History of American Football Positions - More Position Names

More Position Names

A tendency was seen, from early on, for players to keep their position names even when playing out of that position. For instance, before the minimum number of players on the offensive line was fixed at seven, when players who would otherwise be in the line as guards or tackles played from offensive backfield positions, the formation was known as a "guard(s) back" or "tackle(s) back" formation.

Meanwhile, another position name was introduced. Players were placed in the offensive backfield just outside of their ends, in a position that came to be called "wingback" (WB). Formations with one or two wingbacks came to be called single or double wingback or wing formations.

Over time, the typically fast back who played fullback, on offense and defense, was replaced by a heavier one who presented a greater threat to run with the ball more or less straight ahead, and to tackle his opponent trying to do the same. For this purpose, the player tended to be placed closer to the line than previously—often as far forward as the halfbacks (the offensive backs then forming a letter T, sometimes called a "straight T", later to distinguish it from slight variants wherein other backs did not form a line perpendicular to that from the quarterback) or even farther forward. But the position kept being called "fullback". On defense, this necessitated another position name for the fast back who played farthest back: "safety man" or simply "safety" (S), representing the last defense against a breakaway play, and the position from which to field opposing kicks. Approximately, on defense, the quarterback and fullback exchanged positions from what they'd been playing on offense, and the quarterback became the safety.

Still, when at the beginning of the 20th century, a penalty was introduced for hitting the opposing kicker after a kick, the foul was at first called "running into the fullback", inasmuch as the deepest back usually did the kicking.

Confusion increased when the legalization of the forward pass made it more advisable for teams to defend with fewer on the line of scrimmage and more behind. Although the offense could no longer play "guard back", for instance, the defense had no such limitations. A common defensive formation was the 6-2-3 or 6-2-2-1, shown below arrayed against an offense's straight T:

S HB HB
C FB
____E_ T__ _G ____G_ T _ E____
E T G C G T E
QB HB FB HB

Note that the so-called center and fullback are playing left and right versions of the same position. The positions were later renamed "linebacker". However, that did not become the usual way to name that position until platoon football became common, with players specializing in offense or defense, substituted according to which team has the ball. There seems to have been some tendency for defensive positions to be named for where the player would play on offense, although quarterback and safety formed an early exception.

When linebackers are playing close to or level with the line, a somewhat reliable way to distinguish them from line players is that the defensive line players will be in a three- or four-point stance, meaning that they will be supported by one or both hands, in addition to feet on the ground, while the linebackers will have only feet on the ground. Line players with one or both hands on the ground are called "down linemen"; typically all defensive linemen are so positioned.

Alternate position naming schemes for an offensive formation are illustrated below in a version of single wing formation:

E G C G T T E
QB

HB HB
FB E T C G G T E
QB FB WB
TB

In the top illustration the center is flanked by guards in the 4-2 unbalanced line (four players on one side, the "strong side" of the center, two on the other, "weak", side) as in a balanced line, leaving the tackles together. In the bottom illustration, the guards are kept "inside" by being next to each other. The end positions are fixed by rule, because "end" is a rule book term.

As to the backfield, the top illustration preserves the principle of the names, reflecting distance from the line. However, the bottom illustration needs further explanation, having eliminated the halfbacks and introduced a new position name, "tailback" (TB). Wingback has been described above, but the "WB" in the above illustration is deeper back than that position name would seem to warrant. That is because this is a "wingback deep" version of the single wing, and the position is named wingback because the player is named for his true wingback position as it exists in other versions. In this version the player may stand as deep as any other back, but there has been a reluctance to identify formations in American football as having more than one fullback (or tailback—see below), although two-fullback systems were not uncommon at one time in rugby.

What to make of the replacement of the other halfback from the top illustration by the fullback in the bottom one? Well, if the wingback were playing in a true wingback position but named halfback, then the other "halfback" would be playing deeper and thus deserve the name fullback. Another justification is that the player positioned as the left halfback in the top illustration tends to have the fullback characteristics described above. But rather than call the faster, lighter back behind (and in this formation, to the left of) him a halfback and so contradict the distance-back-determines-the-name principle (and rather than add rugby's three-quarters back), we call that player "tailback"—the tail of the formation, farther back than the fullback. Even when two players positioned to take a thrown snap in a single wing formation are level with each other (i.e. at equal depth), the faster one (usually playing weak side) is often called the tailback and the more massive one the fullback.

Note that the quarterback in this formation is not in position to receive the snap. ASCII art (letter diagrams) cannot show this fine a detail, but a quarterback in position to take a handed snap is allowed by rule to stand farther forward, in a place which would otherwise cause illegal confusion as to whether the player was in the backfield or the line. However, the popularity of thrown-snap formations from about 1920 to about 1950 (and the illegality of the handed snap in Canadian football when snapping by hand rather than foot was first prescribed in that game) induced some teams to place the quarterback a little farther back, receiving the snap via a short toss.

Even ASCII art is subtle enough to show the left end above a little farther from the nearest other line player of the same team than is the right end. Such a slight additional gap is said to be "flexing" that end, but does not produce an additional position name. However, when the gap is considerably greater, that is said to be a "split end" (SE). That produced a position name when on offense a team played with one end split and the other not split—a "tight end" (TE). The split end being specialized for going downfield to catch forward passes, it becomes more useful to differentiate the split from the tight end than between left and right end.

Instead of wingbacks or conventionally-placed halfbacks, an offensive team could have backs positioned wide of the rest of the formation, similarly to a split end, to be pass receivers. Such a back would be called a "flankerback" or "flanker" (FL).

A more straightforward use of the position name, "tailback", is shown below in an offensive short punt formation, whose use, despite its name, is not confined to punting. Without rugby's three-quarter backs, the sequence of quarter-, half-, full-, and tailback makes do. The line shown is balanced with one split end. In such a case, the side with the tight end is sometimes said to be the strong side of the line, and hence of the formation, because the tight end is better placed than the split end to block, especially on running plays. An additional justification for calling that the strong side in the example below is that the backfield has more players on that side, although that will not always be the case, and in this case the positioning of backs does not produce strikingly strong and weak sides, as opposed to the single wing formation shown above.

SE T G C G T TE
QB
HB
FB
TB

If the deepest back were a specialist in punting, one might substitute "P" for "punter" for the "TB" above.