 If you're just learning American football, one of the concepts that's probably going to be confusing at first is the idea of downs and yards to go. This is a concept that's pretty much unique to gridiron football, and it's important to understand because on the majority of plays in a game, there will be a down and a certain number of yards to go. So let's say a team receives a ball on a kickoff and they run it back to the 20 yard line. This would mean that our first line of scrimmage is on the 20. At this point, the offense will come onto the field and start with what is called a new set of downs. And on their first play, it will be a first and 10. You'll hear two numbers like that a lot during a game. They'll be on the screen and you'll probably hear the announcer say that it's blank and blank. The first number is what down it is. A down is really just another name for a play or a chance to move the ball. You have four downs to move the ball forward 10 yards. If you do that, you get another set of downs and it's first and 10 again. If you can't move the ball 10 yards in four plays or four downs, then the other team gets the ball. Downs were created to keep the ball moving forward. In football's early days, teams would just try to keep the ball for the whole game so they came up with downs to stop this. It might also seem a little overwhelming for a team to have to move the ball the whole way down the field to score a touchdown. So by continuously getting first downs, they can make it to the end zone by only gaining a few yards on each and every play. So back to our team on the 20 yard line. First down and 10 yards to go for a first down. Which means that they will get another first down if they can move the ball to the 30 yard line in four plays or less. Let's say they do this. First play, they throw a pass which is caught and ran up to the 40 yard line. Our new line of scrimmage is now the 40 yard line and it's first and 10 again, but from the 40. To get another first down, they have to get to the 50 now. On their next play, let's say they run the ball two yards. Our new line of scrimmage is now on the 42 and it's second down and eight yards to go. On the next play, they run again for three more yards. Now it's third down and five or five yards to go. On third down, our offense throws a pass but it's incomplete so they don't gain any yards. Now it's fourth down and five yards to go. Our team actually has a few options here on fourth down. They could go for it and try to get the first down, but if they fail, the other team will get the ball right at that spot. Another thing they can do here is punt the ball, meaning the third punter will come out. They'll snap it back to him and he'll kick the ball as far as he can to the other team. The strategy of a punt is basically the offense saying, we're going to give the ball to the other team, but we would rather they have it as far from their end zone as possible. Technically, a team can punt the ball on any offensive play, but you almost never see it happen before fourth down. Punting will also only happen when an offense is in a certain portion of the field. A team on offense can also attempt to kick a field goal on any play, but like punting, they'll rarely try one before fourth down, and for a field goal, they also had to be close enough. So this next part isn't part of the rules, but let's look at what tends to happen in most games. Generally, if a team has the ball inside the 33 yard line and they get to fourth down, they'll probably try to kick a field goal. Remember, if the ball is on the 33, that would be a 50 yard field goal attempt. If a team is between the 33 and say the 40 or 45, it's usually too far to go for a field goal, but a punt really isn't going to move the other team back too much, so they might actually try to run a play here and try to get the first down. Beyond the 40, they probably will try to punt. In the 2019 NFL season, about 40% of drives ended with a punt, so it's fairly common. Punting doesn't give a team any points, but it's going to gain them an advantage in what's called field position. The closer that you are to the other team's end zone, the higher chance you have of scoring. So it's to a team's benefit to push the other team back as far as they can. If this still seems a bit confusing, there is good news. If you watch a game on TV, you'll catch on to downs and yards to go quickly because of two reasons. First, there's a down and a yards to go on every play except for kickoffs, so you'll be hearing it constantly. The other thing is that on TV now, they will actually draw the line on the field, so rather than seeing this, you would see these lines on the field. The first one will be where the line of scrimmage was when the play started, and the other will be the line to gain or the line they need to get in order to get a first down. That line's usually yellow. If you were to go to a game in person, these lines won't be here, but not to fear. You can always look at these three orange sticks, which is how the players on the field can tell where they need to get in order to get a first down too. They basically show the same thing as the TV lines. So this first one here is the original first down, and it's connected with a 10-yard chain to this one, which shows where they need to get in order to get a first down. The third one will move to the new line of scrimmage on every play, and it shows what down it is. So this play was a first and 10, because as you can see, the one here, and it's in the same spot as the first stick. If this team were to gain five yards on this play, then this stick would move down five yards and change the number to a two for second down. Let's say our offense runs a play, and they get the ball down to the six-yard line. What happens now? We don't have 10 yards left on the field to get another first and 10. So if the offense gets a first down inside the 10-yard line, rather than first and 10, it's now called first and goal. And rather than being able to get another first down, they have four plays to score a touchdown. Or if they fail to get a touchdown on the first three downs, they'll probably try to kick a field goal on the fourth, but not always. Because what happens on a third down will often determine if a team is going to get another first down or end up pumping on the next play. You may hear a game on TV talk a lot about third down conversion rates, which is just a fancy way of saying how many times did the offense get a first down on a third down play. Teams will go for it a lot less on fourth down because they risk losing the ball to the other team on that spot, which is why broadcasts will have to make a big deal about fourth down plays and fourth down conversions as well. Most of the time when a team starts a new drive, which means that they just got the ball from the other team and their offense has now come onto the field, they'll be able to get at least one or two first downs. Some drives will last over 10 plays, but the worst thing a team can do without turning the ball over is to fail to even get one first down. We call this three and out because the offense just had three plays and then they were forced to punt. Quick side note here, you might hear an announcer on a game say that a team was forced to punt. Remember that technically the team can always go for it or attempt a field goal on fourth down too. It's just accepted that a team will punt on fourth down when they're out of field goal range, and that a team is forced to punt, but it's really just a figure of speech. Because of penalties, there's technically no limit on how many first downs a team could get on a drive or how long a drive could last. A penalty will usually result in the loss or the gain of yardage for the offense depending on which team was the offender. So if the defense jumps offside on the first and 10 play, they'll stop the game, move the ball up five yards, and the next play will be first down in five yards to go. On the other hand, if the offense gets a penalty, they'll end up with a first and 15 play.