scoring chance directly from an offensive zone face-off following an icing call, versus any other offensive zone face-off. My guess is that icing will result in a much higher percentage of scoring chances.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

How do substitutions work in soccer?

Dear Sports Fan,

How do substitutions work in soccer? I have been watching a bunch of English Premier League soccer on TV and it seems like teams often make a bunch of substitutions right at the end of the game. I don’t know why they would do that — the game is basically over.

Thanks,
Della

Dear Della,

Great question! A substitution is when a player on the field is replaced by a player who has been sitting on the bench. Substitutions are a big part of the tactics of most of the sports we’re used to watching on TV. Football teams substitute players on almost every play. In basketball, there’s an official award given each year to the best substitute called the Sixth Man of the Year Award. Baseball substitutions are notoriously tactic-y, especially in the National League where teams substitute hitters in order to avoid having their pitcher at bat. Substitutions in soccer are less obvious tactically because of soccer’s fluidity of play and the restrictive nature of the rules that pertain to substitutions but they are important nonetheless. We’ll take a quick run through how substitutions work, why and how teams use them, as well as looking backwards and forwards through time to the history and potential future of substitutions in soccer.

How do Substitutions Work in Soccer?

A soccer team can choose to substitute a new player for one who has been playing at any point during a game. When the coach decides to make a substitution, he or she tells an official who hangs out near the team benches, and that official signals the referee. At the next dead ball (a stop in play that occurs when the ball goes out-of-bounds for a throw-in or goal-kick but not for a corner kick or a foul) the ref stops the game and allows the substitution to be made. There are two somewhat picky rules about this process. The substitute is supposed to wait at the side of the field at exactly the half-way line until the player who is being substituted for leaves the field completely. Refs are allowed to discipline (by giving yellow or red cards) players who violate these rules…

[begin detour] I never understood these rules when I played soccer — I thought they were an arbitrary way for the referee to establish superiority over the players. In researching this post though, I came across a funny thing in the Wikipedia article on substitutions in soccer:

The referee has no specific power to force a player to be substituted, even if the team manager or captain has ordered their player to be substituted. If a player refuses to be substituted play may simply resume with that player on the field.

So, that’s curious — if the ref can’t force a player to be substituted, then it makes sense to make the steps of substitution so formal and obvious. That way the ref can at least quickly identify when a player refuses to be substituted. In any event, this basically never happens, I just thought it was interesting. [end detour]

Two more rules make substitutions more interesting in soccer. First, a player who has been substituted cannot, once she or he has left the field, return to play. Not in the next half, not in overtime, not for a shootout. This is different from football and basketball but the same as baseball. Second, substitutions are very limited in number. At top competitive levels like the World Cup, British Premier League, Bundisliga, La Liga, even MLS, teams are only allowed three substitutions per game. There are no exceptions to this rule. If a team has used all three of their subs and a player on their team gets injured badly enough to have to leave the game, too bad, the team plays down one player. If a team has used all their subs and their goalie gets kicked out of the game, too bad, they cannot put a new goalie in although they can designate one of the regular players as a goalie and give her gloves and a different colored shirt.

Why and how do soccer teams use substitutions?

There are three main tactical reasons for a soccer team to make a substitution: removing an under-performing or injured player, shifting the team to be more offensive or defensive, or wasting time. Let’s start with the third, since that was the tactic you identified in your question. Substitutions take time to perform. The player being substituted for has to run (or walk, or saunter, or limp,) from wherever they are on the field to where the substitute is waiting to come on. A team that is winning that has substitutes left to use near the end of the game may choose to substitute mostly just to waste the time it takes to execute the substitution. When this is the intent of the substitution, you’ll see the player coming off the field move as slowly as he or she can without attracting the ire of the ref. He may wave at the crowd or clap in appreciation. She might slow down to hug a teammate or give some likely unnecessary instructions. This is a little cynical and it shouldn’t actually work since the ref keeps the official time and can simply pause his or her watch to counter-act the hijinks, but it’s still commonly attempted. The second tactic is making a substitution to shift the stance of the team to be more aggressive or more defensive. Based on the situation, a team might choose to play it safe by replacing an attacking player with a defensive one or gamble by taking a defender off the field and putting on an attacking striker. Other substitutions are made to replace a player who isn’t playing up to snuff based on an injury or just general malaise. Because substitutions are so limited, being forced to make one for injury or bad play is perceived as a bad thing for that team.

