Football Season is Here!

As you may know, its that time of Season again. Football Season! Yes, football season. Ever since the 1930's or the 1940's, football wasn't America's past-time. Until the 1950's to Present, football became America's past-time. It became a household name. No matter where you lived, no matter where you came from. Football, or I should say; "American Football" became the talk of the 20th century. To find out more, click bottom!↓

Football History
The history of football can be traced back as later versions of rugby football. Both games have their origins in comparison of football played in Britain in the mid-19th century. Football is a game that is played by kicking a ball through a goal or carrying a ball over a line.

American football became a major divergence from rugby, notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp, a Yale graduate considered to be the "Father of American Football".  Introduced the line of scrimmage and of downs-and-distances rules. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, game-play developments made by college coaches such as Eddie Cochems, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Knute Rockne, and Glenn Scobie "Pop" Warner helped pave the way of the newly introduced forward pass.

The popularity of football grew as it became the dominant versions of the sport in the United States for the first half of the 20th century. Bowl games became a college football tradition, attracted a national audience for college teams. Boosted by fierce rivalries, college football still holds the record of widespread appeal in the US.

The origins of professional football can be traced back around 1892, as William "Pudge" Heffelfinger's $500 dollar contract to play in a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. In 1920 the American Professional Football Association was formed.

This league changed its name to the National Football League (NFL) two years later, and eventually became the major league of American football. Many Midwestern industrial towns in the United States formed professional football teams, eventually became a national phenomenon. Football's increasing popularity is usually sought after the 1958 NFL Championship Game, a contest that has been dubbed the "Greatest Game Ever Played". A rival league to the NFL, the American Football League (AFL), began play in 1960; the pressure it made upon the senior league led to a merger between the two leagues, therefore the creation of the Super Bowl, which has become the most watched television event in the United States on an annual basis.

Levels of the Sport
Once the sport of "American Football" became popular in American culture. There created levels of the sport, like; Pop Warner. It all began in 1929 when the owner of a new factory in Northeast Philadelphia enlisted the aid of a young friend, Joseph J. Tomlin, to solve a recurring problem. The factory's huge ground floor windows were constantly being shattered (100 broken windows) in just one month by juvenile delinquents hurling stones from a nearby vacant lot.


Joe Tomlin, an enthusiastic athlete who had excelled in sports in high school and college, had a possible answer. Since the other factories in the area were also being plagued by the vandals, he suggested to all the building owners to get together and fund an athletic program for kids. In those days, the city didn't have an organized recreation program to keep idle kids occupied and out of trouble.

The owners agreed to the plan and asked Tomlin to set up the program. Commuting from his job as a stockbroker in New York City, he returned to his home in Philadelphia each weekend. Fall was approaching, so football seemed to be the right choice to begin with for the new project. He set up a schedule of four teams for a Junior Football Conference in time for the 1929 season.

Then October came, as soon as the collapse of the stock market plummeted. He left New York and returned to Philadelphia to concentrate on the youth project.

By 1933, the Junior Football Conference had expanded to 16 teams. That year Glenn Scobie "Pop" Warner, already a legend among active football coaches, arrived in Philadelphia to coach the Temple Owls. Joe Tomlin met Pop Warner at a winter banquet and asked him to lecture at a spring clinic Tomlin was planning for his JFC teams.

On the evening of April 19th, 1934, the temperature dropped to an unseasonable low, with high winds and torrential rain mixed with sleet. A dozen area college football coaches were scheduled to speak at the clinic, only Pop Warner showed up. The 800 excited young football players kept him talking and answering questions for two hours. By the end of the evening, by popular acclaim, the fledgling youth program was renamed the Pop Warner Conference.

The prestigious Warner name was a powerful attraction. By 1938, there were 157 teams. Most of the players were at least 15 years old. Competition was organized along top weight class only, except for the youngest kids. Teams represented neighborhoods in the city, while suburban teams represented towns.

High School Football
High school football is played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries.

High school football began in the late 19th century, concurrent with the start of many college football programs. In the late 19th and early 20th century, many college and high school teams played against one another. Other traditions of high school football such as pep rallies, marching bands, mascots, and homecomings are mirrored in college football.

College Football
College football is American football game played by teams of student athletes

fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies. As for Canadian football, the game is played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities. It was through college football, that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.

The Draft

The National Football League Draft, also called the player selection meeting, is held in April after the season ends, which is an annual event in which the National Football League (NFL) teams select eligible college football players.

It serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. The basic design of the draft is that, each team is given a position in the drafting order, in a reverse order from the previous year, i.e., the last place team gets positioned first.

From this position, the team can either select a player or trade their position to another team for other draft positions, a player or players, or any combination thereof. After each team has utilized its position in the drafting order, whether by trading or selecting a player, a round would be complete.

