NFL Outside America

In this post I will look at where American Football is played outside of the USA. The sport is played in a number of countries, but I will focus on Ireland and Canada for this blog.

The Irish American Football League (IAFL) is the amateur league that Irish teams play in. The league runs from February to July, in the hope of good weather. The champions are decided in the Shamrock Bowl, which the two best teams are entered into. The Dublin Rebels are the current champions. Both UCD and Trinity have a team entered in the league.

In Canada they play a slightly altered game, called Canadian Football, with teams competing in the Canadian Football League (CFL). In this post I will look at the main differences to the American game.

• The playing field is slightly longer.
• CFL teams have 12 men on each side of the ball, NFL only allows 11.
• The ball is slightly different.
• CFL only allows 3 downs to get the 10 yards required for a first down, the NFL allows 4.

In my opinion both games would be equally enjoyable to watch, but the NFL is superior because there is a larger amount of players and this results in more elite players.
Shamrock Bowl XXIII (2009) - Q1 from IAFA on Vimeo.
Thanks for reading

Home Advantage in the NFL II

Weather

In the NFL, the only time a game is called off due to weather is when there is lightning, or in extreme circumstances (the New Orleans Saints couldn't play soon after Hurricane Katrina). Many teams need to adapt to play in high temperatures, and others in snowy conditions. This may sound easier than it is as players are brought into teams from every part of the US. When the Arizona Cardinals hosted the Green Bay Packers in 2003 they played in 41 degrees Celsius. The Cardinals won 20-13, a sign of experience of playing in high heat.

Routine

As with every sport, players have a much easier routine without travelling disrupting their schedule. Many plane trips can disrupt a player's sleeping pattern, meaning they are not 100% for their games.

Arizona Cardinals Stadium

(http://www.azcardinals.com/)

Home Advantage in the NFL

In this post I hope to look at what makes playing at home easier for teams in the NFL. In 2011, three teams in the NFL had a perfect home record - winning all 8 home games (8-0). The Baltimore Ravens, New Orleand Saints and Green Bay Packers. This of course correlates to the overall ability of the teams but hopefully I can find some factors which benefits the home teams (the hosts).

The Fans

In most sports you would expect to hear the home fans the most when their team has the ball. Not in the NFL, where fans are encourage to remain quiet when their offense is playing, in order to assist the quarterback in changing the play at the line of scrimmage (calling an audible).

( http://www.east-coast-bias.com/ )

The other side of this is fans making noise when the opposition has the ball, causing difficulty for the offense. This often draws 'False Start' penalties, when someone on the line of scrimmage moves before the ball is snapped. Commentators often award these penalties to the '12th Man' - the term first used by the Texas A&M college football team. In the NFL it is most associated with the Seattle Seahawks, who have retired the #12 jersey (no player is allowed wear it) and also a famous person or local celebrity raises a flag with the #12 on it at the start of home games to honour the fan's support.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/ )

TO BE CONTINUED...



Geography of the Players

In this post I have decided to look at the hometowns of NFL players. I will then see which state produces the most NFL players.

In the NFL however, a lot of a players potential is unlocked when playing college football. To enter the NFL Draft, a player must have 3 years in college completed. Also some players may complete their senior year if they feel they are not ready, or more often if they think they can win a National Championship (the Superbowl of college football) or the Heismann Trophy (highest award for college players).

For the 2011 season the team with the most alumni in the NFL is the University of Miami (UM) with 42 players. Surprisingly there is no current quarterback from UM in the NFL. The rest of the list shows a start-studded cast in each position. Some of the standout players are Frank Gore (Running Back), Devin Hester (Wide Receiver) and Jeremy Shockey (Tight End).

Frank Gore, San Francisco 49ers. Formerly University of Miami.

(http://www.graphicshunt.com/)

As for which state, 251 player from California were on NFL rosters when the 2010 season came to a close according to an ESPN the Magazine report.

Mark Sanchez, New York Jets. Born in California.

(http://www.silive.com/)

NFL Team Locations

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/)

This map shows the locations of all the NFL teams. As you can see most of the teams are based in the Eastern side of the USA. There is also a high concentration of teams in the north east region. States with three NFL teams are Florida and California. States with two NFL teams are New Jersey (despite both teams being called New York), Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Amazingly in Florida there are nine teams within the four major American sports (football, baseball, ice hockey and basketball) this leads to a number of low attendances - Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Miami Dolphins were both within the five lowest average attendances in the NFL for 2011.

Another obvious observation is the high number of NFL teams based on the east coast of America. One reason for this is that 150 million of the 305 million people in America live in the eastern time zone. The time zone raises another important point - western time zone prime time games don't start until 8pm eastern (ET). However, as a fan of NFL in Ireland I have no sympathy for any eastern based fans complaining about late games when the earliest game starts at 6pm GMT (1pm ET).

In my next post I hope to look at home field advantage and players hometowns - which areas produce the most NFL players and the most elite NFL players.

Introduction

In this blog I aim to explore and explain some aspects of the Geography of the National Football League (NFL).

 I hope to look at the locations of teams, stadiums  and they're effect on games - home advantage etc. I also would like to explore which area has the most players drafted into the league (each year every team selects a number of players from college football teams to join their team).

I hope I caught your attention and I look forward to posting more.