What is the history and future of substitutions?

Another thing I was surprised to learn from the Wikipedia article about substitutions is how recent of an innovation it is in soccer. Soccer has been around in one form or another for hundreds of years in Europe and possibly elsewhere before it was formalized in the mid 1800s in England. For close to a hundred years after the soccer rules were written up in 1863, substitutes were simply people who played in a game when some players on a team didn’t show up — you know, like they got stuck in a bad carriage-jam on the interstate. It wasn’t until the 1950s that substitutes were allowed during a game. Before then, an injured player was expected to either play on or put their team at a numerical disadvantage. The number of subs slowly increased until in 1995 when the rules were changed to allow for the current three.

We’re likely to see another change coming soon to modify the game to handle head-injuries better. One problem with limited the number of substitutes is that it gives an even greater incentive to players and teams to play through injuries, even potentially dangerous ones. As we learn more about concussions, we know that they are important to test for as soon as possible and that a player who suffers a second blow to the head after a concussion is in much greater danger than she was after the first injury. The problem with the current rules is that players don’t want to leave the field to be tested, much less to be substituted. We saw this a few times during the last World Cup when there were a couple of high-profile incidents with clearly dazed players playing for some time before eventually being removed. No one knows exactly how soccer will evolve, but something has to be done, and it will probably modify the way substitutions work.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer

How does kneeling work in football?

Dear Sports Fan,

How does kneeling work in football? This is one part of the game that I just don’t understand. Even in a close game, it seems like both teams decide that the game is over while there is still time on the clock. Why is that? And when does it happen?

Thanks,
Jack

Dear Jack,

Football is the ultimate effort sport. It’s a cliche that football players and coaches talk about “going 110%” and “leaving it all out on the field.” To which most people reply, “you can’t go harder than 100%, that’s nonsensical” and as for “leaving it all out on the field, we hope that doesn’t include your pants, underwear, or long-term health.” Nonetheless, it does seem like football players and coaches constantly give their full effort to winning the game. That makes it all the more disconcerting for viewers when the game ends with one or a series of plays where neither team seems to be trying at all. These plays are called kneel downs or quarterback kneels. The quarterback kneel is sort of like what happens in a chess game when one player sees that their opponent will be able to checkmate them in a few moves, no matter what they do. It’s a concession, but in this case the initiative is taken by the winning side instead of the losing side. When a team kneels, they’re saying that they are willing to sacrifice their attempt to advance the ball in order to safely run time off the clock. Here’s how it works.

Football is a game with a clock. In each quarter of the game, the clock starts at fifteen minutes (for this post, we’re assuming that you’re watching the NFL, but things are almost the same in college football) in each quarter and counts down to zero. When the clock hits zero in the fourth quarter, the game is over and whichever team has more points, wins. It’s also a game of alternating possessions. One team has the ball and keeps it as long as they can move the ball ten yards in four plays (if this concept is still blurry for you, read our post on down and distance). Although most plays last for only a few seconds to a dozen, the clock may count down between plays. Whether or not the clock runs is based on the outcome of the previous play. The rules that dictate this are somewhat Byzantine but to understand the kneel down, you only need to know that if a player who has the ball is tackled within the field, the clock runs between plays. When a player (usually the quarterback) kneels with the ball, they are performing a ritual equivalent of being tackled with the ball — instead of actually being tackled, according to NFL rules, they are allowed to simulate being tackled by voluntarily kneeling. When a quarterback kneels with the ball, that play is over and the ball is set up for the next play. Teams are allowed up to forty seconds between plays. So, a team that kneels the ball can expect that action to allow around 42 seconds to run off the clock. The reason why it’s 42 and not 40 is that the play itself might take around three seconds and a team will snap the ball with about one second left on the forty-second play clock.

