How to Play Strat-O-Matic Pro Football (board game)

Three games in one, Strat-O-Matic Pro Football plays at the Basic, Advanced and Super-Advanced level. You’ll be playing the Basic game within minutes, because it’s as easy as this:

On offense, choose your ball-carrier for one of three runs (inside, off tackle or sweep) or your intended receiver for one of three passes (in the flat, a short-range pass downfield, or a deep throw). On defense, guess run or pass, knowing that being right or wrong can make all the difference. Then roll three six-sided dice.

The first die directs you either to the offensive player’s card or to the team-defense card. Then add the other two dice for results 2-12. If it’s offense, you’ll see that whatever most defines a player’s talent will show up on the most common dice combinations. Maybe he gains the tough yards or is a breakaway runner. Maybe he’s the high-catch possession receiver or the lower-catch deep threat. Maybe he’s the high-percentage passer, the mad bomber or the scrambling quarterback. Whatever, he’ll come to life before your eyes.

As you anticipate the roll that will bring fist-pumping success or head-shaking frustration, you’ll see how much it matters for the defense to guess right. It can be the difference between missing a tackle at the line of scrimmage that springs a back to take it to the house.

If the roll sent you to the defense card, you’ll see that team’s strength or vulnerability – stuffing the run, sacking the passer, forcing turnovers or getting burned on the deep ball. 

Strat-O-Matic’s most visual board game, Advanced Pro Football, will make you feel like the quarterback surveying the field ahead of you, or the middle linebacker staring into the eyes of the quarterback. You have all the usual plays, but this time you run right or left, perhaps behind your elite-blocking lineman or at a weaker defender – or perhaps where the defense won’t expect it. You’ll have to “read” that defense to make the right call, because the linebackers and free safety move to strengthen the defense in select running and passing zones – while leaving other zones unattended. At this level, the football fan learns how players not even involved in the play can influence the play-calling and the performance of his teammates in sport’s ultimate team game.

In Super-Advanced play, there are additional formations, a dynamic new pass-rush system and other options that will make playing Strat-O-Matic as intense as coaching from an NFL sideline.