1.
Fayetteville, North Carolina
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Fayetteville is a city in Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States. It is the county seat of Cumberland County, and is best known as the home of Fort Bragg, Fayetteville has received the All-America City Award from the National Civic League three times. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 200,564 and it is the sixth-largest municipality in North Carolina. Fayetteville is in the Sandhills in the part of the Coastal Plain region, on the Cape Fear River. With an estimated population in 2013 of 210,533 people, the Fayetteville metropolitan area is the largest in southeastern North Carolina, suburban areas of metro Fayetteville include Fort Bragg, Hope Mills, Spring Lake, Raeford, Pope Field, Rockfish, Stedman, and Eastover. Fayettevilles mayor is Nat Robertson, who is serving his second term, the area of present-day Fayetteville was historically inhabited by various Siouan Native American peoples, such as the Eno, Shakori, Waccamaw, Keyauwee, and Cape Fear people. They followed successive cultures of indigenous peoples in the area for more than 12,000 years. Two inland settlements, Cross Creek and Campbellton, were established by Scots from Campbeltown, Argyll and Bute, merchants in Wilmington wanted a town on the Cape Fear River to secure trade with the frontier country. They were afraid people would use the Pee Dee River and transport their goods to Charleston, the merchants bought land from Newberry in Cross Creek. Campbellton became a place where poor whites and free blacks lived, Fayetteville was the first city to be named in his honor in the United States. Lafayette visited the city on March 4 and 5,1825, the local region was heavily settled by Scots in the mid/late 1700s, and most of these were Gaelic-speaking Highlanders. The vast majority of Highland Scots, recent immigrants, remained loyal to the British government, despite this, they were eventually defeated by a larger Revolutionary force at the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge. The area also included a number of active Revolutionaries, in late June 1775, residents drew up the Liberty Point Resolves, which preceded the Declaration of Independence by a little more than a year. Robert Rowan, who organized the group, signed first. Robert Rowan was one of the leading public figures of the 18th century. A merchant and entrepreneur, he settled in Cross Creek in the 1760s and he served as an officer in the French and Indian War, as sheriff, justice and legislator, and as a leader of the Patriot cause in the Revolutionary War. Rowan Street and Rowan Park in Fayetteville and a chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution are named for him, though Rowan County was named for his uncle. Flora MacDonald, a Scots Highland woman known for aiding Bonnie Prince Charlie after his Highlander armys defeat at Culloden in 1746 and she was a staunch Loyalist and aided her husband to raise the local Scots to fight for the King against the Revolution
2.
2006 NFL Draft
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The 2006 National Football League Draft, the 71st in league history, took place in New York City, New York, at Radio City Music Hall on April 29 and April 30,2006. For the 27th consecutive year, the draft was telecast on ESPN and ESPN2, with additional coverage offered by ESPNU and, for the first time, by the NFL Network. Having signed a contract with the Houston Texans on the evening before the draft, Mario Williams, the selection surprised many commentators, who predicted that the Texans would draft Southern California running back Reggie Bush or Texas quarterback Vince Young. Ohio State produced the most first round selections, while Southern California produced the most overall selections, twenty-seven compensatory and supplemental compensatory selections were distributed amongst seventeen teams, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, and Tennessee each held three compensatory picks. The league also held a draft after the regular draft. The 255 players chosen in the draft were composed of, For each player selected in the Supplemental Draft, nelson later turned to professional basketball himself. He was then released the following season, NFL draft history,2006 full draft. Archived from the original on October 24,2008, pro Football Hall of Fame website. Archived from the original on December 20,2008
3.