Like so much of football, the simple concept of kneeling is complicated by a few technicalities. If you enjoy technicalities, you’ll love football! There’s a reason why so many NFL referees are lawyers! The first technicality is that the clock always stops on a change of possession. A change of possession, when the team that starts with the ball on one play does not start with the ball on the next is normally the result of an interception, a fumble, or a punt but it can also be the result of a fourth down play that isn’t a punt but doesn’t result in a first down. In other words, if a team kneels on fourth down, the game clock will immediately stop at the end of the play; it will not run once the play is done. That effectively limits kneeling to be a first, second, or third down tactic. The other technicality is that each team gets three timeouts per half. These timeouts can be used between any two plays and they result, not only in a commercial break, but also in the game clock stopping between plays. A time out can counteract the effect of kneeling. The last technicality is the two-minute warning. This is an arbitrary timeout that’s called (but not charged to either team) after the last play that starts before the game clock has hit 2:00 remaining in the second and fourth quarters. The two-minute warning would also stop the clock between plays, so kneeling before it is rare.

So, how do you know when a team is going to use the kneeling strategy? Usually, a team will only kneel if, by kneeling on successive plays, they can run the clock all the way to zero and therefore conclusively win the game. The exact time in a game when they can do this is modified by the number of timeouts the team without the ball has and the down for the team that has the ball and is leading the game. It’s a sliding scale best expressed as a table:

Remember, a team can waste 42 seconds per kneel down but that is made up of three seconds to execute the kneel and another 39 that runs off between plays if the clock does not stop. Here’s a few examples of how I got to the numbers in the cells:

1st down, one timeout remaining: 1st down — kneel for three seconds, defense takes a timeout; 2nd down — kneel for three seconds (6 total), defense has no timeouts remaining, so the clock runs an additional 39 seconds (45 total); 3rd down — kneel for three seconds (48 total), defense has no time remaining, so the clock runs an additional 39 seconds (87 or 1:27 total).
2nd down, no timeouts remaining: 2nd down, kneel for three seconds, clock runs an additional 39 (42 total); third down — kneel for three seconds, clock runs an additional 39 (84 or 1:24 total).

You can see from this chart how the two-minute warning affects this strategy by effectively giving the trailing team another timeout. If it weren’t for that official timeout at 2:00, the top left cell would read 2:06 and teams would be able to safely start kneeling six seconds earlier than they do now.

The tactic of kneeling in football is a bit of a strange cultural fit. It’s odd to see teams that have tried so hard and so violently to beat each other, go through the motions of the final plays in the game. Allowing the offense to mimic being tackled in order to run the clock down isn’t a fair representation of a normal football play because it takes away the ability of the defense to create a fumble or interception and get the ball back immediately for their team. Nonetheless, it’s the way things are done today by rule and by custom. At least now I hope you understand what it is and how it works.

Thanks for the question,
Ezra Fischer

What kinds of set pieces are there in soccer?

This is part two of our answer to a question about soccer set pieces. In the first section, we covered what a set piece is, how valuable they are, and delved into why some teams practice them more than others. In this section we’ll describe in some detail the major types of set pieces.

Dear Sports Fan,

What is a set play in soccer?

Thanks,
Kimberly

Dear Kimberly,

Soccer has a variety of types of set pieces. Now that you know generally what a set piece is and why it is unique and important, it’s time to describe the different types of set pieces. Let’s take a look at each one.

Corner Kick

When the ball goes out of bounds over the goal line and the last player to touch it was on the defensive team, a corner kick is given. The ball is put at the corner (no kidding) of the field and the offensive team gets to kick it in from there. Corner kicks are one of the most valuable set plays for the offense. It’s a free chance to swing a ball, in the air, into the penalty box right near the goal and try to head it in. Teams that get a corner kick frequently try to increase the odds of their team being the first to hit the incoming corner kick in the air but getting all of their tallest players in there. Since defenders are usually the biggest players on the field, this often means that some defenders move up when there is a corner and shorter offensive players move back to replace them. As a former defender, I can say that this is good fun for the defense. It also leaves the team that gets the corner kick a little vulnerable to a quick counter-attack since their best defensive players are all the way up near the goal they are trying to score on.

Sometime, the team with the corner kick will choose to play a “short corner”. Instead of a crossing the ball into the penalty area, one player on the offensive team will spring towards the corner of the field to receive a short pass from their teammate with the ball. Usually, this is a tactic to create a more favorable angle to cross the ball from as opposed to a complete rejection of the idea of crossing the ball. I have a personal grudge against the short corner and tend to get pretty upset when I see teams do it. I don’t think the benefit of the better angle is worth the cost of potentially losing the chance to send a ball into the box.

