American football

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 6th of November 1869, two college teams from Rutgers and Princeton met to play what is now considered the first American football game. Each side fielded 25 players. The ball was round, and no one was allowed to pick it up or carry it. Players could kick it or bat it with their feet, hands, head, or sides, and the goal was simply to drive it into the opponent's territory. Rutgers won 6-4. That contest looked almost nothing like the sport that now claims the title of the most popular game in the United States. Today's American football is played by two teams of eleven on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end, and it has become the most-watched game in the country. The Super Bowl ranks among the most-watched club sporting events on earth. So how did a soccer-style scramble with a round ball become a sport of downs, scrimmages, and forward passes? Why did one man earn the title Father of American Football? And what does the field, the rulebook, and the human cost of a full-contact game reveal about a sport that parts of Texas have compared to a religion?

• 2. Camp's Rulebook

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  Walter Camp, a player at Yale, secured a rule change in 1880 that cut each team from fifteen to eleven players and replaced the chaotic scrum with the snap. That single innovation produced an unexpected problem. Because the snap was uncontested, a team could now hold the ball indefinitely and refuse to give it up. In 1881, Yale and Princeton both used this tactic to protect their undefeated records. Each team held the ball without gaining ground for an entire half, and the game ended 0-0. Spectators hated the so-called block game. Camp answered in 1882 with a rule limiting each team to three downs, or tackles, to advance the ball five yards. Fail, and possession passed to the other side. This change made American football a separate sport from rugby. The five-yard lines added to measure distance gave the field its striped, gridiron appearance. Camp also helped shape a scoring system and a static line of scrimmage. Later rule makers built directly on his framework, legalizing the forward pass and defining the size and shape of the ball.

• 3. Reform Under Pressure

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  A 1905 peak of 19 fatalities across the country brought the sport to the edge of abolition. Dangerous mass formations like the flying wedge were causing serious injuries and deaths. President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to end the game unless it changed. On the 28th of December 1905, representatives of 62 colleges and universities met in New York City to discuss new rules. Those meetings produced the body that would become the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The legal forward pass arrived in 1906, though tight restrictions kept its early impact small. That same year the distance for a first down rose from five to ten yards, playing time dropped from 70 to 60 minutes, and the neutral zone was created along the width of the ball before the snap. Scoring kept shifting. Field goals fell to three points in 1909, and touchdowns rose to six in 1912. Also in 1912, the field was shortened to 100 yards, two ten-yard end zones were added, and teams gained a fourth down to cover ten yards. By 1918, eligible players could catch the ball anywhere on the field, opening the modern passing game.

• 4. Paying The Players

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  On the 12th of November 1892, Pudge Heffelfinger was paid $500 to play a single game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. It is the first recorded case of a player being paid to play American football. The sport clung to a strict sense of amateurism at the time, and direct payment was frowned upon, if not banned. Athletic clubs in the 1880s offered indirect rewards instead, such as help finding jobs or trophies and watches that players could pawn. As professional play spread, so did rising salaries, unpredictable player movement, and the illegal payment of college players still in school. The National Football League, founded in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, set out to solve these problems by ending bidding wars and barring the use of college players. By 1922 the NFL was the premier professional league. Its legitimacy grew in 1925, when the Pottsville Maroons beat a team of Notre Dame all-stars in an exhibition game.

• 5. Rival Leagues

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  In 1960 the American Football League launched to challenge the established NFL. It began in obscurity but thrived, helped by a television contract with the ABC network and by actively recruiting minority players. The competition turned fierce in 1965, when the AFL's New York Jets signed rookie Joe Namath to a then-record $437,000 contract. The bidding war ended in 1966, when NFL owners approached the AFL about a merger that took full effect in 1970. The deal created a common draft and an annual championship between the two leagues, the game that became the Super Bowl, first played at the end of the 1966 season. Other challengers fared worse. The World Football League survived only the 1974 and 1975 seasons before money troubles dissolved it. The United States Football League ran from 1983 to 1985, then won a $1.5 billion antitrust lawsuit against the NFL only to be awarded one dollar, tripled to three under antitrust law. The original XFL, created in 2001 by WWE co-founder Vince McMahon, lasted a single season. A rebooted XFL in 2020 filed for bankruptcy and was bought by Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia, eventually merging with a revived USFL into a new United Football League after the 2023 season.

• 6. Anatomy Of A Roster

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  Eleven players take the field for each team, and putting more out there draws a penalty. A platoon system lets teams swap any number of players between downs, which has produced specialized offensive, defensive, and special teams units. Roster sizes differ by league. The NFL allows 53 players, while NCAA Division I permits up to 105. The offense centers on the quarterback, who lines up behind the center to take the snap, then hands off, throws, or runs. Running backs carry the ball, fullbacks block and occasionally run in short-yardage situations, and the offensive line protects the ball carrier and the passer. Wide receivers and tight ends catch the passes. On defense, the line of defensive ends and tackles pressures the quarterback and stops the run, linebackers serve as defensive leaders calling the plays, and the secondary of cornerbacks and safeties guards against deep passes. Safeties are viewed as the last line of defense. Special teams handle every kicking play, with roles as specific as the placekicker, holder, long snapper, gunner, and kick returner. Women are eligible at high school, college, and professional levels, though no woman has ever played in the NFL.

• 7. Field And Clock

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  The football is a prolate spheroid of leather, similar to the balls used in rugby or Australian rules football, inflated to about one atmosphere and weighing 14 to 15 ounces. Its pointed shape makes it hard to drop kick reliably, which is why the place kick became the standard scoring method. The last successful drop-kick score in the NFL came in 2006, and before that in 1941. The game is built on layered systems of measurement. A touchdown is worth six points, a field goal three, a safety two, and a safety is the least common way to score. Goalpost uprights stand 18 feet 6 inches apart for professional and college play and 23 feet 4 inches for high school, with the crossbar 10 feet above the ground. Professional and college games run 60 minutes across four quarters, while high school games run 48. A play clock gives the offense 40 seconds in normal flow and 25 after certain stoppages, and missing it draws a delay of game foul. The average NFL game lasts slightly over three hours. Seven officials patrol a standard crew, each with a defined zone, and Sarah Thomas became the NFL's first female official in 2015.

• 8. The Cost Of Contact

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  Repeated concussions, and possibly sub-concussive head impacts, can raise a person's later-life risk for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE, along with dementia, Parkinson's disease, and depression. Football is a full-contact sport, and injuries are common, with most occurring in training sessions that involve contact. Players must wear at minimum a helmet and shoulder pads, and helmets have prevented more serious injuries such as skull fractures. A 2018 study by the VA Boston Healthcare System and the Boston University School of Medicine found that playing tackle football before age 12 correlated with earlier onset of CTE symptoms, though not greater severity. Each year played under age 12 predicted earlier cognitive, behavioral, and mood problems by an average of two and a half years. Prevention efforts have had mixed results. A study in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine found USA Football's Heads Up Football program ineffective, while the more extensive reforms of Pop Warner Little Scholars significantly reduced concussion rates. Even as the sport reckons with these findings, it is spreading abroad. Flag football, a non-contact variant with a lower likelihood of head injuries, will debut for men and women at the 2028 Summer Olympics.