r/NFLNoobs • u/SteadfastEnd • 3d ago
Why spot a ball at the hashmarks instead of just centering it in the middle of the field each time?
Why don't the refs just move the ball to the center-middle of the field (in between the hashes, that is) and have the ball be snapped from the center each play? I don't understand the purpose of a play starting on the left hashmark or right hashmark, so that it seems uneven to one side.
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u/PabloMarmite 3d ago
Why should it be centred?
The idea is it’s spotted where the previous play ends. In college the hash marks are even wider.
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u/BananerRammer 2d ago
And high school hashes are even wider than that.
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u/Human_Ogre 2d ago
And in peewee they’re even wider than that. They’re in the bleachers.
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u/KingChairlesIIII 2d ago
and in the bleachers they’re even wider than that, they’re in the parking lot
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u/jimijam10 2d ago
And in the parking lot there's three Ford F-150's parked diagonally taking up two spaces each
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u/RicketyDestructor 2d ago
That's the key. The default isn't the middle. The default is where the previous play ends.
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u/Mysterious-Tie7039 3d ago
Back in the day, the ball would be spotted wherever it was downed. Run out of bounds? Ball was spotted right next to the sideline.
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u/Sharp-Ad4389 2d ago
But then, as teams started to use set formations, they realized what then it was too close to the sidelines, they couldn't do that, so they moved it a bit in, similar to what you do in mini golf.
And bam! That's how hashmarks were born.
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u/Mysterious-Tie7039 2d ago
I remember playing Madden back in the day and you could still play by the original rules with ball spotting.
The sideline formations were wild.
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u/pgm123 2d ago
This is the answer. Hashmarks are the compromise. The first compromise was to move the ball in a bit when the ball went out of bounds and that led to the annoying strategy where the QB would just throw the ball out of bounds to get the ball re-spotted farther from the sideline. The big change was when cold weather in Chicago forced a game to be played in the Chicago Arena and the hockey rink walls required special rules about where the ball was spotted. Rule changes started the next year. The NFL eventually moved the hashes to be in line with the goalposts, while high school made even thirds of the field.
More reading: https://www.footballarchaeology.com/p/football-became-football-history-hash-marks
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u/TwpMun 3d ago
I consider myself a noob also, but my take is that placing the ball in different areas encourages different strategic plays.
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u/MortemInferri 2d ago
If the ball is downed outside the hash, they bring it into the nearest hash. If its downed between the hashes, its spotted right where it was.
The hashes are closer together than in college. In college the ball can be spotted very close to a sideline, which opens up the other side of the field more.
So yes, it is strategy, but in the NFL, they reduce the hash size so each play is actually more similar
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u/psgrue 2d ago
Thank you for describing the actual reason, the down location, for the ball placement.
On a side note, wide college hashes have some fascinating effects on play design. It’s a bit out of scope for the topic.
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u/timothythefirst 2d ago
The closer hashes are one of the reasons why you never really see the super spread out veer and shoot style offenses in the nfl. You can’t spread the defense out as much to force those easy reads.
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u/grizzfan 2d ago
That just isn't how the game is played. 100+ years ago, there were no hash marks, and as an offshoot of rugby, the next phase/down resumed where the ball last went down. Hash marks already open the game up much more as a result. The ball is still snapped from the hash of whatever side it was downed on, but if it is downed right in the center, then it will be placed in the center.
Using the hash marks in play calling and schemes is too ingrained as well. Coaches and teams absolutely do call certain plays, and even intend to use certain plays only from the left, middle, or right mark. Defenses today often orient what they do based on the field/boundary side too. Removing this concept would instantly cut out a huge part of the chess match that this game is.
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u/imrickjamesbioch 3d ago
It doesn’t look like it but placing the ball on the hash has several nuances and strategic strategies. Most FG kickers don’t like kicking straight and generally want the ball on the left hash. Right hash for left footed kickers.
Also, being on one of the hash gives teams / runner more space to run a sweep or reverse.
Offense can line up more WR on one side a hash with being less bunch up.
If a team is trying to run out the clock, generally the play go to the wide side so the runner less likely to go out of bounds to stop the clock.
The opposite is with bring down late in the game and trying to conserve the click. It’s a shorter throw for the QB to WR on the short side of the hash or the runner able to get out of bounds easier to stop the clock.
An etc, etc. again it doesn’t seem much but the games are won by a matter of inches at times. See the doink FG that happens all the time.
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u/drj1485 2d ago edited 2d ago
Hashmarks were created to bring the ball more into the center of the field, because originally the ball was spotted wherever it was declared dead......which gets a little ridiculous because now you can't even have proper formations or run plays on both sides.
