 One of the most confusing things about football, especially when you're just starting to get into the sport is where are all these guys standing and why are they there and What are the different positions? That we have and so that's what I want to take a look at in this video if you are afraid of geometry you don't need to be because We aren't going to get any more complicated than the X's and the O's So the O's represent the guys on offense the X's are the guys on defense So we'll take a look at each of them here The first thing to notice is that there's kind of a line here Separating the offense and the defense and that is because the ball Typically will be or it will be placed in the middle here. So this the ball Is in the middle and it is separated by this line the offense of guys cannot Go past this line and nor can the defensive guys go over this line where they would be Considered offside and so this line the yellow line is called the line of scrimmage So the line of scrimmage Separates the offense from the defense that is where the ball is So first, let's take a look at the guys on Offense and so that's these O's down here And the offense will start with the the offensive line. So that's these orange guys here This is the Offensive line as you can see there are five Guys in the offensive line the man in the middle Is fittingly he is called the center and the center is going to be the man who snaps the ball back To the quarterback Quarterback so we'll get back to him and a second the quarterback is the guy there the gray guy standing behind the center On either side of the center The we have the our other offensive line and so on the left side. We have our left guard Who stands right beside? the center To his left and then we're gonna have the left tackle so this is Different tackle than what we're talking about soon as far as tackling a player. That's just name of his position and so probably Yes on this side to the right of the center you have our right guard and then on the outside we have our right Tackle and so these Offensive linemen their job is to stand there and to prevent the defense From from getting to the quarterback because the quarterbacks gonna have the ball So we'll see the defense is going to want to tackle or to pull down the guy who has the ball So these offensive linemen they're usually big guys So their job is to stop the defense from getting To the ball to getting to the quarterback. So there's a five offensive linemen As we said right behind the offensive line is the quarterback The center is going to snap the ball back to the quarterback and so then the quarterback has a Decision he's can either pass the ball or he can hand off the ball So what he would do for a handoff he would turn to one of these guys behind him. So Back here, it's two kind of Misnamed guys with the full back and the half back. Although as you can see Perhaps you might think they're backwards because you think the full back would be further back Then the half back, but that's not the case That's just the the way they are named so either way these guys are considered running backs And so if the quarterback does decide to hand the ball off he will turn around with the ball hand it off usually it can be be to either guy and Typically though it will be to the half back He will run with the ball If he does if the quarterback does decide to pass so you can pass To one of these guys so the two guys way out on the end Are the wide receivers so this guy over here? It'll be the wide receiver on this side Man on the left is another wide receiver on the left side and Then our final guy is standing kind of he's probably In actuality. He's he's closer to the line But this guy is called the tight end and so sometimes he will run and receive other times. He's kind of the Sixth offensive linemen blocking these are all of the positions on offense now I don't know if I said it or not, but there are eleven guys both on offense and defense and It's really not required that they line up in this Format typically this is the ones you'll see but it's not required so say sometimes we'll have the Wide receiver. He'll be out further. Maybe instead of a tight end. We'll have a third wide receiver and he'll line out line up Over here closer to the wide receiver So we'll have we you could have three wide receivers and no tight end on the field Or maybe you have only one Running back and and and one of these guys is free to move up to become Maybe a second tight end or even a third wide receiver so Eleven guys, but they can exchange they can run On or off the field Between each play so it doesn't even have to be The same as what you did the last place. So those are our offensive positions Moving to defense now. I'm gonna see opposite the offense on the line of scrimmage. They're lined up in a little different way because Their goal is to try to stop to tackle these guys on the offense whoever has the ball And so again, this is Just like the offense. They're not required to line up in this way But this they are currently lined up in what is called a 4-3 4-3 defense and so let's look at where these numbers come from The four will come or the first number comes from the line. So these guys here. This is the defensive line defensive line Right behind as you can see there's four guys. So that's where we get the four and then there are three guys behind them and If you guess this is where the three comes from you would be correct So four defensive linemen three line backers because they are behind the lines. These are the line backers So this this is where you get the four Three and then up on both sides usually defending our wide receivers here. We have the corner backs use a corner back and this guy Opposite him is also a corner back not to be confused with a each quarter back. These are corner backs And then these two guys back here usually pretty fast guys These are the safeties and so sometimes you have what is called a strong safety and the other guy He will be a what is known as a free safety free Safety and so again, this is not the the required way that these guys line up just like offense They have some leeway and how they want to position their players so can the defense The other common way that you might see guys line up instead of a a 4-3 is a 3-4 defense Which would simply mean that one of the You know one of the line backers one of the linemen He will actually move back and so you will have then three linemen and they move over in the middle there and Then you would have four line backers so that would be the three four defense then And really these guys can stand wherever they want. Sometimes you'll see these guys come up here closer to the line So this is technically used to have four line backers there and three defensive linemen, but overall these is that's the basic layout of The the position so you have your safeties in the back line backers your defensive line the two corner backs then on defense and Your guys on offense again either team can swap players between each play if they want to there's really no requirement of any One guy standing in any one place so they can you can really move around Run around try to confuse the offense, but we'll get into that when we talk about some more of the strategy involved in the game