Portal:American football

The American Football Portal

American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with possession of the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with the ball or throwing it, while the defense, the team without possession of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and to take control of the ball for themselves. The offense must advance the ball at least ten yards in four downs or plays; if they fail, they turn over the football to the defense, but if they succeed, they are given a new set of four downs to continue the drive. Points are scored primarily by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.

American football evolved in the United States, originating from the sports of soccer and rugby. The first American football game was played on November 6, 1869, between two college teams, Rutgers and Princeton, using rules based on the rules of soccer at the time. A set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", established the snap, the line of scrimmage, eleven-player teams, and the concept of downs. Later rule changes legalized the forward pass, created the neutral zone, and specified the size and shape of the football. The sport is closely related to Canadian football, which evolved in parallel with and at the same time as the American game, although its rules were developed independently from those of Camp. Most of the features that distinguish American football from rugby and soccer are also present in Canadian football. The two sports are considered the primary variants of gridiron football.

American football is the most popular sport in the United States in terms of broadcast viewership audience. The most popular forms of the game are professional and college football, with the other major levels being high school and youth football. As of 2022^[update], nearly 1.04 million high-school athletes play the sport in the U.S., with another 81,000 college athletes in the NCAA and the NAIA. The National Football League (NFL) has one of the highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, ranks among the most-watched club sporting events globally. In 2022, the league had an annual revenue of around $18.6 billion, making it the most valuable sports league in the world. Other professional and amateur leagues exist worldwide, but the sport does not have the international popularity of other American sports like baseball or basketball; the sport maintains a growing following in the rest of North America, Europe, Brazil, and Japan.

Unlike most other ball sports, like basketball, baseball, and soccer, players of American football are not expected to play both offense and defense- usually, each player is assigned to either offense or defense, not both. As such, each individual player usually only plays for, at most, about half of the game. In modern professional American football, it is very rare, although not unheard of, for players to play both offense and defense. Players who play on both sides of the ball are more common in high school and college football. (Full article...)

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Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

The history of American football can be traced to early versions of rugby football and association football. Both games have their origin in multiple varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, in which a football is kicked at a goal or kicked over a line, which in turn were based on the varieties of English public school football games descending from medieval ball games.