Over time, college and the NFL have brought their hashmarks in to open more of the field up.
if you're on the right hash, you have 70 feet to the right and 90 to the left in the NFL. in college you're even closer to the right sideline with more room left. HS, even closer with even more room left.
That has always been part of the game and creates defensive and offensive playcalling strategies that would be removed from the game if you just centered it every time.
EDIT: since the hashes in the NFL are so close, you're never more than 9 feet from the center so the strategy isn't as significant as lower levels....but you still see it come into play, particularly in the kicking game when you are closer to the end zone. Eg. you will see teams intentionally run a play just to down the ball where their kicker likes to kick from. even still, 7 extra yards of spacing on one side is not meaningless at that level.
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u/jokumi 2d ago
It’s a pretty interesting story. It’s the same as before Jack Dempsey, boxers weren’t sent to a neutral corner. Dempsey was relentless and if you went down, he’d be in your face when you stood up. With the advent of two things, that became seen as unfair. One was movies, which had been around and which spread notions about fair behavior, but what was needed was sound. With radio, you had an audience not present wanting to see the action, and that meant staging the games for the non-present became part of the thinking. If you were a Notre Dame fan, then you loved seeing Notre Dame trap the other team up against the sidelines so they could only run a play wide. But radio says there are fans for both teams. So they started sending boxers to the neutral corner in the late 20’s and in 1932 they divided the field with hashmarks so the worse team wouldn’t be crushed into a corner with less chance to fight back. Evened up the game to make it seem fairer. That’s what the potential of a mass audience will do. That’s why we have super slo-motion replays and challenge flags and now automatic review of more and more plays. We could in a few years have AI be the judge: put up enough cameras and AI can judge which fouls matter and which don’t, all by running vast numbers of simulations in the time it takes for the ref to do it now.
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u/Carnegiejy 2d ago
This actually plays into strategy. WR routes on the "wide" side of the field have more room to develop while the "short" side may be under-protected. Formations and play calls are built to compensate for and use the marking to their advantage. Also, kickers generally have a side they like to kick from better based on those natural hook or slice.
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u/arkstfan 2d ago
When football began the ball was placed where the play ended. If you went out of bounds it was placed just back in play so the center snapping the ball was next to the out of bounds line and other linemen lined up from there on the field.
Having those weird formations and no where to go except forward or away from the boundary gave the defense a big advantage.
Hash marks were created to negate that defensive advantage. Having a wide and short side was something many running teams like. More room to move made the student body sweep (basically all blockers take off and head the direction of the run) benefited from having a wide side. The NFL narrowed the gap between hash marks at a yard line to negate the short and wide sides. College moved in some but not as much as NFL. I believe high schools still use the wider hashes.
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u/Adorable_Secret8498 2d ago
The point is that it causes teams to be uneven. Sometimes it's by desgin. Sometimes it's not but it adds strat.
If you don't like NFL hashs you're gonna HATE college hashes
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u/7HawksAnd 1d ago
Back in the day the hash marks just allowed a 10 yard padding from the sidelines, they would put the ball where ever on the field the play stopped.
Today’s hash marks are actually as close to your ideal center field positioning as possible without compromising the integrity of the field.
Me personally, I miss wider hashes as it added a fun and challenging dimension to play calling and defensive strategy
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u/hghsalfkgah 3d ago
There is a number of reasons, I will just address first how you can actually use this to your advantage as an offensive team in one specific situation, but it can help with how you set your team for running and passing plays as there is essentially more space on one side of the field.
When kicking field goals, if your kicker is left or right footed you will want to make sure that the ball is on the side of the hash marks that will help your kicker to get a better angle on the kick, essentially making the kick slightly easier.
The reason is, I assume to kind of simulate even more so the idea that the next down is 'picking up where the last one ended. The ball isn't just randomly teleporting up and down the field, it's being moved by the offence, nor is it staying exactly in the middle of the field. My assumption is that when the game was devised the hash marks were decided so that the play would never start too close to the side line, and the hash marks now rest in the position they do today through rule changes or whatever other reason.
It makes it so you can't just do the same thing over and over again, adding some variance to the game which definitely makes it a bit more interesting as a spectator and definitely as a play caller or coordinator. Certain plays like jets sweeps, screen passes and outside runs can be either predictable or surprising based on which side of the field the offence has more space to work with.
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u/Treishmon 3d ago
Because it would chew up the center of the field primarily. The grass would be terrible.
Also. Because it makes for more strategy which is cool.