American football is the backbone of American society but did it start in America? well I am here to tell you that it didn't. "American football" actually didn't start in America it originated in Britain it was separated by the idea of the "forward pass". This was when America took interest and was first played competitively in college when a Yale graduate "changing" the British version of the "kicking" game to the now American version of the "running" game adding rules such as the "line of scrimmage" and the naming of positions. It grew bigger and bigger in college before the first professional contract was handed out for a game between Allegheny athletic association vs Pittsburgh athletic association in 1920. This was when the American professional football association was formed and later called the national football league ( NFL ) as it is today. At the start professional football was only really in the Midwestern industrial towns in America before it came a national phenomenon new rules were introduced in the 1932 NFL playoff game where the forward pass was disallowed in front of the line of scrimmage and the movement of the goal posts behind the touchdown zone. Other important events such as the first Heisman trophy awarded in 1935 (the prestigious college award), the first NFL draft in 1936 and the first televised game in 1939. The 1930s shaped the game we now know as American football from a game that wasn't even started in America.