History of Football

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  • When did football start

    When did football start
    On November 6, 1869, Rutgers and Princeton played what was billed as the first college football game. However, it wasn't until the 1880s that a great rugby player from Yale, Walter Camp, pioneered rules changes that slowly transformed rugby into the new game of American Football.

  • First black head coach

    First black head coach
    Akron Pros star Fritz Pollard adds coaching responsibilities to his on-field duties, becoming the NFL's first black head coach.

  • strongest franchise survives

    strongest franchise survives
    The NFL, hoping to eliminate rampant turnover in financially weak franchises, decides to eliminate all but its most economically stable teams. The move cuts the number of franchises from 22 to 12, and permanently moves the league's center of gravity from small Midwestern towns to large Eastern cities.

  • First draft

    First draft
    The NFL holds its first annual draft of college players. The first player selected, Heisman Trophy winner Jay Berwanger, chooses to pursue a career in plastics manufacturing instead of pro football and never plays a down in the NFL.

  • First televised game

    First televised game
    An NFL game airs on television for the first time, with NBC producing a local broadcast of a game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Eagles. Since fewer than 1,000 TV sets are known to exist in New York at the time, it is unclear whether anyone actually watches the broadcast.

  • First NFL MVP

    First NFL MVP
    Born: February 17, 1936 in St. Simons Island, GA (Age 79.323)
    High School: Manhasset
    College: Syracuse (school history) (Brown college stats)
    Drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the 1st round (6th overall) of the 1957 NFL Draft.
    Weighted Career AV (100-95-...): 108 (66th overall since 1950)
    Relatives: Father-In-Law of Chris Ward
    9-time Pro Bowler & 8-time First-Team All-Pro (fine print)
    Inducted into Hall of Fame in 1971

  • Vince Lombardi with Packers

    Vince Lombardi with Packers
    Vince Lombardi is named head coach of the Green Bay Packers, who won just one game the previous season.

  • First superbpwl

    First superbpwl
    Image result for first super bowl
    On January 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL) smash the American Football League (AFL)'s Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the first-ever AFL-NFL World Championship, later known as Super Bowl I, at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.

  • Brett Favre retires

    Brett Favre retires
    In a an emotional press conference, the Green Bay Packers' Brett Favre announces his retirement from football after 17 hard-fought seasons in which he started a remarkable 253 consecutive games at quarterback. Favre, the only three-time MVP in NFL history, leaves the game holding the league's all-time records in passing attempts, completions, yards, touchdowns, and wins as a starting quarterback.

  • Steelers win fifth title

    Steelers win fifth title
    For the second straight year, the Super Bowl hosts a riveting football game. After Arizona nearly pulls off the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, storming back from a 20-7 deficit to take the lead with only two minutes remaining in the game, Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger finds wideout Santonio Holmes in the corner of the end zone for a game-winning touchdown with only 35 seconds remaining on the clock. The Steelers become the first franchise in NFL history to win six Super Bow