Sports: American Football / Gridiron

1st & Goal pits two football teams in a classic gridiron match. Players call plays using the cards available in their hands. Yardage gained or lost is determined by a roll of the dice, and strategic play-calling makes all the difference as to which dice you get to roll for each play. The right offensive play might gain you a lot of yardage – unless the defense sets up correctly to stop it. After that, it all comes down to the roll of the dice...

Fumbles, interceptions, sacks, penalties, deep passes, breakaway runs – it's all here. 1st & Goal comes with three Running Dice, three Passing Dice, a Defense Die, a Play Die, a Referee Die, and a Penalty Die. The card decks include 60 Offense cards and 60 Defense cards. Six "division" packs, each with four unique DFL (Dice Football League) expansion teams, are sold separately.

Game consists of simple gameboard that players roll die to move around outside of board and answer sports related questions based on which space they land on. Questions consists of a possible sports scenario and the player must determine the answer based on his/her knowledge of the game rules. Answers are generally in the Yes/No;True/False format.

(from back of box)
"A runner collides with the umpire as he races toward second. He falls and is tagged out. Is he safe?"

Rules of the Game(R) deals with some of the wackier and amusing situations that could actually occur in Baseball, Golf, Football, and Basketball. Challenge your friends to see who is the best armchair referee or the most knowledgeable of the rules of these sports. Who knows, you may even learn some things about these games that you never knew before!

Contents: 1 gameboard, 576 Question and Answer Cards, 24 Safe Cards, 6 pawns, 1 die, 5 divider cards and instructions.

Football Strategy boils the sport down to play calling skill. The game's structure is simple: The defensive player selects one of 10 formation cards (ranging from an 8-man line "goal line stand" to a pass prevent defense with five safeties); the offensive player calls a play (a choice of 20, plus punting). Cross-indexing the choices on a matrix shows what happened. Except for "long gains", the outcome of each play against each defense is always the same. Dice are rolled only to determine the distance of long gains and the results of kickoffs and field goal attempts.

Each play consumes a prescribed number of seconds, from 15 to 45. The players mark off the time and play four quarters, following the standard football rules.

For variety, three types of offense ("pro style", "aerial game" and "ball control") are available, each with a different, though not radically different, results matrix.

Simple though it is, the game is engrossing (see the "More Information" screen), and play generally follows realistic patterns, though the handling of punts and on-side kicks (both more effective than in real life) is questionable. Also, because the design changed little after its debut in 1959, the plays and defenses don't reflect the state of the art in contemporary professional football. This is the era of Otto Graham, not Eli Manning.

For those who are so inclined, Football Strategy lends itself to mathematical analysis. Many years ago, an entrant into the tournament at Origins went to the trouble of using game theory to generate charts showing the optimal mix of plays in different situations. He reached the finals but, in a victory for human intuition over number crunching, lost the championship game by a touchdown and a field goal.