Football's chains and down boxes arrived as football left its rugby roots. Safety concerns and officiating crews growth brought further change before settling on a simple, elegant design.
Good stuff. The faux-precision of the 10-yard chains is one of the two weirdest relics of football that we still use. The fact that the original chain marker is marked by eye from 20+ yards away and then we measure within millimeters as needed is silly.
The other crazy relic is kicking specialists! We have big, strong fast athletes play on the field for 95% of the plays, and then bring in a kicking specialist to do something completely unlike the rest of the game, to often decide the outcome of games!
Good stuff. The faux-precision of the 10-yard chains is one of the two weirdest relics of football that we still use. The fact that the original chain marker is marked by eye from 20+ yards away and then we measure within millimeters as needed is silly.
The other crazy relic is kicking specialists! We have big, strong fast athletes play on the field for 95% of the plays, and then bring in a kicking specialist to do something completely unlike the rest of the game, to often decide the outcome of games!