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First game of American football
In 1869 the first American football game were played between Rudgers and Princeton. There were other rules at that time, the ball was round and there were 25 players at each team. The ball could not be picked up or carried, at that time it was a mixture of Rugby and Soccer. -
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History of American football
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The first rule change of American football
Princeton and Rudgers met to create a standard set of rules for the game.The field were specified down to 122m x 76m and the teams were sat down to 20 players instead of 25. -
The father of American football, Walter Camp
Walter camp secured several rule changes like reducing the amount of players from 15 to 11 on each team like it is today and inventing the "Snap", so it would'nt be so much chaos when the teams fought for the ball. -
The "Block game"
A group of Princeton players realized that they could just snap the ball and drag out the game by holding onto the ball without gaining any ground for entire halfs. They did this to hold onto their undefeated records. -
Changing from the "Block game".
A rule change was necessary to prevent this certain "block game". In 1882 a rule was proposed that each team had three downs to advance the ball five yards. If they failed to advance the ball these five yards within the three downs they would loose the ball. The field also got reduced again to 100m x 48m and they added another five yards needing to be advanced. The scoring system also got changed so, 4 points for touchdown, 2 for safety and a goal following a touchdown and 5 for a field goal. -
Near end fo the game
Despite all rule changes, the game remained as a very violent game and Theodore Roosevelt (President at that time) almost had to stop the game from being played due to many deaths. In response 62 colleges and universities got together and discussed rule changes. These proceedings ended in the formation of Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, later changed its named to National Collegiate Athletic Associaton (NCAA). -
Changes of rules to get rid of dirty plays.
The legal forward pass was introduced other changes that year were to reducing the time of play to 60 minutes. Field goals were reduced to 3 points and touchdowns up to 6 points. The field was reduced to 91m and two 9,1m end zones were created. The teams were also given 4 downs instead of 3 to reach 9,1m. -
Professional Era
The first paid player to play in a game were in 1892, but in 1920 The National football league(NFL), a group of professional teams was established as the American Professional Football Association, aimed to solve these problems. Prevented use of college players and got rid of teams just buying players from other teams. In 1922 NFL had established themselves as the premier professional football league. -
Increasing popularity
Football got more and more known throughout the country following the 1958 NFL Championship game between Baltimore Colts and New York Giants, referred to as the "Greatest game ever played". Colts won 23-17 and the match was seen by millions of tv viewers and had major impact on the popularity of the game. -
The Rivalry
AFL ( American football league) and NFL (National football league) fought against each other to become the Nr.1 league in America. This rivalry actually improved American football alot since the leagues try to overcome each other. in the end they came to an agreement for a common draft and a championship game between the champions of each league. The two leagues agreed to a merge in 1970 and the championship game then became the "Superbowl" we all know. -
NFL Divisions
In 1970 after the merge the NFL had 3 divisions with 26 teams where eight teams went through to the playoffs. In 2002 they changed it up to 32 teams with 12 teams went to the playoff and the 3 divisions were divided into 4 conferences. -
College football
College football remained a high status throughout years. Even today College football is very popular and this is were the NFL looks to find players to draft when they are old enough. So college football still has a major role in todays american football
