Football Ice Breaker Ideas

"Ice Breakers" are used within large groups, often with employees, to make everyone try to get along and get used to working together. Football, as a growing pastime in America, is a good way to bring everyone together, encouraging them to both work and play together. Even if people in the group don't like football or aren't fans, it can still be a good way to build camaraderie between employees or people who are supposed to be working together.

Blindfolded Fumblerooski

When a football is fumbled, it's difficult to pick up, primarily because of its shape. Picking up the football that no one can get a handle on is an important part of of teamwork, as it keeps your team in the game by holding on to the ball. Groups should be divided and on each team, everyone is blindfolded and told to get on their knees on the floor or field. They must pick up fumbled footballs and together, with the help of their other blindfolded teammates, put those balls into a bin in the quickest amount of time.

Video Games

TGI (Training-Games.com) has created video football games that takes football ice breaker games off the field and onto the computer. By answering training questions with your work team, you can move the football down the field, score touchdowns and kick field goals for right answers, while fumbling and being sacked for wrong answers. The game allows for training and team building on all levels, from the bottom to the top of the corporate ladder.

Table Football

A game played by kids in elementary school, this is a "football" game which involves nothing more then two players going head to head, a sheet of paper folded into a triangle and a flat smooth table top. Players face off on opposite sides of the table and are allowed four downs to push the folded triangle of paper from one side to the other. The objective is to get your triangle "football" to hang off the edge of the table and not fall off, which scores a touchdown (worth seven points). If you get to fourth down and you are too far from the edge of the table to feel like you can safely score a touchdown, then you can opt to kick a field goal by flicking the football through makeshift goal posts your opponent makes with his hands. While this game incites competition, it also encourages people to talk and get along with each other in a friendly way, effectively "breaking the ice."