Physics of Football

A game enjoyed by millions of people each year isn’t just about scoring points and big hits; there is a strong scientific presence behind all of it. Physics plays a major role in the game of football because of the constant collisions between to players on every play of the game. Different parts of the game can be broken down into areas such as kinematics, projectile motion, Newton’s Laws, and torque.
Every time you see a tackle on the field you are witnessing Newton’s three laws of motion in action. Newton’s first law states that an object in motion stays in motion in a straight line at a constant velocity unless an unbalanced force acts upon it. In football we can see unbalanced forces whenever one player exerts a force on another and causes him to change his direction or speed. For example the object in this case would be the person who has the ball on offense, and the unbalanced force would be the defender who is coming from a different direction with a different velocity than the ball carrier. When a player receives a hit from an opposing player the player who gets hit has a natural resistance called inertia. Inertia is the resistance of any object to a change in motion. The mass of the player determines how much inertia a player has. More mass means more inertia. A player with more inertia is a lot harder to move of off his path than a player with less inertia. Newton’s second law states that if you have an object that has a mass and is accelerating it is equal to the force applied to it or, F=ma. This can be explained when the quarterback throws the ball or when the kicker kicks the ball. For the football itself to be accelerated a force must be applied. For example when a kicker goes and kicks a ball the kicking...

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...celeration. The position can be defined by where the player is at on the field. The velocity is the speed and direction where the player is running, and acceleration is how fast a player is accelerating. In football speed is key for offensive players to out run a slower defender. It is also important that a ball carrier can suddenly change direction and accelerate quickly to maintain his speed. An offensive players goal is to reach his top velocity as quickly as possible. With out kinematics football would be a dull boring sport.
The next time you are watching a football game think about the different concepts of physics at work such as Newton’s laws of motion, kinematics, center of mass, projectile motion, and torque. This sport it built on these different concepts because there is always a collision on every play, which makes it an enjoyable game to watch.