Football Zombie

The Football Zombie is a powerful zombie first encountered in the Night levels. The Football Zombie itself is only as strong as a normal Zombie, but cannot be damaged unless its helmet absorbs enough damage to fall off or is stolen by a Magnet-shroom (without a helmet, it takes 10 normal damage shots). The Football Zombie can be incredibly annoying and using instant kills on it are a good idea. He is the eight Zombie you will encounter.



Overview
Absorbs 80 normal damage shots. Appearance changes upon absorption of 24, 47, 70, and 75 normal damage shots.

Adventure Mode and Survival
The Suburban Almanac advises the use of a Magnet-shroom, reducing the maximum absorption to 10 normal damage shots. The use of heavy damage plants, such as the Melon-pult, or movement restricting plants, such as the Snow Pea, Kernel-pult, and Winter Melon, are other options. In general, just pile tons of fire power onto it if these options are unavailable, or use an instant kill. Hypno-shrooms are also good against them in earlier levels if you have not obtained other Instant Kills. Spikeweed and Spikerock can heavily damage the Zombie as it approaches your plants.

I, Zombie
Deploy when really large amounts of damage need to be absorbed. (Sometimes, it may be more efficient to use a Ladder Zombie instead of one if there is a Snow Pea, as frequently less damage would need to be absorbed if the zombie in that row was able to move at a normal speed, and the freezing effect can't go through the ladder.)

Trivia

 * Most zombies lose their left arm when they take enough damage. The Football Zombie loses its right arm instead.
 * It is unknown why his toughness isn't medium when his helmet is removed.
 * If a Football Zombie chews on a Garlic, it will not stop and make a face, but will instead go instantly to another lane. The only other zombies that do this are the Ladder Zombie and the Jack-in-the-Box Zombie.
 * In the music video Zombies on Your Lawn, the Football Zombie says that it used to play football, but its Suburban Almanac entry states that it doesn't know what a football is.
 * The Football Zombie's helmet is available in the Xbox Live Marketplace for 160 Microsoft Points.
 * In the online version of Plants vs Zombies, the Football Zombie has a regular Zombie head and a piece of dirt on the headwear, but in the game, the Football Zombie has purple eyes and looks at the house, and the piece of dirt is absent.
 * If a Football Zombie is hit by Butter while running, it may freeze it in midair. This may also happen if it is frozen by an Ice-shroom.
 * The Football Zombie is the only Zombie that can freeze in mid air, not counting the Giga Football Zombie.
 * It is the fastest moving headwear zombie.
 * The Football Zombie, the Zombie Bobsled Team, the Balloon Zombie, the Dancing Zombie, the Backup Dancers, and the Imp are the only zombies that fall backwards when they die.
 * The Football Zombie has the second toughest headwear, the toughest being the one of the Giga Football Zombie.
 * In the DS version of the game, when a Football Zombie loses its arm, instead of showing the Football Zombie's arm falling off, the game shows the arm of an ordinary Zombie falling off.
 * It is odd that the football helmet protects the Football Zombie from projectiles and some plants like Spikeweed, as they mostly hit it in the other body parts except for Lobbed-shot Plants.
 * A Spikeweed can still damage the Football Zombie even when it's in mid-air.