NFL Video Rulebook
The NFL Video Rulebook explains NFL rules with video examples.
It's our responsibility to strengthen the sport.
Ensuring a consistent and fair game that is decided on the field, by the players.
Ensuring that players conduct themselves in a way that honors the sport and respects the game.
Knees Bent. Pads Down. Head Up and Out.
The NFL is proud of the HBCU professional football legacy.
Honoring the league’s commitment to serve the communities where the game is played.
Meet the people behind NFL Operations.
Learn about the people, the jobs and the technology that deliver the best game possible to NFL fans across the U.S. and around the world.
Countdown to kickoff: how NFL games happen.
In the NFL, balancing technology with tradition.
How television has changed the game.
Upon further review…
It takes hundreds of computers and five NFL executives to create the NFL’s 256-game masterpiece.
The annual analytics contest explores statistical innovations in football — how the game is played and coached.
Promoting the values of football.
Learn how NFL players have changed over time, how they’re developed and drafted and how the league works with them after their playing days are over.
Creating an NFL player: from “everyman” to “superman.”
Supporting the next generation of players and fans.
Preparing players of all ages for success at football’s highest level.
Introducing the next wave of NFL superstars.
A look at the programs and services NFL Player Engagement provides to assist every player before, during and after his football career.
Strengthening football and the community.
Strengthening the NFL brotherhood.
Discover the evolution of professional officiating, the weekly evaluation process and how the NFL identifies and develops the next generation of officials.
“One thing hasn’t changed: the pressure. It will always be there.”
The latest information from the NFL's officiating center.
Every week, officials take the field ready to put months of preparation, training and hard work on display, knowing that the whole world — and the Officiating Department — is watching.
Officiating an NFL game takes years of training and experience.
NFL Football Operations protects the integrity of the game by ensuring that the rules and the officiating are consistent and fair to all competitors.
The custodians of football not only have protected its integrity, but have also revised its playing rules to protect the players, and to make the games fairer and more entertaining.
The NFL Video Rulebook explains NFL rules with video examples.
Explore the official rules of the game. 6.2.5
The NFL's procedures for breaking ties for postseason playoffs.
The NFL's familiar hand signals help fans better understand the game.
A quick reference guide to the NFL rulebook.
Sharpen your NFL football knowledge with this glossary of the game's fundamental terms.
See where the players line up in pro football's most common offensive and defensive formations.
Understand what the graphics on NFL television broadcasts mean and how they can help you get the most out of watching NFL games.
The NFL’s instant replay review process focuses on expediting instant replay reviews and ensuring consistency. Learn how it works.
Go inside the game with the NFL's official game stats. Sort the stats by season or by week.
Welcome to the Extra Point, where members of the NFL's football data and analytics team will share updates on league-wide trends in football data, interesting visualizations that showcase innovative ways to use the league's data, and provide an inside look at how the NFL uses data-driven insight to improve and monitor player and team performance.
Chart and compare the NFL Football Operations stats you're looking for with the NFL's data tool.
Get a snapshot of the current NFL game stats, updated weekly during the regular season.
The NFL Video Rulebook explains NFL rules with video examples.
A free kick is a kickoff or safety kick that puts the ball in play to start a free kick down. It must be made from any point on the kicking (offensive) team’s restraining line and between the inbounds lines.
Penalty: For illegal kick on a free kick down: Loss of five yards.
The restraining lines for a free kick shall be as follows, unless they are adjusted because of a distance penalty:
When the ball is kicked on a free kick down:
Penalty: For a player being beyond the restraining line when the ball is kicked (offside), a player being out of bounds when the ball is kicked, a kicking team player other than the kicker being more than one yard behind his restraining line, or either team being in an illegal formation when the ball is kicked: Loss of five yards.
Penalty: For voluntarily going out of bounds without contact: Loss of 5 yards.
Notes
1) A player is deemed to have not touched the ball if it is batted or illegally kicked into him by an opponent. Such touching is ignored, though the bat or kick could be a foul for an Illegal Bat or Illegal Kick.
2) For illegal catch or recovery, see 6-2-4.
It is a touchback, if a free kick:
(a) is not touched by the receiving team, and the ball touches the ground in the end zone.
(b) goes out of bounds behind the receiving team’s goal line;
(c) strikes the receiving team’s goal post, uprights, or cross bar; or
(d) is downed in the end zone by the receiving team.
A free kick ends when either team possesses the ball, or when the ball is dead, if that precedes possession. A running play begins when the receiving team establishes possession of the ball.
If the ball has not been touched by either team after the kick and rolls dead in the field of play before reaching the receiving team’s restraining line, the ball belongs to the receiving team at the dead-ball spot.
Item 1. Kicking Team.
During the kick, the kicking team is subject to the blocking restrictions of the defense.
For the exception prohibiting a block in the back by the kicking team while the ball is in flight, see 12-1-3-b-Note.
Item 2. Receiving Team.
(a) After the ball is kicked, receiving team players are subject to the blocking restrictions of the offense (see 12-1-1–3), and they may use their hands/arms legally to push or pull an opponent out of the way in a personal attempt to recover the ball.
(b) Until the ball is legally touched or the ball hits the ground, no player on the receiving team may initiate a block against the kicking team in the 15-yard area between the kicking team’s (Team A) restraining line and five yards behind the receiving team’s (Team B) restraining line.(c) After the ball is kicked, a double-team block is permissible only by players who were initially lined up in the setup zone. A double-team block is defined as two players from the setup zone coming together in an attempt to block for the runner.
Note: A “wedge block” is not permitted at any time. A wedge block is defined as two or more players intentionally aligning shoulder-to-shoulder within two yards of each other, and who move forward together in an attempt to block for the runner.(d) After the ball is kicked, no player who was initially lined up outside the setup zone is permitted to come together with any other player (double-team) in an attempt to block for the runner.
Penalty: For illegal blocking or use of hands by either team: Loss of 10 yards.
For an illegal wedge or an illegal double-team block during the kick or during the return: Loss of 15 yards from the spot of the foul. If the foul occurs in Team B’s end zone during the kick, it is enforced from the previous spot. See 12-2-5 for penalty for a low block. See 12-2-5 for penalty for a low block.