Backyard Football Shot

Looking for some feedback on this photo I took during a backyard football game. Positives, Negatives, Improvements.

A shallower depth of field would have kept the 2 main players as the center of interest. As it is, they get lost a little. To fix it you'd have to change your f/ stop to a lower number. And I realize it's hard to have a shallow depth of field when your subject is darting about in front of you!

I agree with Sharin on DOF. A very cool moment in time you captured there, especially the look on the tackler's face. I think it looks a little wonky with their feet just barely cut off. I don't know if this is a crop and you have their feet in the original file still, but IMO you either need to include the feet or crop more tightly on the bodies. Also I'd bump up the darks a little bit. See my edit below --



The slight rotation I did solves a bit of the foot issue, and it also helps your eye decide that the 2 guys in the foreground are the subject of the photo, rather than the guys standing in the background, because now they appear slanted whereas the slant to the players appears normal. Hope this helps

One last thought - another idea to help with the background would be to give it some gaussian blur (without blurring the subjects). There are a few ways to do this in photoshop, but my favorite is to duplicate the layer, give the duped layer a gaussian blur, then erase that layer from select parts of the image that you want clear using a large soft-edged eraser. Here's what I got after adding that to what I already suggested above: