Football: Keeping score, basically

If you're new to watching football, or you are used to watching it without any clue as to what's going on, this may prove helpful. 

 

{Diagram of a football field}

On a football field, one team is on offense and one is on defense. The team with the ball is on offense, and they are trying to move the ball down the field and score a touchdown. Someone can either run the ball down the field or catch it in the end-zone. They are given 4 chances (4 downs) to do this or gain at least 10 yards, or they have to give up the ball to the other team. If the offense doesn't score a touchdown but does gain at least 10 yards, they get another 4 downs, meaning another 4 chances to score a touchdown. If you watch on TV, there's a digital yellow line that shows you how far the offense must go to get a 1st down.

The score on TV usually looks something like this (only less blurry):

{Miami has 6 points, Michigan has 10, it's the 4th Quarter and there's 8:19 minutes left, it's the 1st down and there's 10 yards to go}

Touchdowns are worth 6 points.

After scoring a touchdown, a team can either choose to go for an extra point by kicking the ball through the goal posts, or try for 2 points by running the ball into the end-zone again (AKA a 2-point conversion). 

If an offensive team gets to their 4th down and doesn't think they're going to be able to get another 1st down or score a touchdown, they can kick a field goal worth 3 points. If you want more details, this article is very helpful: How American Football Works

Football

It's already week 12 of the 17-week NFL regular season, but better late than never, right? More specific items will come later, but for now here's an overview of how the pro-football season works:
In the NFL, teams play 16 games, (one game a week) in the regular season and they each have one "bye" (week off). After that comes playoffs, and after that, the superbowl.
The best way to understand who's doing well is to look at their standings. 
Teams are organized into two "conferences" - the AFC (American Football Conference) and the NFC (National Football Conference). These are kind of like the National League and American League in baseball, because usually if a city or area has two different teams (i.e. New York Jets and New York Giants), they're in different conferences:

{San Francisco 49ers are in the NFC}

{Oakland Raiders are in the AFC}

In each Conference, teams are broken up into 4 divisions- in their region (East, West, North & South). There are 4 teams in each division and these are important because the winner of each division goes to the playoffs, along with 2 wildcards (the teams with the best records that didn't win their division). There are 6 teams in each conference in the playoffs, and two rounds of playoffs to narrow down the AFC champion and the NFC champion, who play each other in the Superbowl.