American Football in Brazil
 

I had the privilege to observe a scrimmage yesterday in Rio which was used as a training session for officials. It was a great experience and I met several great guys, especially one of the forum's newest members. He is starting from scratch down here and tryinjg to teach the rules of a foreign game to officials and players. I suspect he will be on here from time to time seeking advice and I know everyone will be helpful to him. There is tremendous experience here and on other forums.

They do use modified NFL rules (because that is all they see on TV so it helps limit the confusion). The kicker is that in Rio, they play it on the beach. 11 on a side, 7-man crew. Working on the sand is very very tough but he has a bunch of young guys that do very well on it.

Thanks for showing up and helping out, mike. It was great to have you around.
And it's all like you said, we do play NFL modified coz NFL is all we get on TV down here, and we do play at the beach without pads or helmets.
And yes, I'll be here bugging for help. This forum has been really helpull already and I'm sure it will be even more down the road.
Thanks a lot

Maybe the TV age is too late for such developments, but I was hoping you'd write your own rules based on your general understanding of the game which might over years diverge into a uniquely Brazilian flavor of American football, and possibly, given long enough (generations), an entirely new kind of football. After all, as long as you don't play with foreign touring sides or use imported officials, your rules don't have to match anyone else's in any particulars.

If you want an American football rule book that reads very easy (at least in English) and is fairly simple to remember & administer, see if you can obtain one of the National Federation of State High School Association's from the late 1970s or circa 1980. (If you want one that's just as short or shorter, but largely because it leaves much to interpretation, get one from the Canadian Football League from that same era.)

All of the US American codes derive from that of the NCAA. The Federation simplified theirs starting in the 1940s, but after 1980 began complicating it again. The NFL just kept complicating theirs, although I understand they've been doing some comprehensive rewriting lately to rationalize it.

You might want to make certain changes just for convenience's sake. Other than these beach "fields", you might want to use rugby pitches with their existing goals. Then you have a decision to make, providing the rugby field is at its maximum allowable dimensions:

1. Make its goal lines your goal lines, and have your goals on your goal lines.
2. Make its goal lines your end lines, and have the distance between your goal lines equal 110 yards minus the depth of 2 end zones, or 90 yards if you want to have 10 yards deep end zones.
3. Use USA lengths for field of play and end zones, and have goals stuck in the center of each end zone.

Any of the above saves you having to erect goals on fields you'll occupy only temporarily, provided the rugby field has permanent goals.

BTW, the British American Football Assoc. chose to base their rules closely on those of NCAA. I don't know whether they stay with NCAA's changes or started those of a particular year and gone their own way from there.

Robert

Thanks for the input, Robert.
Like you said, it might be a little late to make a whole new set of rules since we've been watching the NFL on TV and playing by their rules for 5 years now. Also, I started from NFL rules coz I just didn't have access to any other set. Now that I've seen how much easier High School and even NCAA rules are I might start pushing for some changes in our League. Maybe I'll get the teams to agree on this simplification. That would help a lot minimizing the mais problem we have down here that is, liek I told Mike, the fact that the game officials are other teams players. So a mistake is never a simple mistake due to lack of knowledge. Maybe they'll be on board with simplyfing things for their own good.

Before we started the season this year I tried to make a few changes (like the two feet inbounds for a catch rule) to make things easier but the teams deny'em. Sometimes it's really hard to change things down here because every team has an equal say on things. But I'll keep trying, that's for sure.

Do you conform to NFL's changes annually, or do you work off their rules from 5 years ago?

We worked the rule book from 5 years ago making changes that was needed for what we play. But this year I'm going through ours and NFL's book again looking for some improvement