Mythbusting: stop getting American football wrong

American Football has never been more popular in Britain than it is today. But there is much about the sport that many are still getting wrong. In a bid to right some common wrongs, we’ve enlisted the help of British American Football’s leading lights to push back on the sport’s misconceptions.

If the only American Football that you ever watch is the Super Bowl, then you might be forgiven for thinking that it’s a long drawn out game that only ever gets going in fits and spurts. But there are a million reasons for that, and they’re usually measured in dollars. The biggest sporting event in the US draws in the biggest advertising bucks of the year, not to mention the most high-profile half-time show on Earth. While it makes for a glitzy spectacle, it does mean the game can often run into four hours plus. But you’d be wrong for thinking the same can be said in Britain. 

“I coached at Mississippi State where it was nationally televised, and it is stop start,” admits GB Men’s head coach Jason Scott, before setting the record straight. “Because – here’s a trade secret – there’s such a thing as TV timeouts, where play stops to run adverts.

“In the UK, it’s not like that. It flows much better. You’d be surprised at how fast the game goes. It is strategic, and instead of having one flowing game, it is a series of set pieces. Essentially, you can re-rack and reorganize. It’s no more stop-start than 10 pin bowling or any other turn based sport, because that’s essentially what it is. It’s an invasion sport. It’s done on a series of plays”. 

While Jason Scott is at it, he wants to address another common complaint that he still hears all too often. That American Football is just rugby with pads on. “That comment drives me to distraction” says the top coach, who is also in charge of the men’s teams at the University of Nottingham and BAFA National League’s side Tamworth Phoenix. 

“I played rugby at a high level when I was younger, and I played American Football. No one sport is better than the other. It’s not a competition. And it drives me berserk, when rugby players try to lord it over American Football, saying, “Oh why are you wearing all that padding.” It’s just to make people feel better because they don’t know and don’t understand it. Yet when they try it for the first time, they really enjoy it.

“One of our biggest fans of the sport at Nottingham is a guy called James Cherry, who played first team rugby for the University of Nottingham, and is now a professional at Nottingham Rugby Club, has had trials at Leicester and has played with England players. He is a huge fan of American Football because of the techniques used and the strategy used in it. And because he understands the sport he’s really warmed to it. 

“Comparing rugby and American Football is like comparing boxing and wrestling. They’re both contact sports, they’re in a ring, and they look kind of similar. But rugby is an 80-minute wrestling match, whereas American football is a boxing match. There’s not punches being thrown constantly, but those punches make contact. America Football is a collision sport, whereas rugby is a contact sport.”

The emergence of flag football and its inclusion as an Olympic sport at LA in 2028 is expected to prompt a surge in interest in the sport and increase its popularity among women and children. However, you’d be wrong to think that the traditional contact form of the sport has no appeal to women. Amanda McDonald, chair of East Kilbride Pirates, rankles at any suggestion that American Football is only a sport played by men.

“Often when I’m in the back of a taxi with bags going to a game, I’ll be asked what I’m doing. And when I respond that I’m going to see American Football, I’ll get a response like, ‘Oh, does your husband play?’. It has never been a problem within the club, it’s always people outside of it. But, increasingly, women do play contact football. We merged our East Kilbride Pirates team with Scotland’s only other women’s team to form a separate entity called Caledonia Chaos.

“People think if you’re involved you’re either someone’s partner or a cheerleader. But actually, there’s a thriving growth in women’s participation, either through women’s-only flag, through women’s contact, or through coaching. We have a female coach of our adult team, and at Premiership level, we’re just about to start another female assistant coach. Then, obviously, I’m chair of the club and we have other women on the committee.”

Given some of the stunning athletic feats of the elite football players in the NFL, you might be inclined to believe that American Football is a game to be played only by the fittest, strongest, and quickest. But, much like the grassroots scene in rugby, American Football has positions for everybody, regardless of your shape, size, or fitness. 

In many cases, it even appeals to people who aren’t usually interested in sport, as East Kilbride Pirates’ Amanda McDonald attests. “We actually attract quite a lot of people who are very data driven, very rules driven, because there’s a lot to get your head around. I would also say it’s quite an inclusive sport. We have a lot of people, especially women who play, who say it’s really good for their mental health, because it doesn’t matter what shape or size you are. 

“We find we have a lot of success with kids that have maybe slipped past mainstream sports, because they’re not a specific body type. So if you’re a bigger, maybe slower kid, you could suddenly find that you’re super successful as a lineman, even though you’ve been overlooked in other sports or not had a chance. Or maybe you’re really thin and skinny, so you make an ideal wide receiver. Or you’re really small and fast, you’ll make a good running back whereas you might be considered too small for rugby. So we get a lot of kids that haven’t done well in other sports, that will then come along and excel in what we do.”

A concussion is dangerous, and contact sports come with risks of injury. Those are facts that should never be underestimated. But education around the dangers of concussion is now much better in American football, and the result is that it’s safer than it ever has been. 

“The prevalence of concussion isn’t as high as it used to be,” says BAFA Head Medic Beverley Analuwa. “We’ve done some education on concussion with coaches and players in terms of what a concussion actually is, and the different levels of concussion. It’s to make sure that they can look out for the signs so that you can remove someone from play, and also know how to manage them afterwards.” 

“We also work with the coaches to get the players to tackle properly so they’re not using their heads. I wouldn’t say it should be something to put kind of parents off.”

It’s true that American Football has a myriad of rules that might seem alien or daunting to anyone new to the sport. But you don’t need to know every single one before you pick up a ball. Get a grasp of the basics and go from there. Jim Briggs is a legendary British American Football referee of 40 years, who now writes the rulebooks every season. But even he admits to learning on the job when he began in the sport.

“I was playing cricket regularly, umpiring, and I had no intention of getting into American Football,” says Briggs, remembering his first encounter with the sport was watching it on TV in the 1980s. “I thought if I join the Referees Association, they’d send me a rule book and I’d be able to understand what I’m watching on TV. So I sent my money off on the Monday and got a phone call on the Wednesday. “They said there was a game in my area that Sunday and asked if I would like to come along. I thought it was to watch, but when I arrived they said, ‘Here’s your stripey shirt, here’s your white trousers. You’re refereeing it with us.’

“There was a crew of four of us. It was between Leeds Cougars and Fylde Falcons. It was the first game for each team and for two of my colleagues, it was their second game. And the referee, he was a real expert. He’d done eight games. I didn’t know what I was doing, I made loads of mistakes, but it was fun and I got hooked.”