How to Play UNO NFL Card Game: Rules and Instructions

Objective UNO NFL

The objective of UNO NFL is to play all of the cards from your hand before the other players.

Setup for UNO NFL

Choose a player to be the dealer.
The dealer shuffles the cards and deals seven facedown to each player. Players can look at their own cards, but they shouldn’t show them to the other players.
Place the rest of the cards facedown on the table to form the Draw Pile.
Turn over the top card from the Draw Pile to form the Discard Pile. If you flip over an Action card (anything other than a number card), ignore its effect and flip over another card.
The player to the left of the dealer starts the game. Play move clockwise/left to start the game.

Playing UNO NFL

To start your turn you will look at the cards in your hand. You are looking for a card that you can play. To play a card it has to match one of the following criteria of the top card on the Discard Pile:

Color
Number
Symbol

If you have a card that matches one (or more) of these criteria, you can play it to the Discard Pile. If you play an Action card, you will take a special action. See the corresponding Card Meanings of UNO NFL section below for more details.

Playing a Card in UNO NFL — The top card on the Discard Pile is a green two. The current player could play the green four since it matches the color. The red two could be played because it matches the number. The last three cards are wild so they could be played since they match all other cards.

Matching a Reverse card — The top card on the Discard Pile is a Reverse card. The next player could play a Reverse card because it matches the symbol.

Your turn then ends and play passes to the next player in turn order.

Drawing a Card

If you have a card that you could normally play but don’t want to, you can choose not to play it. If you choose not to play a card at this point, you cannot play it for the rest of your turn.

Instead of playing a card, you will take the top card from the Draw Pile. If you can play this new card following the criteria above, you can play it immediately. Otherwise you will add the card to your hand.

If the Draw Pile ever runs out of cards, you will shuffle the Discard Pile to form a new Draw Pile.

After drawing a card and either playing it or adding it to your hand, your turn ends. Play passes to the next player in turn order.

Card Meanings in UNO NFL

Number

Number cards have no special action. You can only play them if they match the number of color of the top card on the Discard Pile.

Draw Two (+2)

When you play a Draw Two card, the next player in turn order has to draw two cards. They also lose their next turn.

You can play a Draw Two card on top of another Draw Two card, or on a card that matches its color. If a Draw Two is played against you, you cannot play a Draw Two to avoid the punishment.

Reverse

The Reverse card changes the direction of play. If play was moving clockwise, it will now move counter-clockwise. If it was moving counter-clockwise, it will now move clockwise.

You can play a Reverse card on top of another Reverse card, or on a card that matches its color.

Skip

When you play a Skip card, the next player in turn order loses their turn.

You can play a Skip card on top of another Skip card, or on a card that matches its color. If a Skip card is played against you, you cannot play a Skip card in order to avoid the punishment.

Wild

Wild cards match every other card in the game, so you can play them at any time.

When you play a Wild card you will choose a color for the Discard Pile. The next player in turn order has to either play a card that matches the color you chose, or they have to play another wild card.

Wild Ice the Kicker

The Wild Ice the Kicker card is wild so it can match any other card in the game. When you play the card you get to choose the color for the Discard Pile. You can pick any of the four colors including the one it was when you played the card.

The Wild Ice the Kicker card forces the next player in turn order to successfully kick a paper football field goal.

Making a Paper Football

To create the paper football you will fold a rectangular piece of paper in half. You will then keep folding one corner to the other side to form a triangle. Keep doing this until you have folded the entire piece of paper. You will then tuck the remainder into the other folds to complete the football.

Kick the Field Goal

The player that played the Wild Ice the Kicker card holds up their two hands to form a goalpost. The next player in turn order takes the paper football and holds it up with one of their fingers. They will use another finger to flick it towards the goalpost.

Kicking the paper football — The player who played the Wild Ice the Kicker card puts up their hands to create a field goal post. The next player in turn order tries to flick the football through the uprights.

If the player successfully kicks the field goal (the “ball” goes through the player’s uprights), nothing happens.

If they miss the field goal, they have to draw three cards.

Wild Draw Four

The Wild Draw Four card is wild so it matches every other card in the game. The one catch is that you can only play a Wild Draw Four card if you have no other cards in your hand that match the color of the top card on the Discard Pile. Wild cards count as matches.

Whether the Wild Draw Four is challenged or not, the player who plays it gets to choose the color of the Discard Pile. The color they choose does not have an impact on a potential challenge.

Playing a Wild Draw Four — The current player played a Wild Draw Four on top of a yellow five.

When you play the Wild Draw Four the next player in turn order has a choice to make.

They can accept the play of the card. In this case they will draw four cards and lose their next turn.

Challenging the Wild Draw Four

Otherwise the player can challenge the play of the Wild Draw Four. If they choose to challenge, the player who played the Wild Draw Four has to show the challenger all of the cards from their hand. They will do this so the other player can confirm that the card was played correctly.

If the player did not have any cards that matched the color of the Discard Pile, they played the Wild Draw Four correctly. The challenging player now has to draw six cards and they lose their turn.

Playing a Wild Draw Four correctly — The player that played the Wild Draw Four has these three cards in their hand. Since they don’t have any yellow or wild cards in their hand, they played the Wild Draw Four correctly. The challenger has to draw six cards instead of four.

If the player did have a card that matched the color though, they played the card incorrectly. The player who played the Wild Draw Four has to draw the four cards instead of the challenging player. The challenging player also doesn’t lose their turn.

Play a Wild Draw Four Incorrectly — The player who played the Wild Draw Four had a yellow card in their hand. Therefore they played the Wild Draw Four incorrectly. They will have to draw the four cards instead of the player who challenged.

Calling UNO

When you only have one card left in your hand, you call out “UNO”. You will do this to alert the other players that you are close to winning the game.

If you do not say UNO and another player catches you, you will have to draw two cards. They must call you out before the next player starts their turn.

Winning UNO NFL

The first player to play all of the cards from their hand, wins UNO NFL.

Scoring Variant

Instead of just playing one hand, you can choose to play several hands. If you decide to play multiple hands, you can choose to keep score to determine the ultimate winner.

When a hand ends, the winner of the hand collects all of the cards left in the other players’ hands. If the last card they played forced the next player to draw more cards, they w-ill draw the cards before the winner takes the cards.

The winner scores points for each card they take from the other players’ hands. Each card scores points as follows:

Number cards – face value
Draw Two, Reverse, Skip – 20 points
Wild, Wild Draw Four, Wild Ice the Kicker – 50 points

Scoring in UNO NFL — At the end of the game these cards were left in the other players’ hands. They will score 19 points (3 + 7 + 9) from the number cards. The Draw Two, Skip, and Reverse cards each score 20 points. Finally the Wild, Wild Ice the Kicker, and Wild Draw Four cards each score 50 points. The winner of the hand scores a total of 229 points.

Write down how many points the player scored. Then play another hand. The first player to score 500 or more points, wins the game.

UNO NFL FAQs

If you have any questions about how to play UNO NFL, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

19 Blue Cards
19 Green Cards
19 Red Cards
19 Yellow Cards
8 Draw Two Cards
8 Reverse Cards
8 Skip Cards
4 Wild
4 Wild Draw Four
4 Wild Ice the Kicker
Instructions

Year: 2023 | Publisher: Mattel

Genres: Card, Family

Ages: 7+ | Number of Players: 2-10 | Length of Game: 15-30 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: High

Where to Purchase: Amazon, eBay Any purchases made through these links (including other products) help keep Geeky Hobbies running. Thank you for your support.

For more board and card game how to plays/rules and reviews, check out our complete alphabetical list of board game posts.