High school, college, and NFL football fields are the same size. A standard football field is 120 yards long. The playing field is 100 yards (300 feet) long, and each end zone is 10 yards (30 feet) deep. The field has a uniform width of 53 1/3 yards (160 feet).

If you calculate the entire area of a football field, including the end zones, it works out to 57,600 square feet (360 x 160). One acre equals 43,560 square feet, so a football field is about 1.32 acres in size.

What are The Numbers and Lines on the Field?

The field is marked with a yard line every 5 yards, and every 10 yards is marked by a field number. Each half of the field has a numbered 10-, 20-, 30- and 40-yard line, and a numbered 50-yard line splits the field evenly in the middle.

There are also the hash marks, those shorter lines that run between the 5-yard lines the whole length of the field. The hash marks are one yard apart. The primary difference between high school, college and NFL fields is the distance between the two lines of hash marks. Here’s how much space is between the lines of hash marks at each level:

• High School – 53 feet, 4 inches
• College – 40 feet
• NFL – 18 feet, 6 inches

All plays begin on or between the hash marks, depending on where the previous play ended. For example, if the previous play ended along the right sideline, the ball will be placed on a right hash mark. This is done so teams don’t have to run plays while extremely close to one sideline, which could provide an additional advantage to the defense.

How Big are the Goalposts?

The football goal crossbar is 10 feet high, and each side post is an additional 20 feet high, making the entire structure 30 feet high. High school goalposts are 23 feet, and 4 inches wide. NCAA and NFL goalposts are 18 feet, and 6 inches wide. At the NFL level, the width of the goalposts matches the width of the hash marks.

Want to learn more about the basics of football? Check out these explanatory articles:

• Football Positions, Explained
• How Football Sizes Change At Every Level of the Sport
• The Football Route Tree, Explained

Let’s go back to week three against the Bills. In the second quarter, Tua experienced a late hit. He was pushed with force and fell backward to the ground slamming the back of his head on the turf. The back of your brain is your body’s movement and coordination center.

However, Tua sat up and grabbed the sides of his helmet, probably from experiencing dizziness. The most important image of him was when he stood up. He staggered for a few steps and briefly lost balance and power in his legs. As a result, he collapsed to his knees. Immediately, Tua got back up to his feet. And consequently, you could see something was wrong.

Tua walked off the field and spent all the first half in the locker room going through concussion protocol. He passed the protocol, no concussion was found, and he returned to play in the second half.

The Rules Need Some Revision

But what the NFL really needs to do is dive into and investigate sub-concussion trauma. Tua would not have returned to the game if there had been a sub-concussion protocol. And probably sat out the next game against the Bengals, where he smacked his head again.

It is hard to say what could or could not have happened. Did slamming his head for a second time cause the concussion that could have been avoided if he had sat out? Or was it the way Tua was tackled by being slung to the ground like some MMA cage match?

So, it gives standing to a few issues.

In any event, Tua was taken off the field by stretcher and immediately labeled with a concussion. Because as he laid on the ground, he went into what is called a “fencing response.” It is an instant sign of concussion or brain damage. It is when your hands immediately rise in front of you, and your fingers splay. He also sustained head and neck injuries from violently being whipped to the ground.

Sub-concussion Trauma

Sub-concussion trauma is like a concussion, except you can’t see any physical signs of damage on the brain, only symptoms. Therefore, the player will pass a concussion protocol.

For example, some signs of this type of trauma are headache, dizziness, immediate loss of feeling, balance disturbances, drowsiness, and difficulty concentrating. It can also lead to concussions and severe issues with the brain, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, and cognitive difficulties with learning, focus, and memory.

Sub-concussion trauma is severe and silent and happens from head impact like Tua experienced. But not only that, sub-concussion trauma is common in football due to the small to many helmet jolts and blows during the game. These minor impacts add up over time and lead to more serious head trauma and damage later in life. Many retired professional football players today have and experience sub-concussion trauma.

Chris Nowinski is an executive for the Concussion Legacy Foundation. After seeing Tua stagger and collapse to the ground playing against the Bills, he commented, saying, there are risks if Tua plays again too soon after slamming his head.