2006 NFL season
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The 2006 NFL season was the 87th regular season of the National Football League. Regular season play was held from September 7 to December 31,2006, the NFL title was eventually won by the Indianapolis Colts, when they defeated the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI at Dolphin Stadium at Miami Gardens, Florida on February 4. Under the flexible-scheduling system, all Sunday games in the affected weeks tentatively had the start times of 1 p. m. ET/10 a. m. PT, except played in the Pacific or Mountain time zones. On the Tuesday 12 days before the games, the league moved one game to the primetime slot and this was the first season that NBC held the rights to televise Sunday Night Football, becoming the beneficiaries by negotiating the new flexible-scheduling system. ESPN became the new home of Monday Night Football, replacing sister network American Broadcasting Company, meanwhile, CBS and Fox renewed their television contracts to the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference packages, respectively. Louis Rams – Scott Linehan, replaced interim head coach Joe Vitt who replaced Mike Martz who was not allowed to coach due to problems during the 2005 season. W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PCT = Winning Percentage, PF= Points For, PA = Points Against Clinched playoff seeds are marked in parentheses, no tie games occurred this year. Tiebreakers Source,2007 NFL Record and Fact Book a Cincinnati finished ahead of Pittsburgh in the AFC North based on division record, B Tennessee finished ahead of Jacksonville in the AFC South based on division record. C Kansas City finished ahead of Denver in the AFC West based on division record, D Indianapolis clinched the AFC #3 seed based on their head-to-head victory over New England. E New Orleans clinched the NFC #2 seed based on their victory over Philadelphia. Giants clinched the NFC #6 seed based on strength of victory than Green Bay, while Carolina. Giants and Green Bay had better conference records, within each conference, the four division winners and the two wild card teams qualified for the playoffs. The four division winners are seeded 1 through 4 based on their overall won-lost-tied record, the NFL does not use a fixed bracket playoff system, and there are no restrictions regarding teams from the same division matching up in any round. In the first round, dubbed the wild-card playoffs or wild-card weekend, the division winner hosts the sixth seed wild card. The 1 and 2 seeds from each conference then receive a bye in the first round, in the second round, the divisional playoffs, the number 1 seed hosts the worst surviving seed from the first round, while the number 2 seed will play the other team. The two surviving teams from each divisional playoff games then meet in the respective AFC and NFC Conference Championship games. Although the Super Bowl, the fourth and final round of the playoffs, is played at a neutral site, * Indicates overtime victory 2007 Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium, Honolulu, Hawaii, AFC31, NFC28 End zone celebrations became more restricted
4.
History of the St. Louis Rams
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The professional American football franchise now known as the Los Angeles Rams played in St. Louis, Missouri, as the St. Louis Rams from the 1995 through the 2015 seasons. The Rams franchise relocated from Los Angeles to St. Louis in 1995 and their last game played at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis was against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on December 17,2015, which they won, 31–23. The Rams last game as a St. Louis-based club was on January 3,2016, against the San Francisco 49ers at Levis Stadium, but the overall mediocrity of the Cardinals, combined with stadium issues, caused game attendance to dwindle. And once again the Bidwills, the family owned the Cardinals. The cities they looked at included Baltimore, Phoenix, New York City, nonetheless, Cardinals fans were unhappy at losing their team, and Bill Bidipll, fearing for his safety, stayed away from several of the 1987 home games. Their last home game was on December 13,1987, in which the Cardinals won 27–24 over the New York Giants in front of 29,623 fans on a late Sunday afternoon. Not long after the 1987 season, Bidipll agreed to move to the Phoenix area on a deal with state and local officials. They planned to play at Arizona State Universitys Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe on a basis while a new stadium was being built. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, the savings and loan crisis derailed financing for the stadium, prior to the Rams 1979 Super Bowl season, owner Carroll Rosenbloom drowned in an accident. His widow, Georgia Frontiere, inherited 70% ownership of the team, Frontiere fired her step-son, Steve Rosenbloom, and assumed total control of the franchise. As had been planned prior to Carroll Rosenblooms death, the Rams moved from their home at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to Anaheim Stadium in nearby Orange County in 1980. Also, Southern Californias population patterns were changing, there was growth in L. A. s affluent suburbs. Anaheim Stadium was originally built in 1966 as the home of the California Angels Major League Baseball franchise, to accommodate the Rams move, the ballpark was reconfigured with luxury suites and enclosed to accommodate crowds of about 65,000 for football. In 1982 the Coliseum was occupied by the Los Angeles Raiders, the combined effect of these two factors was to force the Rams traditional fan base to be split between two teams. Making matters even worse, at time the Rams were unsuccessful on the field. Although it was not apparent at the time, the Rams loss in the 1989 NFC Championship Game marked the end of an era, the Rams would not have another winning season in Los Angeles for the remainder of the century, and beyond. The first half of the 1990s featured four straight 10-loss seasons, no playoff appearances, the return of Chuck Knox as head coach would not boost the Rams fortunes. Knoxs run-oriented offense brought about the end of offensive coordinator Ernie Zampeses tenure in 1993, general manager John Shaw was perceived by some to continually squander NFL Draft picks on sub-standard talent
5.
