Football
Thanks for joining us!
This episode was written by Kara and voiced by Kara and T.
Episode art was drawn by Jean.
It was originally released in November 2025.
— Enjoy these books celebrating football —
Click on each photo for a link to the book on our Bookshop.org account
— Favorite footballs —
To foster a love for football from a young age, check out this Warmie stuffed football
I think we can all appreciate a foam ball while starting to learn throwing and catching
Franklin youth football, made to look and feel like a pro ball
— Learn about how to hold and throw a football —
— Football Episode Summary —
Football is a team sport played on a field —
Football is a sport where people almost never touch the ball with their feet! (That’s why soccer is called futbal in other parts of the world!)
Tootball is a sport, a game people play with their bodies. People play alongside teammates.
Can you think of any individual sports? Swimming, gymnastics, running (not relay), rock climbing, surfing. Some other team sports include baseball, soccer, ice hockey, field hockey.
When you play a game of football, there are two teams that play against each other. Each team is trying to win the game.
These two teams play against each other on a field. It’s a pretty big piece of grass, a long rectangle. There are a lot of lines painted on the grass and the players are only supposed to run within the rectangle lines.
During a football game, teams can score points! And the way you win is to have the most points at the end of the game. You score those points by getting the football to cross over a line at the end of the field, while one of the players is holding on to it. The end of the field is called the end zone.
But it’s not like all of the players from both teams are on the field all the time, trying to get the ball to the end zone! A football team is actually split into two parts - the offense and the defense.
The group of players who is trying to score - they’re the offense.
Other team is playing defense, trying to stop them from scoring.
The offense gets a few chances to move the football closer to the end zone. And eventually they switch! So then one team’s defense plays against the other team’s offense.
This is a lot different from other team sports! In basketball, all of the players are on the court at the same time - they play offense and defence together, they switch back and forth quickly. Same with soccer, right? The whole team is out there together.
Plays, the quarterback, and tackling —
We’re going to talk about two pretend teams to help keep this straight: the StarCowboys and the Mavericks.
So, the StarCowboy offense is on the field. They line up across from the defense of the Mavericks. They all crouch down and they look right in the face of the other side! It can be intense! And then a “play” begins!
Football is basically played by doing a bunch of plays. Before the play starts, the offense makes a little plan. The players say, ok, this time, to get the ball closer to the end zone, we’re going to throw it to a certain teammate. They all have to work together to help him get it and run as far as he can.
So the StarCowboys are ready to start their play! And the person in charge of the play is the quarterback! He could throw the football to his teammate waaay down the field for them to catch! Or he could hand it to a player for them to run, run, run with it!
The quarterback has to decide fast because once he has the ball, the Mavericks defense players are trying to their job, which is is to stop the StarCowboys from scoring!
To stop the player with the ball, the defense can tackle him! (This of course, is not something we do in everyday life with our friends!) Football has tackling, when one player is allowed to get another on the ground by pushing or pulling them down. There are rules around how they do it, and that’s one of reasons they wear a lot of pads and a really hard helmet to protect their heads. It’s so important.
Once an offense player is tackled, and his knees touch the ground, that play is over. They line up and start again.
Scoring a touchdown & extra points —
So let’s say the StarCowboys quarterback threw the ball to his teammate, who caught it, and then ran so fast that the Mavericks defense couldn’t catch him! And he crossed the line at the end of the field into the end zone. They’d get a touchdown!
That is what you want your team to get in football, because it’s how they get points, and the team with the most points at the end of the game wins.
When you get a touchdown, you get 6 points.
And then after a touchdown, there’s a little bonus play - they get one chance to score extra points.
A special player can kick a ball through some two tall posts (finally someone is using their feet in football!) If that kicker gets the ball through the sticks, they get 1 extra point.
Or they can try to run it into the end zone again from a short distance away, this is for 2 extra points. Most of the time, a team will try for 1 extra point.
If a team gets a touchdown, then the offense and defense switch. Those offensive players, including the quarterback, they just did a great job. They got the ball all the way down the field, scored a touchdown, and now they get a break. The other team’s offense gets a chance to try to score points. And all of the players from one team’s offense line up on the field right across from the defences of other team and then tweet! The play starts.