After Tua’s second head trauma experience against the Bengals, Chris said, “You guys should go to jail for letting him play five days after an obvious concussion you covered up. If he dies from second-impact syndrome, I’m pushing for murder charges.”

The NFL needs to be on top of protection more effectively and stop unnecessary roughness that leads to injury. And they also must add stricter protocols for head trauma.

Tua Tagovailoa being sidelined for concussion could hurt the Dolphin’s pursuit and hunt to the Super Bowl. Like any team, a premiere player’s injury can rack up “L’s” and hurt their chances. Understood. But consequently, you can’t reverse brain damage. And having a concussion makes your brain vulnerable to another. In any event, seeing so much love and support for a player when severely injured is great. But I think it’s more important to see that love and support transferred into creating better protections, rules, and regulations to stop it from happening again.

Sunday’s Falcons vs. Seahawks game was delayed for about eight minutes in the 4th quarter after a drone was spotted in the air in the vicinity of Lumen Field in Seattle. Security officials cleared the field and waited for the unauthorized drone to clear the area. The operator of the drone, and why it was in stadium airspace, was unknown.

While this was the first drone delay in NFL history, it was the second such incident in as many days in the Seattle area. On Saturday evening, the University of Washington game against Stanford was delayed when a drone was spotted over the stadium. It was later discovered the drone belonged to the University of Washington and had, reportedly, gone rogue.

While a more specific reason was not provided, a drone “going rogue” most often means the drone is no longer responding to commands from its remote control. That can be caused by signal interference between the drone and the controller, the drone’s “return-to-home” function (which automatically returns a drone to its launch point with the loss of signal or waning battery power), or a combination of the two.

Since 9/11, airspace around large outdoor sports events has been tightly controlled by the FAA without proper training, licensing, and flight plan approval. And, given their notable increase in quantity, size, and power, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are now subject to even more stringent restrictions at all times. In most cases, flying drones in the vicinity of the stadium is prohibited starting one-hour before and ending one hour after the game in the NFL, MLB, NCAA Division I Football, NASCAR, and Indy Car events. That no-fly window is enforced within a three-nautical mile radius of the stadium or venue.

Violating a no-fly zone at a sporting event can have serious consequences. Most recently, two Ohio men were charged in federal court over separate incidents where each flew a drone over stadiums full of fans in Cincinnati.

With all that said, should you see a drone over a major sporting event, it’s likely it has permission to be there. Many professional sports organizations have adopted drones to bring television viewers closer to the action and to provide better views of the action. Most notably, in 2022, Major League Baseball has been experimenting with using drones at field level to follow runners as they round the bases after home runs and pitchers as they head for the dugout or emerge from the bullpen.

Finally, to keep this sports news-related, the drone delay wasn’t the only first in Seattle on Sunday. The Falcons beat the Seahawks 27-23 for their first win of the 2022 season. Atlanta was led by running back Cordarrelle Patterson, who ran for 141 yards and one touchdown, and rookie wide receiver Drake London, who hauled in three passes for 54 yards and a touchdown.

A company called Hawk-Eye came up with all these tech ideas used in these sports. This technology has changed the outcomes and synergy of many games. And seems to be appreciated by all players and fans. But now, they want more!

Chip the Ball!

The Bears fans now want the NFL to take technology a step further. They are pushing the NFL to put a chip in the ball. This push comes after a controversial call made during the Bears and Packers game on Sunday.

The Bears were losing the game with a score of 24-10. It was the fourth quarter, and Chicago decided to go all in on fourth-and-goal. The quarterback Justin Fields took a shotgun snap and darted straight up the middle. It looks like the ball crossed the goal line, breaking the plane. However, the referees ruled it short. The Bears challenged the call, and the officials were off to review.

After review, the ruling by the referees stood. And Chicago turned over the ball to Green Bay based on a loss of downs. If it was a touchdown, there were no guarantees for Chicago to win, but they had plenty of time on the clock to score again. So now the Bears fans say it is time to chip and track the football.

