Officiating
- Football Buckets is a gentleman’s sport, you are expected to play fair at all times and self referee your own games
Objective
- Football Buckets is a game you can play 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, or really any combination group quantities
- One team stands behind the one of the buckets, the other team behind the other bucket
- Turns throwing need to be alternated between the two teams
- The winner of the game is the first to reach 11 points
- When a team reaches 11 points the opposing team has a redemption shot to tie or take over control of the win
- The winning team must win by 2 or more points
The Buckets
- The official bucket of Football Buckets is a standard 5 gallon bucket.
- The buckets need to be placed 23 yards apart
- The buckets need a clear line of sight to one another with nothing interfering with the pathway between both buckets
- All throws must be from behind your bucket
- There is no interfering with a ball until it has clearly passed the bucket
The Ball
- The official ball of Football Buckets is a Franklin Mini Grip Tech Mini Football (mfr# 11359)
Scoring
| 2 points | Hit the bucket on the fly |
| 1 point | Hit the bucket after a bounce or roll off the ground |
| +1 addtl point | When you knock the bucket over after hitting it |
| 5 points | When you bounce into the bucket after hitting the ground |
| 11 point | land in the bucket on the fly and stay in the bucket |
- A ball is live until it is thrown again by the opposing team
- Opposing Players are considered “part of the ground”, if the opposing player deflects a ball into the scoring bucket the scoring is applied as specified above
- A bucket that is partially knocked over where the bottom of the bucket is visible is still considered a knocked over bucket and the appropriate scoring is applied.
- There are no double points on a single turn (for example, you cannot hit a bucket on the fly and then bounce away and then back into the bucket for 2 + 1, only the max potential points available per turn is applicable)
Rules History:
- v1 – drafted during the creation of Football Buckets on February 10, 2018.
- v2 – updated June 2019 to clarify rules about scoring (including “live ball rules”) and points
- v3 – updated February 16, 2020 to clarify rules about partial knock overs and double-point rulings