Downs (you get 4 chances to go 10 yards) & field goals —
That long field of grass that we mentioned, well it has a lot of lines painted on it! And those lines are actually measurements.
They’re yards (even though this is FOOTball!)
Because that field is soooo long, players aren’t expected to get the ball all the way to the end in just a few plays. So it’s divided up, into little tries, based on yards. A team’s offense gets 4 chances to go 10 yards.
At the beginning of a play, the teams line up. The football is placed a certain line on the field - the yard line.
Say on one play, the quarterback gets it! And they throw it to a teammate, and that teammate gets the ball 5 yards closer to the end zone than they were before. Then they’re tackled. Ok! Both teams stop playing. They put the ball at that new spot, and they try again!
There’s a little way of saying how many tries and a team has and how many yards they have to go… 1st and 10 - 1st try, 10 yards to go. 2nd and 7 - 2nd try, 7 yards to go.
And if they don’t get those 10 yards after their tries, they switch and the other team’s offense trieds to score. And if they do get the 10 yards, yay! Their tries reset! They get a whole new group of tries to go another 10 yards.
Going ten yards in a football game is hard! Players push each other and try to block the ball from being thrown! So you get points for getting yards? Nope! Getting the yards helps you get closer to scoring a touchdown.
The main way to get points is the touchdown, right? But there is one other way! Remember the goal posts I talked about before, where you get that extra point after a touchdown? Well there’s one more use of them! A kicker can try to kick the ball through the goal posts from farther away, during a regular play. And if they get it, they get 3 points! (3 is half of six, which is how many points you get for a touchdown).
How long is a football game? —
A football game is played in quarters. When you have 4 equal parts of something, you have 4 quarters! They can also be measurements of time.
In football, the four quarters each last 15 minutes. When a one 15 minutes part is up, that’s it, quarter over.
When you have 2 quarters together, it’s called a half! So the middle of the game, when 2 quarters are played and 2 are left, is called the halftime! Players get a break then, which is good. They’re tired!
And then they come out, they play for another 2 quarters, each one is 15 minutes long. And whoever has the most points at the end of the 4th quarter, wins the game!
If they’re tied at the end of a game, then they play more!!! When people play at school, games can end in a tie. But when grownups play, like the games on TV (NFL, professional games), they play for a little more time, and it can actually end in a tie.
Who plays football? —
Football is played by kids on school teams. It’s played by people in college - usually from 18 years old - 22ish years old.
And it’s played by professionals in stadiums. A professional is someone who’s really good at something. So good that they get paid money to do it!
Professional football is played only by men, ugh. It’s been decided that a lot of professional sports are only played by men.
I don’t agree with this, I think this is really silly, and it’s changing a little bit - there are now professional women’s basketball and soccer teams too!
The professional football league in the united states is called the NFL. There are lots of different teams. Their names are often based around areas or cities, and then a type of thing - The Philadelphia Eagles, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, New York Jets.
The team is made up of all of the players, the quarterback, the kickers, the guys who run and catch and tackle. There are also a bunch of coaches! There’s a coach for the defense, a couch for the offense, and a coach who’s in charge of it all.
They play one day out of the week, during a certain season of the year.
They start playing in August, they stop around January.
If the team is really good, they’ve won a lot of games, they go to the playoffs!
And they start to play each other to see who will play in the last game of the season - the Super Bowl! In the Super Bowl, the two best teams play each other and the winner of that game is that year’s Super Bowl Champion!
Players get very excited about winning, they work really hard to do it! The team wins a big trophy. Each player gets a fancy ring. They feel really proud of their team.
Being inspired to play & watch —
Football players spend a lot of time to get good at their sport. They study the game when they’re not on the field. They train their bodies so that they’re strong. It takes a lot of work and dedication!
But every player started off as a kid, throwing a ball. Probably dropping it a lot. It’s hard and fun to learn a new sport.
Football can be an exciting game to watch. If there’s a certain team you want to win, you are a fan of that team! It’s fun to root for your team to win, along with your family, or new friends who are also fans.
Friend, what would you name two football teams playing against each other?