American Football Hand-off

In American football, a hand-off is the act of handing the ball directly from one player to another, without it leaving the first player's hands. Most rushing plays on offense begin with a handoff from the quarterback to another running back. The biggest risk with any handoff is the chance of fumble on the exchange. A handoff can occur in any direction.

Sometimes called a "switch" in touch football. Alternately spelled without the hyphen; i.e., "handoff".

SPORTS

 

American Football

Game play in American football consists of a series of downs, individual plays of short duration, outside of which the ball is dead or not in play. These can be plays from scrimmage – passes, runs, punts, or field goal attempts (from either a place kick or a drop kick) – or free kicks such as kickoffs and fair catch kicks. Substitutions can be made between downs, which allows for a great deal of specialization as coaches choose the players best suited for each particular situation. During a play, each team should have no more than 11 players on the field, and each of them has specific tasks assigned for that specific play.

Rules and gameplay

• Scoring
• Maneuvers
• Strategy
• Play types
• Penalties
• Turnovers
• Downs
• Teams and positions
• Field
• Equipment
• Duration and time stoppages
• Advancing the ball and downs
• Kicking
• Officials and fouls

---

Positions

Offensive (Interior) line

• Center (C)
• Offensive guard (G)
• Offensive tackle (T)

Backs and receivers

• Quarterback (QB)
• Running back (RB)
• Wide receiver (WR)
• Tight end (TE)

---

Defensive line

• Defensive tackle (DT)
• Defensive end (DE)

Linebackers

• Middle linebacker (MLB)
• Outside linebacker (OLB)

Defensive backs

• Cornerback (CB)
• Safety (S)
• Nickelback
• Dimeback

---

Special teams

• Kicker (K)
• Holder (H)
• Long snapper (LS)
• Punter (P)
• Kickoff specialist (KOS)
• Kick returner (KR) and Punt returner (PR)
• Upback
• Gunner
• Jammer

---

RESOURCES
This article uses material from the Wikipedia articles "American football", "American football rules", "Hand-off", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.