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In American football, the specific role that a player takes on the field is referred to as their "position". Under the modern rules of American football, both teams are allowed 11 players [1] on the field at one time and have "unlimited free substitutions", meaning that they may change any number of players during any "dead ball" situation.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to association football: Association football – sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball . At the turn of the 21st century, the game was played by over 250 million players in over 200 countries, making it the world's most popular sport.
In football, the formation describes how the players in a team are positioned on the field. Many variations are possible on both sides of the ball, depending on the strategy being employed. On offense, the formation must include at least seven players on the line of scrimmage , including a center to start the play by snapping the ball.
Because football is a high-contact sport requiring a balance between offense and defense, many rules exist that regulate equality, safety, contact, and actions of players on each team. It is very difficult to always avoid violating these rules without giving up too much of an advantage.
The primary goal of the offense is to score points. [1] To achieve this, coaches and players design and execute plays based on several factors: the players involved, the opponent's defensive strategy, the time remaining before halftime or the end of the game, and the number of points needed to secure a win.
The standard defensive formations in use at most levels of American football are the result of decades of experimentation, trial and error, along with rule changes in the 1950s that eliminated the one-platoon system and gave greater prominence to lighter, faster linebackers (prior to the 1950s, most defensive formations were mirror images of ...
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The college football standard, which was the previous standard in the NFL (from 1945 to 1971), is 40 feet apart (20 yards from the sidelines), [7] instituted in 1993. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] Previously, the college width was the same as the high school standard, at one-third of the width of the field (53 1 ⁄ 3 feet).