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Football Games to Play Outside

American football is one of the most popular sports in the United States, but playing a real football game requires equipment such as helmets and pads as well as a field with crossbars and yard markers. Full contact football, therefore, is not well-suited to be a recreational pastime, but there are several variations of football that can be played with groups of all ages.

Touch Football
- Touch football is where defending players can touch the player with the ball instead of tackling them to mark the ball as "down" and stop a play. Touch football eliminates much of the hard contact in the game of football, and is a way to play the game without the need for pads and helmets. The exact rules of touch football can vary based on the needs and desires of the group. If you do not have a full field on which to play, you can set the boundaries and the end zones, while setting an arbitrary amount of yardage as "first down" markers, then play the rest of the game as you would a standard football game. Players can also choose how many hand touches are required before a player is considered down. For instance, in one-hand touch, any touch will mean a player with the ball is down. In two-hand touch, a player must be touched with both hands of an opponent or touched twice before he is down.
Flag Football
- Flag football is another variation of the game that does not require that players to tackled for them to be considered "down." In flag football, players wear a flag belt, which includes a hang ribbon or flag. The belt is fastened in such a way that it will come off if the flag is pulled; when a flag is removed, the player wearing the flag is down. Colored handkerchiefs tucked into the back of pants can be used in place of flag belts. Flag football is often played in informal but organized settings, such as in intramural sports.
Five Hundred
- Five hundred is a ballgame that can be played with a football or any other type of ball. To play five hundred, one person is selected as a thrower and the rest of the players stand out in the field within throwing distance. The thrower calls out a number between 1 and 500 (usually a round number such as 100, 200, 300, etc.), then throws the ball into the air. The players in the field all attempt to catch the ball. Any player that catches the ball receives the amount of points that was called before the throw. When a player in the field reaches 500 points, he becomes the thrower and the game continues.

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