American football resulted from several major divergences from association football and rugby football. Most notably the rule changes were instituted by Walter Camp, a Yale University athlete and coach who is considered to be the "Father of American Football". Among these important changes were the introduction of the hike spot, of down-and-distance rules, and of the legalization of forward pass and blocking. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, gameplay developments by college coaches such as Eddie Cochems, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Parke H. Davis, Knute Rockne, and Glenn "Pop" Warner helped take advantage of the newly introduced forward pass. The popularity of college football grew as it became the dominant version of the sport in the United States for the first half of the 20th century. Bowl games, a college football tradition, attracted a national audience for college teams. Boosted by fierce rivalries and colorful traditions, college football still holds widespread appeal in the United States (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various American football-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Sign at the old entrance to the Pro Football Hall of Fame (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 2High school football stadium in Manhattan, Kansas (from History of American football)
Image 3Tom Davies of Pittsburgh runs against undefeated and unscored upon Georgia Tech in the 1918 game at Forbes Field (from History of American football)
Image 4A game between the Hamilton Tigers and the Ottawa Rough Riders, 1910 (from Canadian football)
Image 5Jim Thorpe was the first president of the NFL. (from History of American football)
Image 6A moment of the second game between Tufts and Harvard at College Hill, October 1875 (from History of American football)
Image 7One of the two Harvard vs. McGill games played in 1874 (from History of American football)
Image 8Don Hutson in 1940. (from History of American football)
Image 91906 St. Louis Post-Dispatch photograph of Brad Robinson, who threw the first legal forward pass and was the sport's first triple threat (from History of American football)
Image 10Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium, originally built for the 1978 Commonwealth Games, pictured in 2005. (from Canadian football)
Image 11Hanged U-shaped Continental Indoor Football League goalpost (from Arena football)
Image 12An early American football team, from the turn of the twentieth century (from History of American football)
Image 13Footballs and a helmet at a Calgary Stampeders (CFL) team practice (from Canadian football)
Image 14Original entrance to the Pro Football Hall of Fame (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 15Sewanee's 1899 "Iron Men" (from History of American football)
Image 16Montreal Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo looks down field with the ball during the 93rd Grey Cup game at BC Place. (from Canadian football)
Image 17Lehigh Valley Steelhawks (gold jerseys with black accents) vs. Triangle Torch (black jerseys with red and yellow accents) play an American Indoor Football game at Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, March 25, 2016 (from Arena football)
Image 18A football signed by the 1974 Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement class (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 19A college football game between Colorado State University and the Air Force Academy (from History of American football)
Image 20Colorado's first football team in 1890 (from History of American football)
Image 21The Hall is made up of several sections with display of the inductees at its heart (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 22Touchdown monument outside the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in Hamilton, Ontario (from Canadian football)
Image 23The Big Game between Stanford and California was played as rugby union from 1906 to 1914 (from History of American football)
Image 24An arena football goalpost structure featuring the rebound nets on either side of the uprights. (from Arena football)
Image 25Inside the original structure in 2008 (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 261902 football game between the University of Minnesota and the University of Michigan (from History of American football)
Image 27A Native American college football team (from History of American football)
Image 281897 Latrobe Athletic Association football team: The first entirely professional team to play an entire season. (from History of American football)
Image 29Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", pictured here in 1878 as the captain of the Yale University football team (from History of American football)
Image 30Indoor Football League (from Arena football)
Image 31Diagram of a Canadian football field (from Canadian football)
Image 32Morgan Athletic Club (pictured c. 1900), predecessor of the Arizona Cardinals (from History of American football)
Image 33A modern down indicator box is mounted on a pole and is used to mark the current line of scrimmage. The number on the marker is changed using a dial. (from Canadian football)
Image 34Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium with the Hall of Fame in lower right (from Pro Football Hall of Fame)
Image 35A game between the 4th Canadian Armoured Division Atoms and First Canadian Army Red and Blue Bombers, in Utrecht, Netherlands, October 1945 (from Canadian football)

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Gerald Ford

Credit: Gerald R. Ford Library

Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States, played center and linebacker for the Michigan Wolverines, helping his team to two national titles.

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Michael Joseph "Mo" Scarry (February 1, 1920 – September 9, 2012) was an American football player and coach. He grew up in Pennsylvania, and played football in college at Waynesburg College in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania and went on to join the Cleveland Rams in the National Football League (NFL) as a center following a stint in the United States Army during World War II. The Rams moved to Los Angeles after winning the 1945 NFL championship, and Scarry elected to stay in Cleveland and play for the Cleveland Browns under coach Paul Brown in the new All-America Football Conference (AAFC). The Browns won the AAFC championship in 1946 and 1947 while Scarry was on the team.

Scarry, who coached the basketball team at Western Reserve University in Cleveland during his playing career, retired from professional football after the 1947 season to take up a post as head coach of the school's football team. He stayed there for two seasons before moving to Santa Clara University in California as an assistant coach. Scarry then moved in 1952 to Loras College in Iowa as an assistant. After a stint at Washington State University, he spent six years as the line coach for the University of Cincinnati. Scarry served as head football coach at Waynesburg, his alma mater, for three seasons between 1963 and 1965. The following year he started his first professional coaching job with the NFL's Washington Redskins, and became the defensive line coach of the Miami Dolphins three years later. He stayed with the Dolphins for 15 seasons, during which the team won two Super Bowls, until his retirement. Scarry was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 2000. (Full article...)

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Calendar

2023 season: NFL • NCAA FBS (Bowl games)
Jan 8	College Football National Championship: #1 Michigan vs #2 Washington
Jan 13-15	NFL: Wild Cards
Jan 20-21	NFL: Divisional games
Jan 28	NFL: Conference games
Feb 4	NFL: Pro Bowl Games
Feb 11	NFL: Super Bowl LVIII