Born from rugby and soccer
American football grew out of the same school games that produced soccer and rugby. In the 1870s American colleges played a mixture of the two, and a Yale player and coach, Walter Camp, reshaped it into something new. He brought in the line of scrimmage, where play restarts each time, and the system of downs — a team gets a set number of tries to move the ball ten yards or hand it over. The QUARTERBACK, the SNAP and the HUDDLE all grew from those changes.
The playing field is marked every five yards with lines that made early spectators think of a grill, and so the sport is nicknamed the GRIDIRON. The ball is still called a pigskin, although it has been made of cowhide or rubber for well over a century. Our soccer page covers the game the rest of the world calls football.
A president saved the game
The early game was extraordinarily violent. Players locked arms and charged in flying wedges, protective gear was minimal, and in 1905 alone around eighteen players died from injuries on the field. Some colleges dropped the sport, and there were calls to ban it.
President Theodore Roosevelt, a keen fan, invited college leaders to the White House and urged them to make the game safer. The following year the rules changed: the forward pass was allowed, which opened the game up and made mass pile-ups less common, and a body was set up to run the rules that became today's college sports authority. Our US presidents page covers Roosevelt's other surprises.
How a play works
Each play is short and carefully planned. The centre snaps the ball back to the quarterback, who may hand it to a running back, run with it himself, or throw it to a RECEIVER sprinting down the field. A TOUCHDOWN — carrying or catching the ball in the ENDZONE — scores six points, and a FIELDGOAL kicked between the posts scores three. If a team fails to advance, it may PUNT the ball away.
The defence tries to TACKLE the ball carrier, and a LINEBACKER may BLITZ, rushing the quarterback. Bringing down the quarterback behind the line is a SACK. Dropping the ball is a FUMBLE, and either team can grab it. Every play begins with a KICKOFF at the start of each half, and a REFEREE in a striped shirt keeps order.
The biggest game of the year
The SUPERBOWL, the final of the National Football League, is the most-watched television broadcast in the United States almost every year, with well over a hundred million viewers. Companies pay millions of dollars for a thirty-second advert during the game, and some people watch as much for the adverts and the half-time show as for the football.
Fans gather before games to TAILGATE, cooking and eating from the open backs of their cars in the stadium car park. The grid names some of the best-known teams: the PATRIOTS, COWBOYS, PACKERS, EAGLES and STEELERS. The Green Bay Packers are unusual in being owned by their fans rather than a single wealthy owner. A modern HELMET, with a hard shell and padding, is a far cry from the leather caps of the early game.