In September, a birthday passed with little acclaim: the most monumental invention in football, the forward pass. 

It seems strange now to think that football didn’t always have the pass.  But nothing exists in a vacuum.  Football evolved from Rugby, where the forward pass is illegal, so in the start, it was only natural to not allow passing.

To trace the pass, you have to go back over a hundred years ago.  There is no “real” professional football.  Passing has only been used illegally, accidentally, and/or experimentally.  The game is popular in high schools and colleges and it is extraordinarily violent.  Violent as in people were dying violent.  There was some movement to try and ban the sport. Read the full story

Continuing our look into the stories behind the names of the NFL playoff teams, we now move on to the NFC.

The New York Giants
Technically the New York Football Giants, this team is one of the oldest in the league.  They joined the league in 1925 and have been forever in the ownership of the Mara family.  Before 1956 the team played in New York’s famed Polo Grounds which at the time housed the New York Giants of baseball, before they moved to San Francisco.  I haven’t been able to find it absolutely confirmed anywhere, but in the era (see Pittsburgh Steelers) football teams who were tenets of baseball teams often took the same name as their hosts.

One Sunday in December by Lou Sahadi gives a nice breif history of the club. Read the full story

We did this over here earlier for the baseball playoffs and it was a lot of fun.  So as the NFL playoffs begin, let’s look again at where the names of the competitors come from.  Starting with the AFC:

The Tennessee Titans
The Titans have some of the most fun name history out of the whole bunch.  The Titans used to be the Tennessee Oilers, and the Tennessee Oilers used to be the former AFL team the Houston Oilers (which makes a lot more sense).  So the team changed its name in 1999 and became the Titans, therefore picking up a bit of legacy from the former (and also former AFL team) New York Titans, who became the New York Jets.  So in one team’s name, you can draw associations to three other teams!  There isn’t much of a story behind the Titans name, it was changed to coincide with the team getting a new stadium, (the Oilers name only was around for two years) and it was supposed to be less geographically specific as the Oilers and reflect powerful, intimidating qualities. Read the full story

We’ve been talking lately about the “Greatest Game Ever Played.”  The 50th anniversary just passed so I thought it would be appropriate to give a few recommendations for some further reading.  Besides watching the actual game, the two books that have most informed me are right here:

One Sunday In December by Lou Sahadi

This book’s greatest strength is its even handedness, as they say, the winners write the history so most of the time stuff focuses on the Colts.  Not so with this one.  There are two forwards, one written by the Colts’ Gino Marchetti and another written by the Giants’ Sam Huff, bound forever by that controversial play.  Before the game recap, the chapters alternate between the two cities.  The book keeps things pretty brief and succinct.  It assumes a bit of a base knowledge of the game, but does a good job filling in the surrounding details, talking about the state of the NFL at the time as well as mentioning various cultural events that were happening.  Overall, it’s a good all around book for getting the scoop on the game.

Johnny U by Tom Callahan

This book is more of a biography but it uses the game as kind of a climatic point.  Being more about Unitas, the book isn’t nearly as evenhanded as the other one, but it had a great, great, play by play breakdown of the game.  Interspersed with these are cutaways, some blurbs, some longer, giving greater depth into the plays.  They range from interviews with the players, to narratives on things like practice routines.  Basically, you get the play and the story of how the play was even possible.  This helps build up some nice tension, and Callahan never over does it by trying to describe every little thing, you get the breakdown, a couple of interesting details, and you can really fill in the blanks.

Here is a linkto a different kind of view of the game.  It disputes, though not totally, the theory that the 58 game sparked the television movement.  The theory here is that it helped, but it was really Lombardi’s Packers that made the difference.  I think that is a fair point, though I would argue that more has to do with the creation of a viable competitor with the AFL as a direct result of the 58 game.  One hand washes the other as the saying goes.

Currently I’m reading The Colts’ Baltimore by Michael Olesker and the early impressions are good.  As the title suggests, it focuses on the impact that the Colts had on the city of Baltimore in the late 1950’s.  Those who don’t have much of an interest in Baltimore may not find it the best read, but it is still interesting to see the far reaching effects that a sports team can have on an area and that can be applied to any team.

So that about covers it.  There are tons of articles and books about the game out there, especially now given the anniversary.  I encourage everyone to get out there and check them out!  Don’t hesitate to let me know if there’s anything particularly good I should take a look at.

In that grand NFL championship game of 1958, the final seconds ticked away with the score knotted at 17.  No one really knew what to do.  Gino Marchetti, who had insisted that he stay on the sidelines after having his ankle broken, was taken to the locker room under duress.  The fear was that spectators would swarm the field, as happened frequently in those days, and his injury would be aggravated or worse.

Some believed that that was it.  The game ended in a tie, the prize money would have to be split, and they could all go home.  Others just waited around to be told what would happen.  The situation had never occurred before, so no one knew what to expect.  The rules came down, there would be an overtime, fifteen minutes like a quarter but with one new wrinkle.  It was to be sudden death, whoever scored first would win the game, and the losers would have no chance to respond. Read the full story