5 weird NFL rules you might not know about
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Football is a complicated sport. If you don’t know the rules, it’s incredibly hard to understand the game and follow it. But there are some rules that even the more seasoned sports watcher might not know existed in the NFL. Did you know about these weird NFL rules?
1. Illegal leverage
During a field goal attempt, or any other time that a team is going for extra point conversions, a player is not allowed to pull or push another member of their team. The point of this rule is that you’re not allowed to give a teammate extra momentum or height when trying to block field goals or other extra point conversions.
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2. Player out of bounds on punt
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without coming into contact with a member of the opposite team) before the other team catches or gains possession of the ball, that player is penalized. It’s a 15-yard penalty for the team that was kicking.
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3. Automatic coin toss loss
Every football game starts with a coin toss. The team that wins the toss gets to decide between three different options. The options are picking which goal to defend, which team receives the kick-off, or deferring their choice until the second half kick-off. A team can automatically lose the coin toss if they are more than three minutes late to it, if they bring more than six players to it, or if a member of the team isn’t dressed properly. Not only do they automatically lose the coin toss for both halves of the game, they also receive a 15-yard penalty.
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4. The one-point safety
A one-point safety has not happened since 1940. It occurs when a defensive player knocks the ball loose, and it rolls back into the end zone with neither team regaining possession of it. When this happens the offense is awarded one point. It’s the only way to score one point in