The history of American football can be traced to early versions of
rugby football and
association football. Both games have their origins in
varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, in which a ball is kicked at a
goal and/or run over a line. Many games known as "football" were being played at colleges and universities in the United States in the first half of the 19th century.
[8][9]
Walter Camp
American football resulted from several major divergences from
rugby football, most notably the rule changes instituted by
Walter Camp, considered the "Father of American Football". Among these important changes were the introduction of the
line of scrimmage and of
down-and-distance rules. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, game play developments by college coaches such as
Eddie Cochems,
Amos Alonzo Stagg,
Knute Rockne, and
Glenn "Pop" Warner helped take advantage of the newly introduced
forward pass.
The popularity of
collegiate football grew as it became the dominant version of the sport for the first half of the twentieth century.
Bowl games, a college football tradition, attracted a national audience for collegiate teams. Bolstered by fierce
rivalries, college football still holds widespread appeal in the US.
[8][10][11]
The origin of
professional football can be traced back to 1892, with
William "Pudge" Heffelfinger's $500 contract to play in a game for the
Allegheny Athletic Association against the
Pittsburgh Athletic Club. The first Professional "league" was the
Ohio League, formed in 1903, and the first Professional Football championship game was between the
Buffalo Prospects and the
Canton Bulldogs in 1919. In 1920, the American Professional Football Association was formed. The first game was played in
Dayton, Ohio on October 3, 1920 with the host
Triangles defeating the
Columbus Panhandles 14–0. The league changed its name to the
National Football League (NFL) two years later, and eventually became the
major league of American football. Initially a sport of Midwestern industrial towns in the United States, professional football eventually became a national phenomenon. Football's increasing popularity is usually traced to 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 put on the senior league led to a
merger between the two leagues and the creation of the
Super Bowl, which has become the most watched television event in the United States on an annual basis.
[12]
it doesn't take away from the fact that the name is silly 
and smoke it to my dome 