Portal:American football

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The American Football Portal

American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with possession of the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with the ball or throwing it, while the defense, the team without possession of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and to take control of the ball for themselves. The offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs or plays; if they fail, they turn over the football to the defense, but if they succeed, they are given a new set of four downs to continue the drive. A game is won by the team with the higher number of points, which are scored primarily by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal.

American football evolved in the United States, originating from the sports of soccer and rugby. The first American football match was played on November 6, 1869, between two college teams, Rutgers and Princeton, using rules based on the rules of soccer at the time. A set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", established the snap, the line of scrimmage, eleven-player teams, and the concept of downs. Later rule changes legalized the forward pass, created the neutral zone, and specified the size and shape of the football. The sport is closely related to Canadian football, which evolved in parallel with and at the same time as the American game, although its rules were developed independently from those of Camp. Most of the features that distinguish American football from rugby and soccer are also present in Canadian football. The two sports are considered the primary variants of gridiron football.

American football is the most popular sport in the United States in terms of broadcast viewership audience. The most popular forms of the game are professional and college football, with the other major levels being high-school and youth football. , nearly 1.04 million high-school athletes play the sport in the U.S., with another 81,000 college athletes in the NCAA and the NAIA. The National Football League (NFL) has the highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world. Its championship game, the Super Bowl, ranks among the most-watched club sporting events globally. In 2022, the league had an annual revenue of around $18.6 billion, making it the most valuable sports league in the world. Other professional and amateur leagues exist worldwide, but the sport does not have the international popularity of other American sports like baseball or basketball; the sport maintains a growing following in the rest of North America, Europe, Brazil, and Japan. (Full article...)
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The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The Jets play their home games at MetLife Stadium (which they share with the New York Giants) in East Rutherford, New Jersey, 5 miles (8.0 km) west of New York City. The team is headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey. The franchise is legally organized as a limited liability company under the name New York Jets, LLC.

The team was founded in 1959 as the Titans of New York, an original member of the American Football League (AFL); later, the franchise joined the NFL in the AFL–NFL merger in 1970. The team began play in 1960 at the Polo Grounds. Under new ownership, the current name was adopted in 1963 and the franchise moved to Shea Stadium in 1964 and then to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in 1984. The Jets advanced to the playoffs for the first time in 1968 and went on to compete in Super Bowl III where they defeated the Baltimore Colts, becoming the first AFL team to defeat an NFL club in an AFL–NFL World Championship Game. Since joining the NFL in 1970 as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) the Jets have won the AFC Eastern Division twice, in 1998 and 2002; appeared in the playoffs 12 times, and in the AFC Championship Game four times, most recently losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2010. However, the Jets have never returned to the Super Bowl, making them one of two NFL teams to win their lone Super Bowl appearance along with the New Orleans Saints, and one of five teams (along with the Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans) never to win a conference championship since the AFL–NFL merger in 1970. The franchise currently holds the longest active playoff drought in the NFL and in all "Big 4" North American sports leagues, having not qualified for the playoffs since the 2010 season. The Jets also have the longest championship drought among New York's major professional sports franchises, having eclipsed the New York Rangers' 54-year drought (from 1940 to 1994) in 2023. (Full article...)
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The following are images from various American football-related articles on Wikipedia.

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Commander in Chief's Trophy
Commander in Chief's Trophy
Credit: Naval Academy Athletic Association
The Commander in Chief's Trophy is a college football rivalry traveling trophy presented annually since 1972 to the side from the United States Military Academy Black Knights, United States Naval Academy Midshipmen, and Air Force Academy Falcons to win the round-robin series played amongst the three.

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Streets in the Nike summer basketball Chi-League in 2014

Tai Lamar Streets (born April 20, 1977) is a former professional American football wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected with the second pick of the sixth round of the 1999 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Detroit Lions in 2004. He was the leading receiver for the national champion 1997 Michigan Wolverines football team.

In high school, he was an All-American in football and as a senior led his team to a 9–0 regular season before losing in the playoffs. In basketball, he was an All-State selection by numerous publications and led his team past Kevin Garnett's high school team to reach the finals of the state championship playoff tournament. Despite losing in the finals, he was the highest votegetter on the All-tournament team. In track, he was a state long jump champion as a junior and runner-up as a senior when he also helped his school's 4 x 400 metres relay team finish third in the state. In 1995, he was widely regarded as the best high school athlete in the Chicago metropolitan area, winning athlete of the year awards from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and Illinois High School Association. He is considered to be one of the greatest three-sport athletes in the history of Illinois. (Full article...)

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Playing football is obviously very strenuous. It's exhausting. You have to try very hard in football. But there's no heroic risk involved.
— Gregg Easterbrook

American writer, on the consideration of professional football players as heroes

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