What is the "bounciest" Football?

[Paul Kian]

Good morning fellow EF Coaches,

Hope everyone's doing well. It has been ages since I've posted on here, my work has been a real time consumer though I'm very grateful to have it.

Just had a quick question about which type of EF Football seems to be the bounciest. I'm setting up an Indoor football style field and want to build some plexiglass and/or net "rebound nets" at the end zones like the AFL used to have (RIP), and all I currently have are the Saturn type footballs. Do 3rd & Longs have more bounce, or is it about the same as Saturns?

 

Thanks,

 

-PK

[Paul Kian]

Also, forgot to ask, are there any other brand of EF Football that might bounce well besides 3&L and Saturn? I'm still new to a lot of this. 😆

[nefgm.org]

Never really thought about it or even noticed a difference. I would think a lighter ball would be better, such as the older foam rubber balls. Once upon a time I had an Arena League set up. I used plastic netting canvas for the nets. Wish I had pics but has been at least 20 years ago. Below is a pic of my Nashville Kats Arena Collection. Team and Cheerleader posters with some autographs, A wooden Kats plague that actually came out of their practice facilty, a hand painted arena gameboard (one with the red border, a Snickers "Shock Zone" game board with a Kats field cover, a Kats Mini Helmet, and 3 Custom hand-painted Kats electric football teams.

In case you are looking for some rules, here are some excellent Arena Football Rules: 

Miniature ARENA Football Rules_v3.0.pdf 

  

[Paul Kian]

23 minutes ago, nefgm.org said:

Never really thought about it or even noticed a difference. I would think a lighter ball would be better, such as the older foam rubber balls. Once upon a time I had an Arena League set up. I used plastic netting canvas for the nets. Wish I had pics but has been at least 20 years ago. Below is a pic of my Nashville Kats Arena Collection. Team and Cheerleader posters with some autographs, A wooden Kats plague that actually came out of their practice facilty, a hand painted arena gameboard (one with the red border, a Snickers "Shock Zone" game board with a Kats field cover, a Kats Mini Helmet, and 3 Custom hand-painted Kats electric football teams.

In case you are looking for some rules, here are some excellent Arena Football Rules: 

Miniature ARENA Football Rules_v3.0.pdf 236.76 kB · 5 downloads  

  

 

Thanks for the info. I will look around on eBay later today and check out some of the older Footballs. My initial plan was to set up some canvas nets like in real life, but I'm kind of leaning towards setting up some Plexi and painting/decalling some netting on it (or just going with "naked" Plexi and without netting entirely, for camera purposes) so that it's a harder surface to bounce off of. Then I will be cutting out the actual goal areas and putting some actual slack netting there to catch made kicks (and errant passes, which I know will happen a lot with my terrible skills 😆). I'm still checking on materials prices, so that's the true factor in the end.

 

I know it's not even remotely accurate to true life, but most likely I'll only be making one goal post/rebound net since I'll only ever be kicking/passing at one end zone at a time and there's no real point in swapping sides since there's no wind in an Arena, at least by my logic anyway. That, or I'll just make it detachable and only place it on the offensive scoring zone between plays.

 

Also, those figs and boards look awesome! Thanks for sharing.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Paul Kian
Clarification

[nefgm.org]

Like where you are heading with it. My original setup with the hand painted gameboard had foam board "sideboards" and foam board back drops behind the nets. It was made around 2000-2001 so with all the league and team logos from that time period. Really kind of "cheesy" looking. though. Actually, got to play a game against Jimbo Dunagan using an earlier version of his rules at a Miggle Convention. It was awesome!! 

Check out this Facebook page if you haven't before:  Electric Arena Football | Facebook 

[Paul Kian]

50 minutes ago, nefgm.org said:

Like where you are heading with it. My original setup with the hand painted gameboard had foam board "sideboards" and foam board back drops behind the nets. It was made around 2000-2001 so with all the league and team logos from that time period. Really kind of "cheesy" looking. though. Actually, got to play a game against Jimbo Dunagan using an earlier version of his rules at a Miggle Convention. It was awesome!! 

Check out this Facebook page if you haven't before:  Electric Arena Football | Facebook 

Oh yeah, I am definitely making sideboards- that's my favorite part. 😁 I'm going to make them out of some squared up wooden boards and a vinyl pleather type material in either green or blue. They're going to be permanently mounted to the board frame, and I think I'm going to try to route a small slot in the side to support the game board and make the end zone sides come off (along with the aforementioned rebound nets) so that I can slide it in. I still have some prototyping I need to finish up before I start ordering stuff but I already have some measurements and a field decal to be printed.

 

Since I'm not going to be league accurate or anything, I don't have to worry about team decals or anything so I'm going to spend that money and attention on the board and fields.

I'll make a whole new thread (and possibly join that group) once I start getting the stuff together. Plenty of pics shall be taken. 👍

[nefgm.org]

Fantastic!! Looking forward to following the progress. 

[Coach Shawn]

The old Tudor foam balls were quite bouncy  But hard to find those.

the tudor felt give a good initial bounce but then die quickly.

I think 3rd snd long are probably your best bet.  Although Tudors leather ball (aka: the ice cream sandwich ball) may be worth a look.

[Paul Kian]

15 minutes ago, Coach Shawn said:

The old Tudor foam balls were quite bouncy  But hard to find those.

the tudor felt give a good initial bounce but then die quickly.

I think 3rd snd long are probably your best bet.  Although Tudors leather ball (aka: the ice cream sandwich ball) may be worth a look.

Thanks for your insight, Coach! I'll order some 3&Ls here shortly and scour the web for some of those Ice Cream Sandwiches as well. 👍