Pro Playoff - Professional Football

Pro Playoff is a boardgame of football (as it is known in the United States). The players represent the coaches of the two teams, deciding which plays their team will make in an attempt to score.

The heart of the game consists of two sets of "Play Cards"; 12 Offensive Play Cards (such as Draw Plays, Power Sweeps or Screen Passes) and 10 Defensive Plays (such as 6 Man Lines, Pass Defenses and the Blitz). These cards show the movements of the various players in the play and the Offensive card contains holes allowing markings on the Defensive card to be seen. Each player secretly chooses the card representing the play they will use.

The location of the ball is indicated by two markers; one in the end zone and one on the sidelines. The defensive player first puts their Play Card on the board, lining it up wit the ball markers. The player on offense then places their card on top of the Defensive Play Card. The players then look at the "Readout" hole on the card. This is one of the holes in the Offensive Play Card showing the Defensive Card beneath. If the Readout hole shows red, the ball was downed behind the line of scrimmage and the ball markers are adjusted accordingly.

A green mark means yardage was gained. The Offensive Play Card shows the path taken by the ball carrier. The Offensive player places their player on the start of the line, rolls the die and advances their player that many squares along the line. The Defensive player then puts their piece on the nearest "open" defensive player location. An open location is one where a yellow dot shows through from the Defensive Card that is not indicated on the Offensive Card as having been "blocked". Once the Defensive piece has been placed the Defensive player rolls a die and advances their piece that many spaces towards the Offensive piece.

If the Defensive piece is able to reach the Offensive piece the ball is downed at that point and the ball markers adjusted accordingly. Otherwise, the Offensive player again rolls a die and advanced their piece that much further along the line. (If the end of the line is reached the player may move the piece in any direction.) The Defensive player may then move their piece again or may move the piece to another open player location and start from there. This continues until the Offensive player is either tackled or reaches the goal line. The players then choose new Play Cards to start the next play.

In addition to the standard plays there are special rules for points after touchdowns, field goals, punts, fumbles, safeties, penalties and other options and variations.

There are 15 plays to a quarter and a game lasts for four quarters (60 plays). Scoring is the same as regulation football. The player with the highest score is the winner.

The introduction to the rules says that Pro Playoff was developed in cooperation with the NBC Sports Department and their influence shows. The game is quite well done. Play Card results are quite believable and the die roll for movement adds enough variation that a player can never know if a particular play will succeed or not. This adds greatly to the game. For some reason the sports games in the NBC lineup are much better than most of those in their bookshelf line and this is another extremely well done game.

2 comments on Pro Playoff:

Leave a Comment: