Physics Of Football Essay

Every Sunday afternoon in the fall, all across America, televisions, radios, and Internet broadcasts are tuned to the big football games. The sport of football has grown in popularity since the day it was invented, but not all of the views are good. The sport of football is viewed by many as a cruel and primitive sport, however every aspect within the sport of football is based in the field of physics. To begin to understand the complexity that is the game of football one can start by looking at how the punter needs to know the laws of physics to kick far. A punter’s job is to execute a drop kick (holding the football out and dropping it, then kicking the ball in midair) so as to give the other team the worst field position possible. This goal is only achievable with a kick that propels the football very far both horizontally and vertically. The punter is in charge of three things at the time of the kick: the velocity,
He also is stationed three to five yards from the line of scrimmage in order to have room to accelerate. For a tackle to be made, the momentum of a defensive player must be greater than or equal to that of the offensive ball carrier. Momentum is found by multiplying the weight of an athlete by the speed at which he is moving. If the momentums of the two athletes are the same, then both players will come to a stop and in the game of football if the ball stops moving forward, then the carrier has lost. In my own experience, coaches have always told me to tackle low. The reasoning behind this is that a man’s center of gravity is usually located at just above the naval, and hitting below this point causes the runner to rotate, taking his legs off of the ground. If a player is hit above this point the tackler will just roll off, and if a player is hit on this point, he will be forced in to the direction he his hit, but it may not bring him