Development of Football

Football is a mans sport! You have top give up your body and all your free time to play football. People call the football field, the gridiron. Football has changed a lot, from the jerseys the players wear to the equipment we use. Football was a deadly sport back then, people would break bones and lose teeth. Until this guy came along and changed the game.

Walter Camp came up with American football back in 1879. The rules are like American rugby. The first two teams to play American football were Rutgers and Princeton. On “November 6, 1869, Rutgers University faced Princeton University in a game that was played with a round ball.”

Football back then was mixture of soccer and rugby. Football got banned at Princeton University on 1860 and a year later Harvard university banned it. Walter Camp developed a new way of football back in 1878. He changed how many players you can have on the field at one time, the line of scrimmage, and you have to have the center snap the ball to the quarterback.

The forward pass didn’t come till 1906. It was meant not only to open up the game, but also to reduce injuries. 19 deaths were reported in 1905; President Theodore Roosevelt threatened shutting down the game if the rules were not changed.

It was also a gamble to pass the ball. An incomplete pass resulted in a 15-yard penalty, and a pass that was dropped without being touched meant the possession went to the defensive team. It wasn’t till 1907 when Glenn Scobey drew up trick plays such as the flea flicker, reverses, and end routs. On a kickoff he made a play that the player with the ball would tuck it in his jersey and all the other players would run around so the other team would get confused and wouldn’t know who had the ball.

The NFL has ch...

... middle of paper ...

...hen the season was over for NFL players, all they did was sit around, but now players trade 365 days. They are trying to get better because if they don’t practice someone else will take their spot. One of the reasons players practice everyday is because they want to be the very best. Who wants to finish second, when they can be first? And that’s why the Super Bowl is such a big thing to the coaches and players in the NFL. They bust their butts to get there, and only one team will have a happy ending. The Super Bowl is the biggest game in the NFL, every off-season player and coaches work to get there. The Super Bowl was first played on January 15, 1967 the Green Bay Packers were the first team to win the Super Bowl and they didn’t just win the first one, they one the second too. The Super Bowl got its name after the first coach to win the Super Bowl, Vince Lombardi.