Most fans know American football evolved from rugby and soccer. But few appreciate just how messy and unpredictable that evolution was, or how many of the sport’s defining features emerged from piecemeal changes that stuck. In How Football Became Football, football historian Timothy P. Brown traces the transformation of the game across 150 years, showing how rule tweaks, new equipment, and field dimensions gradually reshaped the sport into the version we know today.
This is not a team-by-team chronicle or a tale of iconic seasons. Instead, Brown divides football history into three broad eras — 1869–1905, 1906–1959, and 1960–2018 — and explores how each period brought a new wave of innovation. Within each section, he takes a thematic approach, examining changes to the ball, field, gear, coaching, officiating, gameplay, and the sport’s cultural footprint. From the introduction of the forward pass to the relocation of the hash marks, he shows how even modest adjustments could ripple through the game, affecting strategy, scoring, attendance, and more.
The book stands out for its clarity and structure. Each chapter is organised in a way that makes the game’s evolution easy to follow, and the patterns that emerge, such as the push toward faster movement down the field and higher scores, help explain why certain changes endured. Brown’s use of historical illustrations, period photos, and play diagrams adds visual interest while reinforcing key themes.
Title: How Football Became Football
Author: Timothy P Brown
First published: Brown House Publishing, 2020
Buy the Book: Amazon US | Amazon UK*
RELATED
Top Five: History
Review: America’s Game
Review: The Pro Style
Brown, who has written four books and is a regular on football history podcasts, earned a reputation for meticulous research and deep curiosity. With its wide-angle view and fine-grain detail, How Football Became Football is a rare kind of football book – sweeping in scope but precise in focus. It’s a smart, approachable read for fans who want to understand not just what changed in football history, but why.
THE AUTHORS
Tim Brown is the author of four books on football history and writes the Football Archaeology Substack. He guest authors articles on Uni Watch, and his research on the 1920s West Point Cavalry Detachment teams contributed to All American: The Power of Sports, displayed at the National Archives Museum in Washington, D.C.
QUOTES
“Crew and baseball already dominated the spring, students were not on campus in the summer, and Northeastern winters were too cold to play, so the autumn was the only option. Finally, football became institutionalized as a fall sport when the IFA established a championship game each Thanksgiving in New York.”
“Balls fumbled “in touch” or out of bounds remained live, leading offensive and defensive players to scramble over benches, water jugs, band members, cinder tracks, and all manner of obstacles to grab the ball.”
“Until 1890. coverage teams could distract the man catching the ball by waving their stocking caps nearby, but they could not get in his way.”
“The decision to switch to the Tele-Goal affected one of football’s iconic plays during the 1967 Championship Game, commonly known as the Ice Bowl. In the game’s closing seconds, Bart Starr executed a quarterback sneak behind the block of right guard, Jerry Kramer. Had the NFL not switched to the Tele-Goal that year, the play would have occurred virtually on top of the left goal post and potentially caused the Packers to change their play call. Thankfully, the Tele-Goal was in place, the play was successful, and the Cowboys lost. All was right with the world.”
“During practice one day […] the quarterback bobbled the snap and was unable to hand the ball to the running back. The quarterback, seeing the backside defensive end pinch inside to pursue the running back, kept the ball and ran it backside in the area just abandoned by the defensive end. Like Bill Yeoman in 1964, it was a Eureka moment for Rodriguez who recognized that the backside pursuit that threatened the inside zone run provided an opportunity for the quarterback to keep the ball and run away from the pursuit. Rodriguez turned the mistake into an option play now known as the zone read or read option.”
REVIEWS
Unfolding 150 years of sports history is no easy task, but Tim Brown manages it with clear, well-paced writing that keeps the reader engaged. It’s clear that an enormous amount of research underpins this book, yet Brown includes only what’s necessary, never allowing the narrative to become a dump of names, dates, or facts.
A big part of what makes it work is the clarity of purpose. Although the book touches on areas like social history, sporting bureaucracy, and the media landscape, each is brought in only when it helps answer the central question: how did a ramshackle 19th-century pastime evolve into the highly produced spectacle we see in stadiums and on television today?
There’s no single answer, and that’s part of the appeal. Brown carefully unpacks dozens of small changes, from rule tweaks to off-field developments, showing how each played a role in shaping the game. The result is a fascinating, well-organised account of football’s long transformation.
Shane Richmond, Pigskin Books
“The research that was done in this book was enormous and precise. It was written in basic terms to that it is easily understandable to both the advanced historian/collector of the gridiron game and to the casual weekend fan of football.”
Bob Swick, Gridiron Greats
BUY THE BOOK
* As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
