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I am British and have no particular interest in sports. However, I have recently gone down a bit of a YouTube rabbit hole involving the bizarre rules tangles that crop up in American sports and the perverse incentives that these often create. This has kind of tempted me to pick up Madden in the winter Steam sale. I have enjoyed FIFA games in the past despite not really enjoying association football. However, the rules of gridiron football seem so arcane to me that I am worried that I would just have no idea what was going on and thus the game would be uplayable.

What do people reckon? Are the basic rules straightforward enough that I should be able to figure it out and have some fun with it? Or is the game so impenetrable that I am going to be constantly conceding penalties and giving my guys concussions?

It's not difficult to pick and play, but it can get persnickety as you ramp the difficulty to maximum.

Just remember, clock management is an art form that a lot of NFL coaches haven't mastered yet, so just enjoy the game.

Yeah, if you have possession coming up to the end of a quarter then you should stall rather than giving your opponent the chance to exploit a turnover. I learned that from Bloodbowl