If you look at the photos, you can see it was a touchdown. His knee was not down, and the ball crossed the goal because his arms were extended. But players were blocking the ball, so it was hidden from the ref’s view on the field and in the video replay. And, since you cannot see the ball in the replay, just like the referees, they cannot call it a touchdown. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Yes, but I did not hear it. So, if you cannot see the ball…

Balls Have Been Chipped Since 2017

Since 2017, the NFL has placed microchips in every football until today. They have sensors and cameras on pylons and first down makers that track the ball’s movement and location. However, this is only in a research and development phase. The league says they are not ready to use the ball solely to determine placement. There are still some complexities and complications that the NFL must rectify first.

Microchip Challenges

The concept seems simple to the untrained eye: just put a chip in the football “and X marks the spot.” However, the NFL has more challenges and intricacies involved. For example, in other sports, the ball’s location is much easier to see and define on the field when the play is under review. In football, the ball is not the only element to determine the spot of the ball. The referee and the technology need to see and know when a player’s knee, hand, shoulder, or other body part touches the ground first. That is the challenge that NFL must overcome.

For the technology to be effective and trustworthy, players must also wear sensors and microchips. Hawk-Eye would need to track and detect the ball and the ball-carriers body to spot the ball correctly. From this, the system would be able to integrate all the sensor’s information and provide a result. So, as of now, it is not feasible, but it is possible in the future.

Until the technology is ready to be used and implemented in its entirety, the NFL will not use it as a source to reverse calls.

Before assumptions can be cast, it is best to know why people cannot take vaccinations. Many times, it is fear, unknowingness, or a life-threatening situation. So much information that was presented confused the population. And harmful conditions were happening that festered in the minds of people and professional athletes.

Novak Djokovic, for example, is a top-seeded world champion. He is strict about his routine. Taking a covid vaccination will either be good for him, or it could be like hitting the lottery in reverse, developing poor health and diminished performance for life. On the other hand, there is Aaron Rodgers. His decision not to take the jab was not out of foolishness. The reason was that he was allergic to one of the ingredients in the covid vaccine.

Aaron Rodgers Vaccine Stance

Rodgers was recently on the Joe Rogan show and told Joe that he did not take the

vaccine because he is allergic to one common ingredient in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine. PEG, known as polyethylene glycol, is one substance used in mRNA technology and is also commonly found in face and body creams, medications, and processed foods. PEG is used a lot because it is biocompatible, water-soluble, and has low toxicity. It is used to help deliver medicines to your body and stabilize other substances.

Rodgers also spoke out about other vaccines to possibly try. For example, another vaccine by Johnson and Johnson was approved in the USA. It was not mRNA technology, so PEG was not used in their ingredients. However, the J&J vaccine was causing blood clot issues. So, he sought out a different way.

Rodgers Took Holistic Vaccine

Rodgers said he did not lie at the first press conference. He had a plan to say he

was immunized. But his alternative treatment was not sponsored or accepted by the government nor the NFL.

According to Rodgers, he sought an alternate treatment to be immunized. Rodgers found a therapy that lasted for a few months that consisted of ingesting a “diluted strain” of the virus. This immunization treatment was created and administered by a holistic physician, not an MD. After researching and consulting with many physicians in different fields of medicine, he selected and thought this treatment was best for him.

The quarterback said last year that he produced 500 pages of medical research and documentation to help convince the NFL to adopt this therapy. It was not just for Rodgers but all NFL players as an alternative to the COVID-19 vaccine. Unfortunately, the NFL’s medical board and staff concluded that evidence and proof were insufficient to show efficacy.

Because he refused to take the jab and had his holistic plan rejected, he was forced to wear a yellow wristband to show he was not vaccinated during games and practices. During road games, he could not leave the hotel or eat with other team players. Furthermore, he could only use his training room and sauna.

Rodgers argued, “Some of the rules are not based in science at all. They’re based purely on trying to out and shame people. Everyone has their own story. This shamming, cancel society is wrong.” He was adamant that personal health issues, choices, and decisions should remain private.

