History & origins
The story of American Football
American football split from rugby in the American college system in the 1870s and 1880s, largely through one man's rule changes. It nearly did not survive its first thirty years — the game was so violent that a US president had to intervene — and the reforms that saved it created the forward pass and the sport as it exists now.
Milestones
11 moments that shaped the modern game.
- 1869
Rutgers versus Princeton
The first intercollegiate game was played under rules closer to football than to anything recognisable today, with twenty-five players a side.
- 1880
Walter Camp changes everything
Camp replaced the rugby scrum with the line of scrimmage and a snap, giving one team clear possession. Three years later he added the system of downs, and the sport diverged permanently from rugby.
- 1905
The crisis year
Eighteen players died in a single season. President Theodore Roosevelt summoned college representatives to the White House and demanded reform, leading to the body that became the NCAA.
- 1906
The forward pass is legalised
Allowing the ball to be thrown forward was intended to open up a game that had become a series of lethal mass collisions. It became the sport's defining feature.
- 1920
The professional league forms
The American Professional Football Association was founded in a car showroom in Canton, Ohio, and renamed itself the National Football League two years later.
- 1958
The Greatest Game Ever Played
The NFL Championship went to sudden-death overtime on national television, and professional football's audience grew sharply from that point.
- 1967
The first Super Bowl
The champions of the NFL and the rival AFL met in Los Angeles. The two leagues merged three years later, and the game became the American sporting calendar's central event.
- 1978
Rules open up the passing game
Restrictions on contact with receivers and new freedom for offensive linemen to use their hands transformed a running sport into a passing one.
- 2002
The concussion research begins
The first documented case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in a former NFL player led to two decades of research, litigation and rule changes around head contact.
- 2010s
Analytics change fourth down
Statistical analysis showed teams punted far too often. Within a decade, going for it on fourth down had roughly doubled and the sport's basic risk calculus had shifted.
- 2028
Flag football goes Olympic
The non-contact variant was added to the Los Angeles Games, giving the sport its first Olympic presence in a century.