2013 NFL season
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The 2013 NFL season was the 94th season in the history of the National Football League. The Super Bowl was played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Sunday and it was the first Super Bowl hosted by New Jersey and the first to be held outdoors in a cold weather environment. The Seahawks scored 12 seconds into the game and held the lead the rest of the way, Manning also was named the Offensive Player of the Year for the second time in his career. Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly earned Defensive Player of the Year honors, scoring reached historic levels throughout the league in 2013. As a whole the league set records for points scored, points scored per game. The Broncos set a new standard for scoring in the regular season with 606 points. In addition to the Broncos, ten teams each scored over 400 points. The regular season got underway on Thursday, September 5,2013, the regular season wrapped up on Sunday night, December 29. The playoffs began with the wild card round which took place the first weekend of January 2014, both home teams prevailed to set up just the second Super Bowl matchup of #1 seeds in the past 20 seasons. The 2013 league year began at 4 pm EST on March 12, the per-team salary cap was set at US$123,000,000. This period, which was referred to by some as the legal tampering period, a total of 524 players were eligible for some form of free agency. Eight players were assigned the franchise tag by their teams. These players were Brandon Albert, Jairus Byrd, Ryan Clady, Michael Johnson, Pat McAfee, Henry Melton, Anthony Spencer, none of these players changed teams. Smith had been the first overall selection of the 2005 NFL Draft, March 11 – Wide receiver Percy Harvin was traded by the Vikings to the Seahawks for the Seahawks 2013 first-round and seventh-round selections as well as the Seahawks third-round pick in 2014. The Seahawks subsequently signed Harvin to a 6-year, $67 million contract extension which includes $25.5 million in guaranteed money, March 11 – The 49ers acquired wide receiver Anquan Boldin from the Ravens for a sixth-round selection in the 2013 draft. Boldin, a three-time Pro Bowler and former Offensive Rookie of the Year, had refused to accept a pay cut that the Ravens had requested, April 21 – Cornerback Darrelle Revis was traded by the Jets to the Buccaneers. The Jets received the Bucs first round pick in 2013, the 13th overall selection and a conditional pick which would become the Bucs fourth-round selection in 2014. The Bucs signed Revis to a 6-year, $96 million contract, in-season September 18 – In a bit of a shocking mid-season move the Browns traded running back Trent Richardson to the Colts in exchange for the Colts first-round pick in the 2014 draft
6.
