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
Scroll to explore
Platform
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
Forest Hills Stadium Capacity: 12,000 or 13,000 by Source
FOX 5 New York says 13,000 and mtheory says 12,000. See what each figure leaves undefined, how to cite the range, and why it is not a football ground.
Read more
Feature
NFL Week 1 Scoring Record History by Category
2012 and 2026 share 791 points across 16 games, while per-game, single-game and one-team records require separate historical comparisons.
Read more
Feature
Ray Lewis Has the Most Recorded NFL Tackles
He leads available regular-season career data with 2,059 combined and 1,568 solo tackles, though incomplete early records limit all-era comparisons.
Read more
Get started