Cup Football Game

This simple cup football game is perfect to play at any football party, for Thanksgiving, or during halftime at your next Super Bowl party! Players use cups as football players to try and earn points as they move across the field!

It’s simple, fun for any age, and a great option if you just want a quick and easy game to play!

Easy Football Game

With Thanksgiving just around the corner and football season in full swing (go Chiefs!), I thought it’d be fun to come up with some football themed games you could play either for Thanksgiving games or with your any of these other Super Bowl party games!

Whether it’s for Thanksgiving or a game day party, you’re likely not going to want to spend too much time playing games if you’re also watching football so we kept this game quick!

Two people play at a time and play a game of table football against each other using, you probably guessed it, cups! One team is on offense and scoring and one team is on defense trying to defend against the other team scoring!

It’s simple, fun, and a good option for pretty much any age! As long as you can slide a cup on a table and physically throw a football, you can play!

Before you can jump into the game, here’s the complete list of everything you will need to play this football game.

• Rectangular table – this game is best played on a long, flat surface such as a kitchen table. You can play it on a hard floor if you don’t have a table that will work. However, you will need to tape the playing field on to the ground for this to work as an end zone.
• Plastic cups – you’ll need two different colored cups with four cups each, making sure both teams have the same size cups! This party pack is perfect so you have some extras in case one or two cups crack while you’re playing!
• Mini footballs – as long as they are smaller than your hand they will work. If you don’t have footballs, you can use another ball as long as it is mini.
• Scoreboard – you can use anything from a blank sheet of paper to a large foam board for this
• Coin – if you want this to feel more like football, grab a coin to do a coin flip. Or you can always skip the coin and play rock paper scissors instead.

Before you start setting up, you’ll need to decide how you want to play and how long the game lasts. Here are the three options.

1 – Head to Head Competitions

For this version, have anyone who wants to play write down their name and put it in a hat. Pick two names and those two players play one game – winner wins a prize!

Pick another two names out of the hat (you can either keep all the names in or take them out once they’ve had a chance to play once) and they play and the winner wins a prize. Keep repeating until you’ve run out of prizes!

This works great if you have a smaller group and don’t want to do a whole tournament but still want to have a competitive winner element to the game!

2 – Tournament Style

This option requires the host to make a bracket of everyone who would like to play. You can download a bracket for up to eight players (or 16 if you just print out two…) here. Or you can draw your own large one on a piece of foam board.

Here’s an example of a complete bracket below!

Players will face off against each other in a tournament to determine the ultimate winner. I recommend doing a single elimination tournament to keep things simple but you can do double if you really want – the bracket above won’t work for double though!

This version is perfect for an all-day Thanksgiving event or football watch party.

3 – Open Ended Play

This option allows players to come and go as they please, like having a ping pong table. Simply print out the instructions and give a demo so that everyone knows how to play. Then leave the supplies on the table and let people play when they want, against who they want.

This is a great way to have an activity open throughout the gathering without the host being involved. It’s not nearly as fun as having an actual competition element to it, but it’s still fun!

Before each game, you’ll need to do the following to setup the game!

1. Choose two players (or four if you’re playing teams) to play against each other.
2. Assign each player a color cup. They’ll use that color for the entire game, but it might change the next time they play if you’re doing a tournament. The color doesn’t matter to the game at all!
3. Do a coin flip (let the youngest person call the flip) and whoever wins the flip decides if they want to start on offense or defense first. They’ll be playing both sides during the game, but the starting offensive team technically has the advantage if both teams score every single round!

This football game is super simple to play, but I still recommend watching the video because it’s much easier to understand when you see it in action!

Regardless if you are playing for fun or in a tournament, the game is played the same.

1 – Position Players

Have the offensive player stand at one end of the table with their cups in hand and the defensive player stand at the other with their cups.

The offensive player will start. They choose one of their cups and slide it from the end of the table to anywhere they want on the table. Wherever it lands is where that cup stays!

Next, the defense will take one of their cups and slide it to anywhere they want on the table. The goal is to position their cups somewhere on the table that will defend against the offense scoring.

Repeat this process, offense and defense alternating their cups until all four cups from each team have been slid across the table somewhere.

2 – Throw the Football

Once all four cups have been placed for either team, it’s time to try and score by throwing the football!

The offensive player gets three attempts to throw the mini football from the end of the table to try and hit one of their cups off the end (not the side) of the table. If they hit their cup off of the end, they score one point for their team.

After offense scores one point (only one point can be scored per round) or have thrown all three of their cups, the two teams switch offense and defense and play another round.

The game is continued back and forth until one player scores five points regardless of if both teams have had equal turns to play offense and defense.

Players can win bragging rights, or they can advance in the bracket. If you are planning on making it a tournament, it’s always fun to have a prize for the ultimate winner!

If you want more fun Thanksgiving activities to play before and after the football games, try one of these! (And this Thanksgiving punch!)

• Thanksgiving scavenger hunt – fun riddles and clues with a Thanksgiving theme!
• Thanksgiving would you rather – this fun game is perfect for the entire family!
• Thanksgiving bingo – another great classic game with a Thanksgiving twist!
• Thanksgiving charades – tons of Thanksgiving themed words that work for either charades or Thanksgiving pictionary!
• Thanksgiving scattergories – one of our favorite Thanksgiving printables, perfect for playing with the adults!