Miami Dolphins
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The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football franchise based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League as a club of the leagues American Football Conference East division. The Dolphins play their games at Hard Rock Stadium in the northern suburb of Miami Gardens, Florida. The Dolphins and the Atlanta Falcons are the oldest NFL franchises in the Deep South, however, of the four AFC East teams, they are the only team in the division that was not a charter member of the American Football League. The Dolphins team was founded by attorney-politician Joe Robbie and actor-comedian Danny Thomas and they began play in the AFL in 1966. For the first few years the Dolphins full-time training camp and practice facilities were at Saint Andrews School, in 1970 the Dolphins joined the NFL when the AFL–NFL merger occurred. The team made its first Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl VI, Miami also appeared in Super Bowl XVII and Super Bowl XIX, losing both games. For most of their history, the Dolphins were coached by Don Shula. Under Shula, the Dolphins posted losing records in two of his 26 seasons as the head coach. During the period spanning 1983 to the end of 1999, quarterback Dan Marino became one of the most prolific passers in NFL history, Marino led the Dolphins to five division titles,10 playoff appearances, and Super Bowl XIX before retiring following the 1999 season. During the summer of 1966, the Dolphins training camp was in St. Pete Beach with practices in August at Boca Ciega High School in Gulfport. The Dolphins had a combined 15–39–2 record in their first four seasons under head coach George Wilson, before Don Shula was hired as head coach. Shula was a Paul Brown disciple who had been lured from the Baltimore Colts after losing Super Bowl III two seasons earlier to the AFLs New York Jets and finishing 8–5–1 the following season. Interestingly, Shula got his first NFL coaching job from then-Detroit Head Coach George Wilson, when Shula replaced Wilson at Miami the Colts charged the Dolphins with tampering in their hiring of Shula, costing the Dolphins their first round draft pick in 1971. Shula introduced himself to the Miami press by saying that he didnt have any magic formulas, Shulas early training camps with the Dolphins, with four workouts a day, would soon be the stuff of sweltering, painful legend. But Shulas hard work paid dividends, as Miami improved to a 10–4 record and their first-ever playoff appearance. The Dolphins were successful in the early 1970s, becoming the first team to advance to the AFC Championship for three consecutive seasons and they captured the AFC championship in 1971 behind quarterback Bob Griese, running backs Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick, and wide receiver Paul Warfield. The AFC Divisional Playoff Game, in which the Dolphins defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, was the longest contest in NFL history, in Super Bowl VI, however, Miami lost to the Dallas Cowboys 24–3
7.
2014 NFL season
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The 2014 NFL season was the 95th season in the history of the National Football League. The 2014 league year began at 4 pm EST on March 11, the per-team salary cap was set at US$133 million, a $10 million increase from the previous year. A total of 471 players were eligible for some form of free agency at the beginning of the free agency period, in addition, a number of highly paid players were released after the start of the league year to allow their teams to regain space under the salary cap. These players were defensive end Greg Hardy, tight end Jimmy Graham, placekicker Nick Folk, players given the transition tag were Jason Worilds and Alex Mack. Mack signed a five-year, $42 million offer sheet with the Jacksonville Jaguars which included $26 million in guaranteed money, the Browns matched the offer and retained Mack who became the leagues highest paid center. One restricted free agent switched teams in 2014, wide receiver Andrew Hawkins of the Bengals was signed by the Browns, restricted free agents are players with three or fewer seasons in the league whose contracts have expired. Teams may tender contract offers which allow them to match offers from other teams, Hawkins was tendered at the minimum level, which means the Bengals would not receive any draft compensation. The Browns signed him to a $13.6 million, four-year offer, Saints safety Rafael Bush signed an offer from the Falcons, but the Saints retained Bush by matching the offer. The 2014 NFL Draft was held May 8–10,2014, in New York City, the draft process began with the NFL Scouting Combine, where draft-eligible players were evaluated by team personnel, which was held in Indianapolis on February 19–25. The draft included a number of 98 non-seniors. In the draft the Houston Texans made University of South Carolina defensive end, there was discussion leading up to the draft as to the future of the event in New York City, where it had been held since 1965. Given the increased interest in the draft over the past decade, there was a belief that the event may have outgrown Radio City Music Hall, the possibility of extending the draft to four days was also being discussed. On October 2,2014, Auditorium Theatre in Chicago was announced as the site for the following years draft. Training camps for the 2014 season were held in late July through August, teams may start training camp no earlier than 15 days before the teams first scheduled preseason game. Prior to the start of the season, each team played four preseason exhibition games. The preseason schedule got underway with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on Sunday evening, the Hall of Fame game is a traditional part of the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame induction weekend celebrating new Hall of Fame members. It was played at Fawcett Stadium which is located adjacent to the Hall of Fame building in Canton, the game, which was televised in the U. S. on NBC, featured the New York Giants and Buffalo Bills, with the Giants winning 17–13. The others who were inducted into the Hall of Fame are linebacker Derrick Brooks, punter Ray Guy, defensive end Claude Humphrey, offensive tackle Walter Jones, the 65-game preseason schedule wrapped up on Thursday, August 28, a week before the start of the regular season
8.