Certain aspects of the draft, including team positioning and the number of rounds in the draft, have seen revisions since its first creation in 1936, but the fundamental methodology has remained the same. Currently the draft consists of seven rounds.

The original role in creating the draft was to increase the competitive status between the teams, which are the worst teams would, ideally, have chosen the best player available. In the early years of the draft, players were chosen based on hearsay, print media, or other rudimentary evidence of a player's ability. In the 1940's, some franchises began employing full-time scouts. The ensuing success of their corresponding teams eventually forced the other franchises to also hire scouts.

Occasionally, the name of the draft each year takes on the form of the NFL season in which players that is picked could begin playing. For example; the 2010 NFL draft was for the 2010 NFL season. However, the process has changed since its inception. The location of the draft has continually changed over the years to accommodate more fans, as the event has gained in popularity. The draft's popularity now garners prime-time television coverage.

The NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league
that constitutes one of the four major professional sports leagues in North America. It is composed of 32 teams divided equally between the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). The highest professional level of the sport in the United States, the NFL runs a 17-week regular season from the week after Labor Day to the week after Christmas, with each team playing sixteen games and having one bye week each season. Out of the league's 32 teams, six (four division winners and two wild-card teams) from each conference compete in the NFL playoffs, a single-elimination tournament to be placed on the road to the Super Bowl.

The game is played between the champions of the NFC and AFC. The champions of the Super Bowl are awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Various other awards exist to recognize individual players and coaches. Most games are played on Sunday afternoons and Sunday nights, some games are also played on Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season. There are games on Saturdays during the first two playoff weekends. Sometimes, there are also Saturday games during the last few weeks of the regular season.

The NFL was formed on August 20th, 1920, as the American Professional Football Conference; the league changed its name to the American Professional Football Association (APFA) on September 17th, 1920, the league changed its name to the National Football League on June 24th, 1922, after spending the first two seasons as the APFA. In 1966, the NFL agreed to merge with the rival American Football League (AFL), effective 1970; the first Super Bowl was held at the end of that same season in January 1967.

Today, the NFL has the highest average attendance (67,591) of any professional sports league in the world and is the most popular sports league in the United States. The Super Bowl is among the biggest club sporting events in the world and individual Super Bowl games account for many of the most-watched television programs in American history. At the corporate level, the NFL is a nonprofit 501(c)(6) association. The NFL's executive officer is the commissioner, who has broad authority in governing the league.


Each team is allowed to have up to 53 players during the regular season, but only 46 can be active (eligible to play) on game days. Teams are given exclusive rights to sign free agents that have three or fewer seasons in the league, but free agents that have been in the league at least four years can sign with any team of their choosing. Each team is subject to a salary cap. The champions of the most recent season; the 2013 season, are the Seattle Seahawks™, who defeated the Denver Broncos™ by a score of 43-8 in Super Bowl XLVIII. The team with the most championships is the Green Bay Packers™, who have won 13 championships. The team that currently has the most Super Bowl championships is the Pittsburgh Steelers™, who have won six.

The Pro Bowl
In professional American football, the Pro Bowl is the all-star game of the National Football League (NFL). From the merger with the rival American Football League (AFL) in 1970 up through 2013, it was officially called the AFC–NFC Pro Bowl, matching the top players in the American Football Conference (AFC) against those in the National Football Conference (NFC).

The start of 2014, the teams will not be based on the two conferences, and will instead be chosen by two team captains in a televised fantasy draft four days prior to the game. Unlike most other North American sports leagues, which hold their all-star games roughly midway through their respective regular seasons, the Pro Bowl is played around the end of the NFL season. Between the 1970's merger and 2009, it was usually held on the weekend after the Super Bowl. During 2010, the Pro Bowl was played on the weekend one week before the Conference Championship game a week before the Super Bowl.


The NFL's all-star game has tattered its image. It is the only major all-star game in history that draws lower TV ratings than its regular-season games, although the game draws similar ratings to other major all-star games such as the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. However, the biggest concern of each franchise players is to avoid injuries.

The Associated Press wrote, that players in the 2012 game were: "hitting each other as though they were having a pillow fight."

The NFL Combine
The NFL Combine is held annually during February 19th-25th of each year. It is a time when scouts of each franchise team, will have the ability to scout their

potential prospects of athlete's all across the country of the United States. Once each of the athletes are selected to participate in the combine. Their skills and abilities will be tested. Then they will be on the road to the selection process, which is; The NFL Draft.





Conclusion
I hope that this article brought some attention and enthusiasm for you? I hope that all the information that I have gathered, have brought some insight and understanding of what this sport is all about and where it originated from. But, I hope that what I have obtained for you was informational? And so, enjoy your reading and if you have any comments or questions please contact us? We love to answer your questions.