The Nfl Year One

A landmark year in the history of the game

For many football fans, the National Football League season of 1970 was a landmark year in the history of the game. The NFL and the American Football League finally began playing as a merged league--one that featured such legendary figures as George Blanda, Tom Dempsey, Vince Lombardi, George Allen, Sid Gillman, Lamar Hunt, and Al Davis. The NFL, Year One focuses on several key games throughout this thrilling initial season. One saw the Raiders and Browns play in Cleveland. This contest serves as the backdrop for the story of forty-three-year-old Oakland kicker Blanda, who went on that season to win or tie four consecutive games in the last seconds, becoming a hero to middle-aged American men. Among other notable games that Brad Schultz examines are the Browns-Jets game that marked the debut of Monday Night Football with commentators Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell, and "Dandy" Don Meredith; the Chiefs-Vikings game that served as a rematch for the Super Bowl IV competitors; and the Colts-Jets game that ultimately set the scene for the 1970 players' strike. Schultz also demonstrates how the season continues to influence the NFL today. Meticulously researched and thoroughly entertaining, The NFL, Year One is a riveting account of one of the most important and compelling seasons in NFL history. Any fan will surely enjoy Schultz's revisiting of the game's amazing 1970 season.

From the former executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame comes a sweeping and lively history of the National Football League, timed to coincide with the NFL’s 100th anniversary season. “I can think of no one better qualified—or more enthusiastic—to chronicle the National Football League’s century-long history than Joe Horrigan.”—Marv Levy, Hall of Fame NFL coach The NFL has come a long way from its founding in Canton, Ohio, in 1920. In the hundred years since that fateful day, football has become America’s most popular and lucrative professional sport. The former scrappy upstart league that struggled to stay afloat has survived a host of challenges—the Great Depression and World War II, controversies and scandals, battles over labor rights and competition from rival leagues—to produce American icons like Vince Lombardi, Joe Montana, and Tom Brady. It is an extraordinary and entertaining history that could be told only by Joe Horrigan, former executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and perhaps the greatest living historian of the NFL, by drawing upon decades of NFL archives. Compelling, eye-opening, and authoritative, NFL Century is a must-read for NFL fans and anyone who loves the game of football. Advance praise for NFL Century “Joe Horrigan takes the reader on a delightful tour of the seminal moments of the NFL in the past one hundred years—the players, owners, coaches, executives, and historical events that made the game of football the most popular in America. It’s a wonderful walk down memory lane for any football fan, young or old.”—Michael Lombardi, author of Gridiron Genius “There is no one—and I mean no one—who knows more about the history of the NFL than Joe Horrigan, the heart and soul of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As the gold standard of sports leagues celebrates its one hundredth season, it’s appropriate that the gold standard of sports historians has written NFL Century, an entertaining and educational journey.”—Gary Myers, New York Times bestselling author of Brady vs Manning

After years of competing against each other, the American Football League (AFL) and the National Football League (NFL) merged to form one football powerhouse in 1970.Considered by the media, sports fans, players, and coaches as a more "amateur league," the AFL emerged as a true contender when the New York Jets upset the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in 1969. The AFL took home its first Super Bowl trophy that year and forged a path for what would become the NFL as we know it.After the merger, the league split into two conferences: the AFC and the NFC. In the year 1970, thirteen teams would battle in each conference to meet in Super Bowl V. After a history of tough losses in big games, two teams rose to the top-the Dallas Cowboys and the Baltimore Colts. NFL 1970 also includes stories and anecdotes about:?43-year-old Quarterback/Kicker George Blanda leading the Oakland Raiders into the playoffs with several heroic come-from-behind wins?A new playoff format introducing a "wild card" slot?The creation of Monday Night Football and how it changed prime-time television sports forever?The clashing of legendary players and coaches like Larry Czonka, Bubba Smith, Terry Bradshaw, Johnny Unitas, John Madden, and more

Presents the author's first-hand account of his experiences playing football in the NFL, the first player of Vietnamese descent to achieve that goal, and includes information on his faith, his family, and his career.

The 1970 merger between the American Football League and the National Football League laid the foundation for a stronger brand of gridiron competition, providing a new level of excitement for fans. This book examines each year of the NFL's pivotal decade in detail, covering the great names, great rivalries and great games, as well as the key changes in both strategy and rules. Along the way, the author explains how pro football developed into a near-religious American tradition.

Congratulations, you just got drafted into the NFL. Now what? Here’s what’s ahead of you: rigorous training, complicated playbooks, financial conundrums, intense pressure to perform—and temptation. Welcome to the big leagues. Informative, smart, funny, and beautifully illustrated, The Rookie Handbook has everything NFL rookies need to know to survive their first season of pro football, straight from veterans Ryan Kalil, Jordan Gross, and Geoff Hangartner. The three authors have a combined thirty years of NFL experience, but they too were rookies themselves, once upon a time. Much like rookies, NFL fans only know what they see on TV or read—obsessively following Rich Eisen and scouring obscure blogs for fantasy football info. But when it comes to what goes on in the inner sanctum, behind the locker room doors, it’s a mystery. The Rookie Handbook is the insider’s guide to that exclusive club, pulling back the curtain to reveal how players act and think—and what they do when no one is watching.

Like the iconic Roman numerals of the Super Bowl, American football is a sport in which many games and seasons are branded into fan memories. Perhaps the most significant of them all --the founding of the league in 1920--is ironically the most obscure and least well known.Despite the passion for football and its history, few people have inquired about what happened during the first year of the league's existence.Complicating this story is the fact that there are no films of its games to transport us visually to that time. Radio was also an emerging technology, and there are no play-by-play broadcasts for us to hear. Furthermore, there is no one alive today who remembers watching these first teams battle in the mud and snow. As we now approach the 100th year of the NFL's existence in 2020, it is time to unveil the mystery of its first season. Certainly, some of the legacies of this era remain prominent today. Jim Thorpe is remembered as the "greatest athlete of the first half of the 20th century." His team's city, Canton, Ohio, is honored as the birthplace of professional football and is the home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. However, along with Thorpe and his Canton Bulldog legends, there is a great deal more to the story of the first season of the NFL. This forgotten year is about to emerge from obscurity as every football player will wear a patch for the 2019-2020 season with the logo "100NFL" on his jersey. The centennial of the most popular American sport is upon us. It is time to find out what happened in year one.