Carolina Panthers
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The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League, as a club of the leagues National Football Conference South division. The team president is Danny Morrison, and the coach is Ron Rivera. The Panthers were announced as the leagues 29th franchise in 1993 and they did not have another winning season until 2003, when they won the NFC Championship Game and reached Super Bowl XXXVIII, losing 32–29 to the New England Patriots. After recording playoff appearances in 2005 and 2008, the failed to record another playoff appearance until 2013. After losing in the round to the San Francisco 49ers in 2013 and the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, the Panthers finally returned to the Super Bowl in 2016. The Panthers have reached the playoffs seven times, advancing to four NFC Championship Games and they have won six division titles, one in the NFC West and five in the NFC South. The Carolina Panthers are legally registered as Panther Football, LLC, the team is headquartered in Bank of America Stadium in uptown Charlotte, also the teams home field. They are one of the few NFL teams to own the stadium they play in, the team hosts its annual training camp at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. On December 15,1987, entrepreneur Jerry Richardson announced his bid for an NFL expansion franchise in the Carolinas. Richardson drew his inspiration to pursue an NFL franchise from George Shinn, who had made a bid for an expansion National Basketball Association team in Charlotte. Richardson founded Richardson Sports, a partnership consisting of himself, his family, Richardson looked at four potential locations for a stadium, ultimately choosing uptown Charlotte. In choosing the name, the Richardsons did not run focus groups with potential fans. Their intention had always been the Panthers, Jerry Richardson began driving a car with the license plate PNTHRS near the end of 1989, to highlight the demand for professional football in the Carolinas, Richardson Sports held preseason games around the area from 1989 to 1991. The matchups were between existing NFL teams, in 1991, the group formally filed an application for the open expansion spot, and on October 26,1993, the 28 NFL owners unanimously named the Carolina Panthers as the 29th member of the NFL. The Panthers first competed in the 1995 NFL season, they were one of two teams to begin play that year, the other being the Jacksonville Jaguars. Former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Dom Capers was named the first head coach, the team finished its inaugural season 7–9, the best performance ever from a first-year expansion team. They performed even better in their season, finishing with a 12–4 record and winning the NFC West division
9.
