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ABOUT
GRIDIRON (NORTH AMERICAN) FOOTBALL
Gridiron football
(or simply football), sometimes known as North
American football, is an umbrella term for related
codes of football primarily played in the United States
and Canada. The predominant forms of gridiron football
are American football and Canadian football. The terms
refer to the sport's characteristic playing field, which
is marked with a series of parallel lines resembling a
gridiron.
"Gridiron" football
developed in the late 19th century out of the older
games related to the games now known as rugby football
and association football. It is distinguished from other
football codes by its use of helmets and shoulder pads,
the forward pass, the system of downs, a line of
scrimmage, more specialist positions and formations,
free substitution, platooning—the use of different
players for offense and defense, measurements in yards,
and the ability to score points while not in possession
of the ball by way of the safety. Walter Camp is
credited with creating many of the rules that
differentiate gridiron football from its older
counterparts.
The international
governing body for all forms of gridiron football is the
International Federation of American Football (IFAF).
American football
is the most common and widely known of the
gridiron-based football codes. It is played with eleven
men to a side, four downs and a 100-yard field. The IFAF
uses the name "American football" in its name and
statutes, identifying it as being "made up by American
football played under whatever set of rules, Canadian
football, flag football, touch football,
peewee-football, indoor American football and related
activities for amateur and professionals". Note that the
premier professional league in America, the NFL, has its
own distinct code, Official Playing Rules of the
National Football League. Colleges in America
generally play under the code defined in NCAA
Football Rules and Interpretations. High Schools in
America generally follow the rules and interpretations
published by the National Federation of High School
Associations (NFHS), although at some states follow the
NCAA code for high school play. Youth games (below high
school age) generally follow NFHS code with
modifications. Adult semi-pro, amateur, touch, flag,
etc. may follow any one of these codes or use their own
rules. While the vast majority of the game is the same
among these three codes, subtle variations in rules can
lead to large difference in play. Many of the
differences are in penalty enforcement and the
definitions of fouls.
Canadian football
is played exclusively in Canada. It was originally more
closely related to rugby until the Burnside rules were
adopted. The game is played on a 110-yard field and has
three downs and twelve men to a side. The Canadian game
also allows players to move forward toward the line of
scrimmage before the snap, which is forbidden in most
versions of American football, and also features a
one-point "single" for a ball kicked into the end zone
and not returned by the receiving team. Like the
American game, the Canadian Football League and Canadian
Interuniversity Sport both have their own rulebooks for
the game, although there are generally fewer differences
than between their American counterparts.
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ABOUT THE CFL &
GREY CUP
The Canadian Football
League or CFL is a professional sports league
located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of
competition in Canadian football, and it is a form of
gridiron football closely related to American football.
Its nine teams, which are located in nine cities, are
divided into two divisions —the East
Division and the West Division. The league's 19-week
regular season runs from late June to early November;
each team plays 18 games with one bye week. Following
the regular season, the three teams with the best
records in their division (except if the fourth place
team in one division has a better record than the third
place team in the other division, the team with the
better record makes the playoffs and "crosses over" to
the other division's playoff) will compete in the
league's three-week divisional playoffs, which culminate
in the late-November Grey Cup championship, the
country's largest annual sports and television event.
The CFL was officially
founded on January 19, 1958 and it is the second oldest
and continuously operating Gridiron football league in
North America. It is the highest level of play in
Canadian football, the most popular football league in
Canada, and the second-most popular major sports league
in Canada, after the National Hockey League.
The
Grey Cup is both the name of the championship of the
Canadian Football League (CFL) and the name of the
trophy awarded to the victorious team. It is Canada's
largest annual sports and television event, regularly
drawing a Canadian viewing audience of about 3 to 4
million individuals. In 2009 the 97th Grey Cup
competition between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the
Montreal Alouettes drew the largest TV audience in Grey
Cup history with 6.4 million viewers. The 98th Grey Cup,
played November 29, 2010, is second in Grey Cup history
with 6.25 million viewers.
The award
was founded and the trophy commissioned by Governor
General of Canada the Earl Grey. Like the Stanley Cup
(also formed by a former governor general and used in
the National Hockey League), the Grey Cup is reused
every year. This varies from other professional sports
leagues, which make a new but identical trophy every
season for the new champion. Similarly, the Grey Cup
also has the name of the winning players, coaches, and
management staff (President and General Manager)
engraved on its chalice.
     
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ABOUT THE NFL &
SUPER BOWL
The National Football
League (NFL) is the highest level of
professional American football in the United States, and
is considered the top professional American football
league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in
1920 as the American Professional Football
Association, with the league changing its name to
the National Football League in 1922. The league
currently consists of thirty-two teams from the United
States. The league is divided evenly into two
conferences – the American Football Conference (AFC) and
National Football Conference (NFC), and each conference
has four divisions that have four teams each, for a
total of 16 teams in each conference. The NFL is an
unincorporated association, a federal non-profit
designation, comprising its 32 teams.
The
regular season is a seventeen-week schedule during which
each team plays sixteen games and has one bye week. The
season currently starts on the Thursday night in the
first full week of September and runs weekly to late
December or early January. At the end of each regular
season, six teams from each conference (at least one
from each division) play in the NFL playoffs, a
twelve-team single-elimination tournament that
culminates with the championship game, known as the
Super Bowl. This game is held at a pre-selected site
which is usually a city that hosts an NFL team.
The
Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the
National Football League (NFL), the highest level of
professional American football in the United States,
culminating a season that begins in the late summer of
the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman
numerals to identify each game, rather than the year in
which it is held. For example, Super Bowl I was played
on January 15, 1967, following the 1966 regular season,
while the most recent game, Super Bowl XLVI, was played
on February 5, 2012, to determine the champion of the
2011 season.
The game
was created as part of a merger agreement between the
NFL and its then-rival league, the American Football
League (AFL). It was agreed that the two leagues'
champion teams would play in an AFL–NFL World
Championship Game until the merger was to officially
begin in 1970. After the merger, each league was
redesignated as a "conference", and the game was then
played between the conference champions. Currently, the
NFC leads the series with 25 wins to 21 wins for the
AFC.
The winner
of the Super Bowl is awarded the Vince Lombardi
Trophy.
Initially inscribed with the words "World Professional
Football Championship" and generally referred to as the
world championship trophy, it was officially renamed in
1970 in memory of legendary Green Bay Packers head coach
Vince Lombardi after his sudden death from cancer and to
commemorate his victories in the first two Super Bowls.
In 1971, it was presented for the first time as the
Vince Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl V when the Baltimore
Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys 16-13. It has also
been referred to as the "Tiffany Trophy" after the
Tiffany & Co.
  
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