“NFL” National Football League History

It’s hard to overstate just how little the world cared when in 1920 four football teams formed a professional football league in Canton, Ohio. Or how no one took notice when they invited more teams to join from Illinois, Indiana, New York, Michigan, and Ohio, and named themselves the All-American Football Association.

There had been previous attempts at professional football. Beginning with the Western Pennsylvania Senior Independent Football Conference in 1892. But college football was king, most other teams were amateurs. Every attempt at creating a professional league had failed. Surely this one would as well.

And it nearly did. In that first season in 1920, of the 14 teams that began the season, only four played a full schedule. The problem was the schedule was made up on the fly. Not every game was played against a league team. And the league champion was decided at a year-end meeting.

It was not a great start by any measure.

How the NFL Evolved

But the league evolved, growing to 22 teams, keeping standings in that second year.  Only counting league games in the standings. Also, letting the standings determine the champion. Novel concepts.

In 1922 the name of the league was changed to the National Football League, more teams came and went. A team in Green Bay led by a former college football star Curly Lambeau played its first season in the league.

It’s hard to picture those early days of financial struggles and bankrupt franchises with the game we know today. The $4.65 billion that was just paid to buy the Denver Broncos. George Halas, and Lambeau, and all of those early owners had no expectation of what was to come.

From struggling to draw any fans, to a worldwide phenomena and a Super Bowl Sunday that is an unofficial American holiday. Full stadiums of 80,000,  and the biggest television audiences every year. An NFL streaming service that makes live NFL football available in 181 countries around the world.

NFL Big Changes from Last Season – NFL

The Los Angeles Rams are the defending Super Bowl champions. The pride of the financial model of the NFL is what it brings to the league in parity. The team that lost to the Rams in the Super Bowl, the Bengals, won just four games in the year before their Super Bowl run.

So expect a change at the top in 2022. The NFL has played 56 Super Bowls, and only eight times has a team repeated as champion. The last time it happened was 2004, when the Patriots won their second consecutive Super Bowl.

New Changes to the Playoff Overtime Rules

The biggest on the field change is the new playoff overtime rules. The impetus for the change came after the Chiefs beat the Bills in the Divisional Round when Patrick Mahomes led an opening overtime touchdown drive, and Buffalo’s Josh Allen never got the ball.

Now both offenses are guaranteed at least one possession in overtime in the playoffs. Of note is that in 2018 the Chiefs were on the short-end of the exact same scenario, with Mahomes not getting the football and Kansas City losing. The Chiefs proposed the same change in the rules then, but the NFL owners rejected the proposal.

QB Changing Teams for 2022

We have a number of starting quarterbacks changing teams for the 2022 season. The biggest of these is Russell Wilson going to Denver after 10 seasons in Seattle. Matt Ryan is with the Colts after 14 seasons in Atlanta. Baker Mayfield is now a Panther after four years in Cleveland, and Carson Wentz is in Washington and playing for his third team.

Nine of the NFL’s 32 teams have new head coaches in 2022, and five of those coaches – Brian Daboll, Matt Eberflus, Kevin O’Connell, Mike McDaniel, and Nathaniel Hackett – are NFL head coaches for the very first time.