Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The history of American football can be traced to early versions of rugby football and association football.Both games have their origin in multiple varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, in which a football is kicked at a goal or kicked over a line, which in turn were based on the varieties of English public school football games descending from medieval ...
Other codes of football share a common history with American football. Canadian football is a form of the game that evolved parallel to American football, through its adoption of the Burnside rules in 1903. While both games share a common history and basic structure, there are some important differences between the two. [245]
The first American football game was played on November 6, 1869, between two college teams, Rutgers and Princeton, using rules based on the rules of soccer at the time. A set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Walter Camp , the "Father of American Football", established the snap , the line of scrimmage , eleven-player teams, and the ...
The modern history of American football can be considered to have begun after the 1932 NFL Playoff Game, which was the first American football game to feature hash marks, the legalization of the forward pass anywhere behind the line of scrimmage, and the movement of the goal posts back to the goal line; it was also the first indoor game since 1902.
The history of sports in the United States reveals that American football, baseball, softball, and indoor soccer evolved from older British sports—rugby football, British baseball, rounders, and association football, respectively. Over time, these sports diverged significantly from their European origins, developing into distinctly American ...
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence.
Because football is a high-contact sport requiring a balance between offense and defense, many rules exist that regulate equality, safety, contact, and actions of players on each team. It is very difficult to always avoid violating these rules without giving up too much of an advantage.
Adult amateur football, also known as semi-pro football, is a level of American football. It is commonly known as "working man's" football, meaning the players have regular jobs and play football on the weekends. Though the players do not get paid, the leagues and the games are run in a somewhat professional manner.