Goal Kick

A goal kick is what happens when the ball goes over a goal line and it was last touched by a player on the attacking team. The ball is placed within the smaller of the two rectangles around the goal, called the goal box, and a player (usually the goalie) has a free chance to kick the ball back into play from there. In professional or high-level amateur play, this set piece is not all that interesting or important. Goalies are able to pass the ball accurately to a defensive player or boom the ball halfway down the field (or more!) to an offensive player. In youth soccer, the goal kick is a little more exciting because kids usually cannot kick the ball as far or as well. In youth soccer, I remember the offensive teams lining up eagerly on the edge of the larger rectangle around the goal, the penalty box, and trying to intercept the goal kick and quickly transition to offense.

Throw In

When the ball goes out of bounds on one of the sidelines (also called touchlines) the team that did not touch the ball last gains possession of the ball and is granted a throw in. The throw in is exciting because it’s the one time when non-goalie soccer players get to touch the ball with their hands! Eh… actually, it’s not such a big deal. Any soccer player worth her weight, even in some non-precious metal like tin, is able to kick the ball much farther, faster, and more accurately than they can throw it. Most throw ins therefore become a quick exercise in maintaining possession. Usually, the player throwing the ball in will look for a teammate running towards him and throw the ball to that person who quickly taps it back to the thrower who is then free to do whatever they want with it. It’s all about getting the ball back into the field and in control of your team. When an offensive team has a throw in near the goal their trying to score on, close to where they would take a corner kick from, they may choose to treat the set piece like a corner that just has to be thrown instead of kicked. There’s usually someone on each team who can do a “long throw” and send the ball into the center of the field with as much pace as possible.

There are rules about how the ball should be thrown: Both feet have to be on the ground when the ball leaves the throwers hands. The ball must be held with two hands and the two arms have to move in parallel to eliminate putting tricky spin on the ball. You rarely ever see referees enforce these rules at the professional level but in youth soccer throw in fouls get called all the time.

Free Kicks

When a foul is called in the course of play, the ref stops play and the ball is placed at the spot of the foul. The team whose player has been fouled (or dove convincingly…) gets to put the ball back into play from that spot. When a foul is called anywhere far from the goal the team is trying to score on, the free kick is usually a quick deal. Simple possession of the ball is worth more than the chance to kick the ball a long way without being guarded, so teams with free kicks in their own half of the ball just pass it to an open teammate and keep the game moving. A free kick anywhere in the offensive third of the goal is one of the most valuable moments in the entire soccer game. Teams that get a free kick like this usually take their time, and then execute. Meanwhile, defensive teams try to counteract this by setting up themselves. Some defenders will take responsibility for preventing an offensive player from getting onto the end of a free kick pass while others set themselves up ten yards from the ball in a wall to prevent an easy free kick shot.

Free kicks are divided into two types: direct and indirect. Direct kicks are most common and there’s no restriction on what offensive teams can do with them. Indirect kicks are given for less serious fouls that violate a technical rule as opposed to a safety rule. Examples of fouls that result in an indirect kick are being offside, insulting a ref, or if the goalie touches the ball with her hands when she’s not allowed to. Indirect kicks are the same as direct kicks except two players have to touch the ball before a goal is allowed to be scored. Teams either use indirect kicks to pass the ball, often like a corner kick, or they set up two players near the ball and convert the kick into a direct kick by having one player touch the ball a tiny bit and then the other shoot the ball.

Penalty Kick

A penalty kick is a special type of set piece. The ref calls for a penalty kick when a foul which otherwise would result in a direct free kick is committed by a team within their own penalty box. The penalty kick is extraordinarily valuable. It’s like nothing else in sports, really. 85% of penalty kicks result in goals. That’s better than the league average for a free throw in the NBA! Okay, sure, the extra point in football is made close to 100% of the time but one goal in soccer is worth so much more than one point in football. The penalty kick is unlike any other set piece in soccer — so much so, that most people probably don’t think of it as a set piece at all. If you want to learn more about it, read our article all about penalty kicks.

There you go — that’s probably more than you bargained for about set pieces in soccer,
Ezra Fischer