The Homeopathic Vaccine Treatment

Homeopathy works on the principle that if a form of the virus, toxin, or illness can be

diluted in a solution many times, eliminating it from that product, then you take this substance. Therefore, your body will produce antibodies against it.

This type of therapy is based on Samuel Hahnemann. He created treatments like this more than 200 years ago. In the medical community, doctors and scientists concur that these substances used in his therapies were not harmful but also not helpful.

No one knew if the vaccines were good or bad and how the body would react. They were being produced so rapidly. For example, players like Djokovic and Rodgers don’t want to take the vaccine. Their choice is not based on ignorance. It is based on life. At the time, who knew if the issues that occurred were rare or would increase over the months and years? And till this day, efficacy is still being questioned.

Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp pulls in a touchdown catch as Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Eli Apple defends during the second half of the NFL Super Bowl 56 football game Sunday, Feb. 13, 2022, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

When it comes down to a player’s health, you have to look at what training programs are successful. The Rams Sports Medicine adopted a style used by soccer teams in the Premier League, that seems to be excellent. It is tracking data that provides a different perspective on monitoring a players’ daily lifestyle, training, and performance. According to the results, the trainers and coaches will increase or decrease their workload.

Tracking a player’s workload has proven great success in preventing injuries when you can catch the physical strain before it gets worse. The head athletic trainer for the Rams, Reggie Scott, said that when the workload tracking data says a player is being overworked, they will postpone drills and workouts for the player or players. This has been a bit of a shift and break from the norm over the past decade. But it seems very few teams are listening to the fact that training too much weakens you, not makes you stronger.

Recovery Is Essential

Recovery is an essential part of enhancing strength. But unfortunately, punishing and grueling workouts don’t make you stronger in the NFL or the general population. Instead, they are proving to cause pain, strain, and injury.

Who Knew Walking Could Predict NFL Health

Dr. Neal ElAttrache has been with the Rams since the 1980s. In 2016, he became the team’s head physician. Dr. ElAttrache says that one of the best ways to track a player’s workload is through steps and walking. Although it may not seem relevant to intensity and training, it is essential. Tracking steps is a great way to assess injury and strain and shows more than you realize.

Scott and Dr. ElAttrache said they consider the number of steps a player takes and limits the number of movements and exercise during practice and training. For example, they keep drills in the same areas and close together to avoid a player taking excessive steps to walk across the field. In addition, Dr. ElAttrache and Scott use GPS technology to track the step count of a player to develop their workout and training ratio based on the workload.

Dr. ElAttrache said, “All this stuff needs to be anticipated, considered, and planned ahead of time.” He mentions that the remarkable success of this technology allows the trainers to be more productive with players. For example, they can incorporate rest and recovery at specific needed moments and extend the training time, so it is not counterproductive. To do this, he said you need to know and understand what the players are doing throughout their day, track it, and decrease what is unnecessary, creating excessiveness.

Tracking Workload Is Catching On

Tracking workload is catching on with other teams. However, monitoring a player’s energy is different than monitoring their strength. Strength training is a way to prevent movement injuries, which has to be specific to a player’s movements, not just general. If the player lacks energy because of fatigue, the workout or training will be counter-productive. That is similar to trying to drive a car without gas. No matter how powerful the car, if it does not have fuel, it will not drive. And this is similar to professional athletes. Not having energy leads to excessive training, injury, and diminished health.

The player’s health is becoming more valuable than the player who can suck wind without falling to the ground. Technology and exact ways of monitoring a players’ training can keep players fresh and healthy to win games and get to the Super Bowl.

Some coaches generated their share of bad publicity too, as one showed himself to be a racist homophobe, and another highly paid, high profile coach demonstrated he simply wasn’t fit for the NFL. Even an NFL team owner managed to serve as a constant source of bad press.

What Went Right

In spite of all of that, NFL TV viewership hit a five-year high in the 2021 season. In fact, 91 of the top 100 telecasts of any kind in 2021 were NFL games. On top of that, the Thanksgiving Day game between the Cowboys and Raiders was viewed by an average of 40.8 million people, making it the most-watched regular season game in the last 31 years. Overall, one television executive called the 2021 season “the most successful season I can remember in a long time.”

