How many players are on a football team?

Eleven per side on the field at once, and a twelfth brings a penalty, one of football's most reliably comic infractions. But the eleven you see is a rotating cast from a much larger payroll: NFL teams carry 53-man active rosters, dress 48 on game day under current rules, and stash more on practice squads. College rosters balloon past 100.

The reason for the depth is platooning: unlike most sports, football swaps nearly the entire lineup by situation, one eleven for offense, another for defense, and special-teams units for kicks. A starter on offense may never play a defensive snap in his career.

For comparison shoppers: soccer also fields eleven, a coincidence descending from their shared 19th-century ancestry, while baseball fields nine, basketball five, and hockey six including the goalie. And Canadian football plays twelve a side on a longer, wider field, which Canadians will mention.