Selected I
History of Football · 01
The Leagues
From the APFA's auto-showroom founding to the merger — who survived and why.
→The record of the American game — how the leagues, the rules, and the numbers got this way.
The American game's record, kept honestly
How the leagues formed, why the rules changed, and what the record book actually says — sourced from the primary record.
From 1869 to the seventeen-game season
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In the archive
Selected II
History of Football · 02
The Rules
Why the rulebook reads the way it does, one change at a time.
Selected III
History of Football · 03
The Records
Era-labeled records — including the ones that can never fall.
— Hover to preview.
Insights
From the blog
Feature
Oldest Player in NFL History: George Blanda
Blanda played his final NFL season at age 48, then retired shortly before his 49th birthday—clarifying why he did not play at 49.
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Feature
How Long Is the History of American Football?
American football's organized history runs about 150 years — from the 1869 Rutgers–Princeton game through the NFL's 1920 founding to today's 17-game seasons.
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