The expanded season and addition of a 17th game gave more viewers more opportunities to watch their favorite teams. And, the addition of more wild card teams to the playoff picture kept more teams in contention, and more fans engaged, literally until the last play of the last game of the season. And, the wild card round blowouts aside, the playoffs delivered some great games and even higher TV ratings.

What Helped Ratings Soar?

One factor in the improved TV ratings was the continued increase in out-of-home streaming views of NFL games, which jumped 18% in 2021, the second-highest increase ever. In addition, 2021 was the first season that ratings arbiter Nielsen factored in streaming viewers to its ratings, which helped provide an overall ratings bump. A third element was a return to some degree of normalcy after the 2020 season was disrupted by COVID-19 and many fans altered their viewing habits. And don’t forget the Nickelodeon NFL broadcast, which brought a new approach, huge ratings, and likely a lot of new football viewers.

All those numbers reinforce the notion that television powers the National Football League. And as long as the TV ratings are good, the networks will continue lining up to fork over billions for the broadcast rights. In fact, according to a recent ESPN article, “Those numbers will only go up in future years as “Thursday Night Football” heads fulltime to Prime Video next season, as well as exclusive streaming games on ESPN + and Peacock when the new television contract begins in 2023. The league’s “Sunday Ticket” package with DirecTV expires after next season, with many expecting multiple carriers to make a bid.”

So, despite all the bad press, bumbling PR fiascoes, and on-field and off-field dramas and controversies, it seems the NFL’s TV product is more popular than ever. And as more people tune in, the league seems poised to continue as a TV rating juggernaut. And that will keep the team owners and the league’s broadcast partners quite happy. In fact, it seems the only folks who won’t be happy about pro football’s ongoing TV success are those who keep making doom and gloom predictions about the NFL’s demise.

BroBible dug up an old Facebook post from Brady, where he posted his résumé coming out of college.

With his 3.3 GPA and several academic honors, Brady was an excellent college student outside of football. He had years of proven work experience culminating in an internship at Merrill Lynch, which would have made him a great entry-level candidate for any financial institution.

Imagine. Tom Brady, Financial Analyst.

He even got his hands dirty working for a construction company and worked security at an Ann Arbor summer festival.

Fortunately for Patriots fans, and unfortunately for the rest of the league, instead of settling into a desk job, Brady got his chance to play in the NFL. Maybe he’ll put some of his financial skills to use when he retires in 10 or 20 years.

Article originally posted in 2017

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When a quarterback drops back to throw, their brain must process a staggering amount of information in mere seconds. They must calculate the velocity of their receivers, the size of their targets, their locations on the field in relation to themselves, and then do the same for every defensive player bent on ruining it all. Then, they have to estimate how their own arm strength and accuracy factors into the equation. Once they crunch the calculus, they must choose one of two options—should I make this throw, or not?

What makes the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback so special is that he routinely answers “yes” to passing attempts for which there’s nearly no precedent, then executes them with a magical flick of the wrist. The amount of zip and power Mahomes possesses allows him to make throws other quarterbacks wouldn’t attempt in their wildest dreams. It unlocks a dimension of throwing lanes few have previously explored:

Here’s a completely unedited mashup of throws Mahomes has made this year that are borderline impossible. It’s been 5 games (plus 1 preseason throw).

Keep in mind these aren’t all his great throws. Just the impossible ones. He’s a human cheat code. pic.twitter.com/I8LFazARDH — Seth Keysor (@RealMNchiefsfan) October 10, 2018

With a right arm seemingly enchanted by witchcraft, Mahomes threw for an eye-popping 5,097 yards and 50 touchdowns during the 2018 regular season.

How did Mahomes build such a special arm?

He discussed that very topic with STACK for our 2017 Path to the Pros series.

“(I think it has to do) with just the fact that I’ve long-tossed since I was 5 years old. My dad, me and him would always work on long-tossing back and forth. So me doing that all the time, it just built arm strength,” Mahomes said.