2015 NFL season
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The 2015 NFL season was the 96th season in the history of the National Football League, and the 50th of the Super Bowl era. The Panthers became the first team since the 2011 Green Bay Packers to win all but one of their regular season games and not win the Super Bowl. During the 2015 season, the Oakland Raiders, the St. Louis Rams, NFL owners eventually only approved the relocation of the Rams, by a vote of 30–2 on January 12,2016. Thus,2015 ended up being the Rams last season in St. Louis, the 2015 NFL League Year began on Tuesday, March 10,2015 at 4,00 p. m. ET. m. ET and trading period for 2015 began, a total of 453 players were eligible for some form of free agency at the beginning of the free agency period. Four players were assigned the franchise tag by their teams. These players were wide receivers Dez Bryant and Demaryius Thomas, linebacker Justin Houston, the player given the transition tag was Charles Clay. On March 19,2015, Clay signed a five-year, $38M contract with the Buffalo Bills, an unusually large number of big name players switched teams via trade prior to the 2015 season. Eagles coach Chip Kelly used his newly obtained GM powers to make many blockbuster trades, the Philadelphia Eagles traded 2-time All-Pro running back LeSean McCoy to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for linebacker Kiko Alonso. The Eagles also traded Pro Bowl quarterback Nick Foles along with their selection in the round of the 2016 NFL Draft to the St. The Saints also traded away Pro Bowl guard Ben Grubbs and wide receiver Kenny Stills, the Detroit Lions acquired All-Pro defensive tackle Haloti Ngata from the Baltimore Ravens in exchange for draft picks to help make up for the loss of Ndamukong Suh in free agency. The 2015 NFL Draft was held April 30 – May 2,2015, the draft process began with the NFL Scouting Combine, where draft-eligible players were evaluated by team personnel, which was held in Indianapolis on February 17–23. On October 2,2014, Auditorium Theatre in Chicago was announced as the site of the draft. The previous fifty NFL drafts had been held in New York, in the draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers made Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston the first overall selection. Training camps for the 2015 season began July 22 and continued through the end of preseason, the normal training camp window ran from late July to late August or early September. Most of the camps had rookies report first, then veterans, at that point, some teams practiced versus another organization, like the Bills practiced against the Browns this year. Teams started training camp no earlier than fifteen days before the teams first scheduled preseason game, at that point, the rosters for each team were open to 90 players. Those rosters were cut to 75 by Week 3 of preseason, prior to the start of the regular season, each team played at least four exhibition games
10.
New Orleans Saints
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The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Saints currently compete in the National Football League as a member of the leagues National Football Conference South division, the team was founded by John W. Mecom Jr. David Dixon and the city of New Orleans. The Saints began play in Tulane Stadium in 1967, the franchise was founded on November 1,1966. The teams primary colors are old gold and black, their logo is a simplified fleur-de-lis and they played their home games in Tulane Stadium through the 1974 NFL season. The following year, they moved to the new Louisiana Superdome, for most of their first 20 years, the Saints were barely competitive, only getting to.500 twice. In 1987, they finished 12–3—their first-ever winning season—and qualified for the NFL playoffs for the first time in franchise history, the next season of 1988 ended with a 10–6 record. In the year 2000, the Saints defeated the St. Louis Rams 31–28 to notch their first-ever playoff win, in 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast region. The Superdome was used as a temporary shelter for displaced residents. The stadium suffered damage from the hurricane, and from lack of available facilities, ultimately, however, the Superdome was repaired and renovated in time for the 2006 season at an estimated cost of US$185 million. The New Orleans Saints first post-Katrina home game was an emotionally charged Monday Night Football game versus their division rival, the Atlanta Falcons. The Saints, under head coach Sean Payton and new quarterback Drew Brees, defeated the Falcons 23–3. The 2009 season was a one for the Saints. Winning a franchise-record 13 games, they qualified for Super Bowl XLIV, over the course of 49 seasons, the Saints have compiled an overall record of 331–418–5, with a regular-season record of 324–409–5 and a playoff record of 7–9. First the brainchild of local sports entrepreneur Dave Dixon, who founded the Louisiana Superdome and the USFL. Senator Russell Long, and then–NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, the NFL needed congressional approval of the proposed AFL–NFL merger. Dixon and a civic group had been seeking an NFL franchise for over five years and had hosted record crowds for NFL exhibition games. To seal the merger, Rozelle arrived in New Orleans within a week, and announced on November 1,1966, when the deal was reached a week earlier, Dixon strongly suggested to Rozelle that the announcement be delayed until then. Dixon told an interviewer that he cleared the name with New Orleans Archbishop Philip M. Hannan
11.
