There's a reason football is basically played exclusively in this country - if you think about the rules too much, it makes no sense. Basketball is simple: Get the ball through the hoop using your hands. Soccer is a bit more complex: Put the ball in the net using only your feet. Football however, involves yards and downs and goalposts and incompletions, making it hard to enjoy unless you understand both the game's official rules, created by the National Football League and the unofficial rules created by jersey-wearing, body-painted fans across the country. So here are just a few of the rules, both official and unofficial, to the game my 80-something Indian grandmother calls, loosely translated, "the falling game."

• The scoring has to be complicated

Instead of just giving teams one point for a touchdown, the NFL awards six points for a touchdown, with the chance of getting an extra point if the ball is kicked into the goalpost's range or an extra two points if it is thrown or run into the end zone.

• Men may live in a fantasy world from September until February.

I know many women who are hard-core football fans, but I don't know a single woman who is into Fantasy Football. Just in case Saturday, Sunday and Monday games for six straight months isn't enough, many men join one or more Fantasy Football leagues, where a group of friends, co-workers or acquaintances can choose NFL players to "draft" and then attain points when that player does well in real live games. The Fantasy-riddled men then proceed to discuss who is doing well and who is not for hours on end. And they say women live in a fantasy world!

• You must use the correct pronoun.

When your team of choice is winning, you refer to them as "we." For example "We won the game by 40 points." When your team is having a less-than-lackluster season, you refer to them as "they" as in "They really blew that game." This pronoun use has been clear in this area this season, as more and more people are referring to the lagging Seattle Seahawks this year as "they" instead of the "we" of 2005, when the team went to the Super Bowl.

• You have to raise your voice a few octaves above normal to scream at a piece of electronic equipment anytime anything good or bad happens.

One of my female friends knows absolutely nothing about football, but at a Super Bowl viewing party she managed to fit right in by screaming at the television every time everyone else did - and no one found out. "Butterfingers!" she'd yell every time the ball was dropped - by either team - and for all anyone knew, she was, and you can be too, a expert on the pigskin.



Avani Nadkarni is the arts and entertainment reporter for the Sequim Gazette.