For football players, the objective is to score a touchdown. For many high schoolers, the objective is to find love. However, the rules for both are equally confusing. Dating will become easy after reading this guide because once you can impress your crush with your killer football knowledge, you won’t need to impress them with your killer rizz.
Pick-six = Best friend taking your crush
A pick-six is when an offensive pass is caught by a member of the opposite team and turned around to score a touchdown. Picture this: you are interested in someone, and things are going in the right direction. You plan on asking them out on a date, but before you can even plan your confession, your best friend asks them first. They end up dating for years—touchdown.
Red Zone = The aggressive FaceTiming stage
The red zone is the name for the area right before the finish line—endzone—of dating: the FaceTiming stage. This is characterized not just by any FaceTimes, but the ones you fall asleep on. You can tell they’re into you because you talk to each other for hours on end, but will this develop into something more, or will you be stuck in the red zone forever?
Fumble = Accidentally rejecting them
When what seems like an easy catch quickly slips out of a player’s hands, it’s called a fumble. In relationships, confessions of emotions are not always sincere, so a fumble could be represented by misinterpreting a Homecoming proposal as a cruel joke; when the one doing the asking is in fact being serious, but the one being asked is too afraid of rejection to say yes. Instead of taking the opportunity presented to you, you turn it down and don’t have a chance to try to make it all the way.
Point-after attempt = Going in for a kiss after a hug
The point-after attempt begins with scoring a touchdown. It allows the team another opportunity for a point after they have secured the touchdown’s six. They can run it into the end zone again or choose to kick a field goal. Imagine that you have successfully secured yourself a hug, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. You’re on a high from the physical contact, so you do the unthinkable: go in for the kiss. This attempt could fail and cancel the possibility of extra kisses or points, but either way, the hug still survives.
Blitz = Crush’s friends pestering
A blitz forces the player throwing the ball—the quarterback—to throw without proper time to prepare by overwhelming them with a mob of opposing players. This is akin to the annoying attention from your crush’s friends. Their incessant pestering is meant to provoke action out of you, like asking your crush out.
Down = Agreeing to a date
As you’re headed toward the end zone, downs are the stopping points. 10 yards apart, they are markers that a team has to reach within four tries per down. A down is the equivalent of planning a date with the person you like when neither of you knows where it will go from there.
Audible = Planning with a wingman
An audible is when a team announces the play they’re going to do. In relationship terms, this is when your friend calls you over to whisper in your ear, “The person you like likes you back, I’ll call them over so you can talk to them.”
Handoff = Being set up
A handoff is a sneaky pass between players. This is comparable to a friend sending you the Snapchat of someone you think is cute so it can say “added by mention” instead of “added by search.”
Incomplete pass = Undelivered message
This one’s pretty self-explanatory: an incomplete pass is when the ball wasn’t successfully caught. This is the same as telling a friend to tell your crush you like them but the friend never tells your crush.
Interception = New guy to the rescue
Providing a shoulder to cry on can be a surefire way to gain someone’s trust—and maybe their heart—but only if you get there fast enough. An interception occurs when you are on your way to completing a pass, but an opposing player steals the ball, just like another person running to rescue your crying crush before you.
