NFL more exciting when paying attention between plays

In the NFL, mind games are happening between every play. This explains why you should pay attention to the moments before the snap.

You’ve probably heard the saying before.

“Football is like a giant, violent game of chess.”

It isn’t wrong, but it doesn’t really cover it all either.  It’s actually much, much cooler than that.

It glorifies strategy, as it should, but there’s no credit given to what happens in between the plays.

I’m nitpicking at a simple phrase, I know, but casual fans tend to be unappreciative of everything that happens before the play is actually executed.

Before the play, you get the essence of poker within the game of football. To fans paying the most attention, this is where the magic happens.

Before the quarterback snaps the ball, we get to witness about 10 seconds of each side trying to call the other’s bluff.

Is the quarterback actually calling audibles, or is he just shouting nonsense? Is the defense actually blitzing, or is it a disguise?

These types of questions are going through the heads of every die-hard fan on every play, while a more casual fan is just “waiting for the play to start.”

Last season, when the Kansas City Chiefs were playing the Denver Broncos on Monday Night Football, they did something phenomenal.  It was unlike anything I had seen before.

For the first month of the season, the Chiefs ran the jet sweep two or three times per game.  In this particular contest, knowing the speed within the Chiefs offense, they sent jet sweep motions across the offense four times.

In the video above (broken down by former NFL player Brian Baldinger), you can see the confusion it causes with the defense.

Do you know what the best part about this is? They didn’t run a jet sweep.  As each player comes across in motion, the defense is scrambling to prevent a big run on a sweep. Instead, the Chiefs toyed with them and didn’t run the ball.

That’s the poker aspect of football.  That’s what really draws in the truest fans of the game.  To have the defense so worried about one play by mimicking the play four times, and not even run that play is the perfect representation of what happens between plays that doesn’t get enough credit.

Next: Best NFL player from each state

These examples are the mind games that make the highlights.  All of those viral videos were set up by the poker that was played before the play ever started.

So why would I care about how there is only “11 minutes of action in a football game,” because I’m paying attention to all 60.  Sports are so much more fun to watch when you learn to read between the plays.