6 Comments
User's avatar
NoFearSmokedBeer's avatar

A spread offense in 1908 is a wild thing to imagine. Clearly different without the shotgun or forward pass, but I'd love to see some clippings or pictures.

Expand full comment
David Perlmutter's avatar

Canadian football is played with ten yards and three downs- at least the CFL does it that way.

Expand full comment
Football Archaeology's avatar

They adopted it from the U.S. with the Burnside Rules in the early 1900s. The U.S. shifted to ten yards on three downs in 1906 and ten yards on four downs in 1912.

Expand full comment
Mark Ferguson's avatar

Unrelated question. Having option to kickoff after yielding a score still exists in Canada and went out 2003 in NCAA but when did NFL eliminate or was it never in their rules?

Expand full comment
Football Archaeology's avatar

I did some searching, but could not find the answer. The NFL gave the scored on team the choice of kicking or receiving until at least 1959, but the trail went dead after that.

Expand full comment
Mark Ferguson's avatar

Well at least I know it existed. In some corner of my brain I thought it was in the 70’s but didn’t have any luck but found your mention of 2003 for NCAA.

Expand full comment