What are the biggest differences between rugby and American football?

If you sit down to watch both a rugby game and a game of American football, the most obvious difference between the two is the players equipment. Rugby players wear a kit not dissimilar to a soccer player, with a shirt, shorts and socks and occasionally a scrum cap, which looks a bit like a shower cap but with a bit of padding on it.

American football is far more complicated. The players look dressed for war in helmets with face cages, shoulder pads, knee pads, gloves, elbow pads and cleats (boots) that look like basketball sneakers.

The equipment in American football is often mocked, with those who do not watch or understand the sport dismissing it as the “soft” version of rugby for people afraid of getting hurt. The truth is very different, as those who have played both sports can attest to. The equipment that American football players wear, most importantly the helmet, is very necessary to prevent injuries that are far less likely to occur in a game of rugby.

In rugby, the team without the ball lines up in a line and faces its opponents square on, holding their ground and waiting for a player with the ball to run at them. When they do, the player that runs at him will most likely have been running for a few yards at most, and both players will see it coming and brace for it. Like this:

A standard defensive line in a game of Rugby. The slow moving nature of the defensive line restricts the velocity of the majority of hits that take place during a game(credit: conversationalrugby.wordpress.com)

In American football, tackles like that are not the most common occurrence. Defenders do not hold their ground and wait for the ball carrier to run at them. Instead, they run at the defenders. So while collisions in rugby often involve one player at a stand-still engaging with a player running at him at a decent speed, collisions in American football often involve two players running as fast as they can. You end up with hits that look like this:

(credit: cbscaption.com)

However, that is not the end of the reasoning for a helmet and protective padding. You see the most dangerous thing about American football is that contact with a non-ball carrier is allowed. Essentially, while outside a scrum the only contact in rugby that is allowed is with the ball carrier, in American football everybody can and does hit everybody else.

This means that players can get hit from the side when they didn’t even know it was coming, and couldn’t do a thing to protect themselves from it. The player in white in the picture below (the Dallas Cowboys’ Jason Witten) gets hit extremely hard by the player in blue (Seattle Seahawks’ Golden Tate), and he didn’t have a clue it was going to happen. Collisions like this occur all the time in American football, hence the need for safety precautions like protective gear.

The Cowboys Jason Witten is de-cleated by Seattle wide receiver Golden Tate (credit: forums.chargers.com)

To see a useful video showing the differences between American football and rugby hits, right click and open a new tab here. The NFL hits begin at 1:00 min and the rugby hits begin at 5:50 mins.

Beyond the obvious differences in padding, by all accounts the games are similar. They are both violent sports that use physically gifted individuals with the goal of running with pace and power towards a scoring zone at the end of the field, with equally physically gifted players on the other team using brutal tackles and collisions to prevent them from doing that.

When the team finds themselves in a bad situation on the field, they can kick the ball, either back to the other team as far down the field as possible, or through the opposing team’s goal posts to score points for your own team. There are differences in the details (to score a try in rugby you have to touch the ground with the ball while in American football you simply need to have possession of the ball in the end-zone) and the terminology is different (touchdown and try, field goal and drop goal), but the premise of the game and the way points are scored is very similar.

The main difference between the two is co-ordination. Whilst rugby is a free flowing game that allows the players the creative freedom to find their own way past the defence, American football is a slower, more co-ordinated effort.

In rugby the same 15 men will remain on the field no matter what the circumstances, the game continuing without interruption as possession passes between the two teams. In American football, there are a number of completely separate units that come onto the field for specific stages of the game. When a team has possession of the ball, the offence will take the field.

This unit consists of an offensive line to block, a quarterback to throw, a running back to run with the ball, and wide receivers to catch the ball. If the offence loses the ball or kicks it away to the other team, a new stage of the game starts and the offensive players will be replaced on the field by the defensive unit, which consists of 11 different men who are trained solely for defending.

From a skill standpoint the only players on the offensive side of the ball that is similar to a rugby player is the running back and wide receivers, players who have good hand eye co-ordination and are trained to beat defenders with the ball in their hands.

Every single player on the field in a game of rugby can and does touch the ball. Therefore, they have to be comfortable catching the ball from a teammate, securing it and running with it. They require well rounded and broad skills to do what they do. In American football, most players do not have to be well rounded players who can catch, tackle and run with the ball to some degree. Most players have very specific jobs that require them to do just one thing with excellence, and everything else is almost irrelevant.

For example, a quarterback’s job is to throw the ball. He doesn’t need to be good at anything else. He doesn’t need to be able to run, to tackle, or even to be a particularly good athlete. Because of the scripted nature of the sport, the quarterback will never be put into a situation where he will have to catch the ball or even to run with the ball if he is not a gifted runner. Simply put, there is more control to the way the team tries to score points, and because of that the players are more specialised.

A quarterback, as shown here, is required to stand behind his offensive linemen in the “pocket”, and deliver the football down the field to his wide receivers (credit: bleacherreport.com)

The same is true of defenders. In American football there are 300 lb men whose job is to take up space and prevent running backs from getting past them. In rugby, somebody of that weight and lack of speed would not be a useful addition because the players require stamina to cover the entire length of the field and enough speed to deal one on one with opposing ball carriers. However, in American football these players never have to move more than a few yards in any direction, meaning they can afford to jeopardise speed and stamina in order to have brute strength and the weight to anchor against blockers.

As far as the rules of the game go, the single greatest difference between rugby and American football is the forward pass. While in rugby, passing is only allowed if it is backwards, American football allows a pass to be thrown forward down the field. Invented in 1905, the forward pass would eventually revolutionise the game from something very akin to rugby to something quite different.

Before the forward pass, American football used to be a series of organised scrums, essentially a game of rugby but in a more co-ordinated and less exciting structure. The forward pass, which has now taken over running as the key ingredient to the game, has transformed football into a sport that is separated from any other popular sport in the world.

There of course are other differences. A rugby ball is bigger and heavier than an American football. An American football team has to go at least 10 yards every 4 plays otherwise it will surrender the ball to the other team. This is somewhat similar to the 6 tackles rule in rugby league but with specific distance requirements. If you run out of bounds in rugby the ball goes to the other team for a throw in like it would in soccer, whereas in American football the team with the ball would retain possession.

I could go on. After all, these are two unique sports with their own regulations and rulebooks the size of a decent novel. They carry a similar premise of scoring by reaching a zone at the other end of the field, and they require physically imposing men to get the job done. But these are two very different sports, both with their own pros and cons, and both immensely fun to watch.

If you do not know either of these sports, I would implore you to put a game on from time to time. Once you understand the basic rules, you will begin to see beyond the chaotic pile of bodies and series of collisions that you are seeing now. You will begin to appreciate the subtleties of both sports, and you will see the skill with which the players practice their craft. Once you see that, I promise that you will be hooked on at least one of the sports forever. I know I was.

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