Football History thread

[Double Barrel]

I saw this picture, but did not know where to put it to share with y'all. So, figured a football history thread would be a good place to start.

A man testing a prototype football helmet. [1912]

Source: Glimpse Into Our Amazing Past With These Historic Photos

 

[Playoffs]

 

[Double Barrel]

Nice!

And no football history image thread can go without this famous shot:

Good write up about it, too: Awakening The Giant

"As Y.A. Tittle's memory fades and his body breaks down, the Hall of Fame QB finds fleeting moments of solace in a daughter's love and a final trip home."

 

[Playoffs]

Purple people eaters

 

[Double Barrel]

“Concrete Charlie”, the best interior lineman ever drafted by the Eagles

 

[Double Barrel]

"Given that football was a contact sport right from its inception, uniforms were made for durability out of heavier materials like wool.

Teams may have coordinated on colors, but they didn't exactly wear every color under the rainbow. Most uniforms were some shade of black, brown, navy or other dark colors."

"Not all progress in the push for a safer football helmet went in the right direction. This leather helmet modeled by New York Giants player Hinkey Haines was meant to offer full facial protection to players."

"The same year that plastic head protection was banned also saw their first year a team's emblem was affixed to the helmet.

Los Angeles Rams halfback Fred Gehrke painted horns on his helmet, a move later adopted by the organization. In this photo, Rams quarterback Norman Van Brocklin sports the team helmet as worn in 1951."

Source

 

[bah007]

Alan Ameche scores the winning TD in the "Greatest Game Ever Played":

This game is famous for several reasons:

The 1958 NFL Championship was the first NFL game to go into sudden-death overtime.

Pat Summerall was the Giants' Kicker. Tom Landry was their Defensive Coordinator. And this was Vince Lombardi's final game as their Offensive Coordinator. He joined the Packers the very next year.

The Colts' Head Coach was Weeb Ewbank. This was the first of three titles for him as a Head Coach. The Colts repeated the next year, and 10 years later he was the coach of Joe Namath's Jets when they won Super Bowl III, which is still considered to be the one of the biggest upsets in NFL history.

Raymond Berry caught 12 passes, a Championship record that stood for 55 years.

Unitas led the Colts on an 8 play, 73 yard drive in the final two minutes to send the game into overtime. The pace of the attack wore out the Giants defense. The Giants got the ball first in sudden death and went three and out. With the tired Giants defense back on the field the Colts decided to use their "two minute" offense once again, blistering down the field 80 yards in 13 plays, with Unitas calling every play from the field to shorten the time between snaps. These two drives coined the phrase "two minute offense", which has since been a staple in every team's playbook for decades.

This game, due to it's historic finish in front of a national audience, is credited with being the driving force behind the growth of the sport, leading to the birth of the AFL one year later as the public cried for more football.

 

[Double Barrel]

Good choice, bah007!

 

[Double Barrel]

The Time Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football

After 18 players died on the field, the president decided it was time to change the game.

During the late 1870s, American “foot ball” resembled a combination of soccer and rugby with a riot mob mentality. Almost anything went: Players could carry the ball, kick it, or pass it backward. Starting in 1880, Walter Camp, a Yale player now known as the father of American football, introduced a series of changes to make the game more strategic. Unfortunately, some ended up making the game more dangerous. The most infamous example was Harvard’s “Flying Wedge,” inspired by Napoleonic war tactics: Offensive players assumed a V-shaped formation behind the line of scrimmage, then converged en masse on a single defensive lineman. “Think of it—half a ton of bone and muscle coming into collision with a man weighing 160 or 170 pounds,” wrote The New York Times in 1892.

Within a few years, the Wedge was abolished, but the introduction of nose guards and flimsy leather helmets—both of which were optional—created illusions of safety that encouraged even more violent plays. The crowds ate it up—by the early 1890s, 40,000 fans attended the biggest games. But criticism, too, was growing. Charles Eliot, president of Harvard, became the unofficial leader of the anti-football movement. By 1895, he was calling for an outright ban.

Football did have one towering supporter on its side, though: Teddy Roosevelt, a Harvard grad whom Eliot had once called “feeble.” Roosevelt espoused “muscular Christianity,” a belief that the path to a stronger spirit was a stronger body. Though he never played the game, partially due to his reliance on glasses, Roosevelt was a devoted fan.

Full article

 

[TexasCowboy]

Dwight Clark's "catch" remember it well heart breaker Walls was out of position on that play