 Mahomes’ father was a professional baseball pitcher who spent 11 years in the MLB, so Patrick naturally grew up dreaming of following his footsteps. “Long toss” is a baseball drill that entails throwing the ball over a distance greater than you would typically encounter during game action. The exact distance depends on your physical maturity and skill level, but when implemented smartly and progressively, long toss is widely regarded as an excellent way to build arm strength and shoulder durability.

The goal shouldn’t be to see how far you can throw once or twice before your arm gives out, but rather to gradually make the distance you’re able to throw the ball fluidly and without pain greater and greater over time. It’s believed Mahomes was regularly throwing a baseball well over 200 feet by the time he was 10 years old—a supernatural figure for a pre-teen athlete.

Mahomes still performs the football equivalent of “long toss” prior to every game, casually catapulting pigskins nearly end zone to end zone. “That is strictly from baseball,” Mahomes told The Ringer of his long warm-up throws. “To me, until I get those long tosses in, I haven’t loosened up my arm. I haven’t gotten my arm going. It’s the same as if someone runs and loosens their legs. It’s my pattern.” The pre-game routine has remained largely unchanged since his days at Whitehouse High School (Whitehouse, Texas), when Mahomes would occasionally ding the opposing team’s punter due to the sprawling trajectory of his passes.

But baseball didn’t just help Mahomes build his Howitzer-like arm strength—it also helped him develop an ability to deliver passes on the move and from a wide variety of arm angles. Mahomes spent much of his baseball career as a shortstop, a position where the player is often forced to rifle throws from awkward, unorthodox body positions. Just as a shortstop cannot always take the time to set their feet and deliver a “standard” throw if they want to beat a baserunner, quarterbacks are also often forced to improvise passes before a window slams shut. 

“I think a lot of it is from baseball and how I could sling the ball across the diamond. I played shortstop my whole life. I never had my feet under me. I was always making throws across my body,” Mahomes told Texas Football magazine in 2016. 

In addition to Mahomes, quarterbacks like Dan Marino, John Elway, Tom Brady and Russell Wilson have also stated that their amateur baseball careers played a role in their success as signal callers. Read more about the strong connection between a background in baseball and elite quarterbacks here. 

Photo Credit: Harry How/Getty Images

READ MORE:

• Patrick Mahomes Wants to Shatter The Stereotype of The System Quarterback
• How to Throw Harder: 4 Exercise to Gas Up Your Fastball
• Why is it So Hard for a Rookie QB To Learn an NFL Playbook? An Inside Look At This Monumental Challenge

Rodgers told philly.com that playing multiple sports helped him gain a competitive edge in the NFL and that it’s a shame that the value of multi-sport athletes is not more widely recognized. He said:

“I think [playing multiple sports] is going away a little bit, and it’s unfortunate. It definitely helped me, because I learned different skills in different sports, and there are competitive things that run through all the sports. I was always drawn to being in positions where I had an impact on the game: point guard in basketball, pitcher in baseball, goalie or forward in soccer. I wanted to be in those premiere positions where you’re having a direct impact on the game, and you learn a lot of skills along the way to take advantage of little nuances in the game. It helps.

“I think kids can get burned out playing AAU basketball the entire year or traveling baseball the entire year. Football, we don’t really have a ton of that, with the entire-year stuff. But I think it’s going to be important for kids to not be as one-sport-centered as we move forward. . . You want to see guys who are playing multiple sports and have that competitiveness because a well-rounded athlete, I think, is going to be better with adversity. There’s different adversity in every sport you’re playing, and the more you’re competing in different sports, the more you learn about yourself.”

Playing multiple sports not only helps athletes be more competitive, it also augments their athletic skill-set. Rodgers is one of the best quarterbacks at moving in the pocket and throwing on the run, which he showed perfectly on the last pass he completed in the Packers’ playoff win over the Dallas Cowboys last weekend. Playing a sport like basketball translated to Rodgers’ footwork in the pocket and improved his ability to throw on the run.

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