Similarities and Differences Between American Football and Rugby

Rugby on the ground
Photo by Toomas Tartes on Unsplash

Sheboygan, Wisconsin resident Brian Brecheisen has worked extensively as a project engineer, dating back to his time as a field service engineer with Balemaster. Most recently, he served as an operations project manager at Charter Steel in Saukville. Outside of work, Brian Brecheisen leads an active lifestyle. He has played several competitive sports over his lifetime, including football and rugby.

Depending on your perspective, the sports of American football and rugby may closely resemble one another or appear nothing at all alike. The fact is, the two sports have several different rules while also maintaining several similarities. To begin, football and rugby are both contact team sports in which teams are allotted a set number of downs or tackles to advance a ball downfield into a scoring zone. The fields of players are very similar as well, with football fields measuring 120 by 53.34 yards and rugby fields measuring 130 by 74 yards.

The mechanics through which teams attempt to advance and score are also similar, though the sport’s many differences can also be seen here as well. Forward passes are illegal in rugby at all times. American football maintains rules for illegal forward passing as well, but one of the primary responsibilities of the quarterback position is to complete forward passes from behind the line of scrimmage.

Rugby is often viewed as the rougher sport due to the lack of protective equipment worn by players. The game is indeed taxing and much quicker paced compared to football, with play resuming as soon as a tackled player returns the ball to play. However, it is illegal for rugby players to disrupt or engage with a player not in possession of the ball. This is in stark contrast to football, in which defensive and offensive linemen are tasked almost exclusively with blocking players that do not have the ball.

Rugby games last 80 minutes, with little stoppage time. American football games last for 60 minutes of playtime, though the stoppage pushes the total length of play to more than three hours.

Results of the NFPA 2018 National Fire Experience Survey

Fire truck
Photo by Philip Wyers on Unsplash

An experienced maintenance manager and project engineer, Brian Brecheisen of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, previously held an engineering position at Charter Steel. Throughout his career, Brian Brecheisen has maintained memberships in several industry groups, including the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).

As the nation's leading resource on fire hazards and electrical hazards, NFPA conducts research on fires and their causes as well as fire safety hazards and their solutions. Each year, the organization conducts its National Fire Experience Survey, which provides an estimate of the number and types of fire problems in the United States.

In the September/October 2019 edition of NFPA Journal, the Association released the findings of its 2018 Fire Experience Survey, which estimates that US fire departments responded to 1,318,500 fires in 2018. This estimate is virtually the same as the number in 2017. Of the 1.3 million fires in 2018, an estimated 499,000 were structure fires, which is also the same as in 2017.

In 2018, an estimated $25.6 billion in fire damage occurred. This includes over $12 billion in losses from wildfires, $11.1 billion in structure damage, and $1.4 billion in losses from vehicle fires. Additional info from the 2018 National Fire Experience Survey can be found on the NFPA website, www.nfpa.org.