Pro Bowl
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The Pro Bowl is the all-star game of the National Football League. Between 2014 and 2016, the NFL experimented with an unconferenced format, the players were picked in a televised schoolyard pick prior to the game. Unlike most major leagues, which hold their all-star games roughly midway through their respective regular seasons. Between 1970 and 2009, it was held the weekend after the Super Bowl. Since 2010, the Pro Bowl has been played the weekend before the Super Bowl, Players from the two teams competing in the Super Bowl do not participate. Observers and commentators expressed their disfavor with the Pro Bowl in its current state and it draws lower TV ratings than its regular-season games, although the game draws similar ratings to other major all-star games, such as the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. However, the biggest concern of teams is to avoid injuries to the star players, the Associated Press wrote that players in the 2012 game were hitting each other as though they were having a pillow fight. Between 1980 and 2016, the game was played at Aloha Stadium in Hawaii, on June 1,2016, the NFL announced that they reached a multi-year deal to move the game to Orlando, Florida as part of the leagues ongoing efforts to make the game more relevant. For years, the game has suffered from lack of interest due to perceived low quality, the 2017 Pro Bowl will also mark a return to the AFC–NFC format. The first Pro All-Star Game, featuring the all-stars of the 1938 season, was played on January 15,1939 at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. The NFL All-Star Game was played again in Los Angeles in 1940 and then in New York, although originally planned as an annual contest, the all-star game was discontinued after 1942 because of travel restrictions put in place during World War II. During the first five games, an all-star team would face that years league champion. The league champion won the first four games before the all-stars were victorious in the game of this early series. The concept of a game was not revived until June 1950. The game was sponsored by the Los Angeles Publishers Association and it was decided that the game would feature all-star teams from each of the leagues two conferences rather than the league champion versus all-star format which had been used previously. This was done to avoid confusion with the Chicago College All-Star Game, the teams would be led by the coach of each of the conference champions. The first 21 games of the series were played in Los Angeles, the site of the game was changed annually for each of the next seven years before the game was moved to Aloha Stadium in Halawa, Hawaii for 30 straight seasons from 1980 through 2009. With the new rule being that the teams do not include players from the teams that will be playing in the Super Bowl
12.
Tackle (football move)
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Most forms of football have a move known as a tackle. The primary and important purposes of tackling are to dispossess an opponent of the ball, the word is used in some contact variations of football to describe the act of physically holding or wrestling a player to the ground. In others, it simply one or more methods of contesting for possession of the ball. It can therefore be used as both a defensive or attacking move, in Middle Dutch, the verb tacken meant to grab or to handle. By the 18th century, a use was applied to harnesses or equipment used with horses. Modern use in football comes from the sport of rugby. In any such case, the ball becomes dead, the down is over, a tackle is known as a quarterback sack when the quarterback is tackled behind the line of scrimmage while attempting to throw a pass. A tackle for loss indicates a tackle that causes a loss of yardage for the running back or wide receiver. When a player who does not have the ball is taken down it is referred to as a block. Tackles can also be made by grabbing the ball carriers jersey, as mentioned above, the referee can declare that a play is dead if the ball carriers forward progress has been stopped, even if he has not actually been taken to the ground. To protect players from potentially catastrophic injury, there are restrictions on tackles. At no time may a defensive player tackle a player by grabbing the facemask of their helmet, doing so incurs a 15-yard penalty. A similar penalty is assessed to any player attempting to contact with his helmet against another opponents helmet. Grabbing a ball carrier by the pads behind his neck and pulling him down is known as a horse collar, a method which has been made illegal at all levels of American football. However, in the NFL a player can continue forward for one step, place kickers and punters are afforded an even greater protection from being tackled. Once the play is ruled complete, no contact is permitted, a player who makes contact with an opponent after the play is charged with unnecessary roughness and his team is assessed a 15-yard penalty. However, a player who plays on the line can block below the knees as long the block is five yards of the line. In the National Football League, tackles are tracked as a statistic by a scorekeeper hired by the home team
