How American Football Got Started

Football points can be scored in many different ways, including catching a pass over the goal line, carrying the ball over the goal line, tackling a football player in his own end zone, or a kicker kicking the football through the goal posts on the opposing side. The football team with the highest score when the game is over is the team that wins the game. American football is also played in other countries outside the United States. Their are National football leagues that are in Sweden, Isreal, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom as well as Mexico, and a few that are in Pacific Island nations. The NFL had a developmental league in Europe from 91-92 and 95-06.

American football history can be found in the early versions of soccer and rugby. Both types of games have origins in different types of football that was played in the UK from the mid 19th century, in which the ball was run over a line or the ball was kicked at the goal. American football as well as soccer is played with 22 players on the field that they play on. Some terms from player positions from soccer are used today in American football such as fullback and halfback.

Rugby and American football do have a few major differences, some of the rule changes were started by Walter Camp who people would call the Father of American Football. Some of the Major changes that Walter Camp made were down and distance and line of scrimmage as well as the rule of down and distance. College coaches like Glen Pop Warner, Amos Alonzo Stagg and Knute Rockne in the late 19th and 20th centuries changed the gameplay by intoducing the forward pass. College football grew in popularity and was the dominant version of football for the first part of the 20th century. College football had a huge national audiences with the football Bowl games. College football had big rivalries as it does today in the United States.

From the year 1892 the origin of professional football can be traced back to, with a $500 contract to play football William “Pudge Heffelfinger played football for the Allegheny Athletic Association playing against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. The american Professional Football started in 1920. The first football game was played in 1920 in Dayton, Ohio on the 3rd of October with the Triangles winning the game by a score of 14-10 against the Columbus Panhandles. Two years later the football league changed the name to National Football League which is known as the NFL and would become the major league of American football. Professional football eventually became a national phenomenon after starting out the sport in the US industrial towns and Midwestern towns. Football after it’s NFL Championship Game in 1958 grew in popularity, the game that was known as the “Greatest Game Ever Played. The American Football League also known as the AFL started in 1960 a rival football league to the National Football League, with the pressure it put between the two football leagues before the merger of the two leagues is how the start of the Super Bowl game began. The Super Bowl turned out to be the most watched television event each and every year in the United States.

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