Why is american football called like this?

Question

It should be called handball and not football. There are things that I just cant understand.

Answer 1

Well the reason it was called football dates to a game between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869. In that game there were 25 players on each side, and the ball had to be kicked. University teams played the sport and popularized it. Running with the ball was 1st experimented in 1876, and not fully legal until 1884. So therfore in it's 1st 15 years the game was literally a kicking game, so therefore football was proper name.
Here in the USA all football more or less developed through the universities. High schools developed the game to develop players for the universities. Also there no professional player until a former university star was paid to play in a town game in 1895. The 1st fullly professional games were not done until about 1902, groups of professional teams in Ohio started by 1907, and the NFL did not start until 1920.
Also the sport most often known as football, called soccer here, was still in it's infancy stage in England in 1869, and apparently was not well known until the 1880's. So therefore the two sports were really unaware of each other.

Answer 2

Why do people keep asking this question instead of going online doing research or better yet look at all the other answers given when this question has been asked? It is called football because it is played on foot and not on horseback. Rugby is a form of football, hell even new sports like basketball is a form of football. Our football is better than yours. Face the fact and Get over it!

Answer 3

It used to be played a lot like rugby, since it's based on rugby. Shouldn't it therefore be called "American rugby?"

And there's already a game called handball.

Anyway, it's called football probably because it's a game played on foot...with a ball. See source 1.

(By the way, the word "Soccer" has been in the past a very common name to describe the sport Europeans call football. Just so you know, see source 2.)

Answer 4

1.) There is already a handball.
2.) It is played with a BALL on FOOT.
3.) It is the most challenging sport in the world because of the level of play of the athletes (note the absence of foreign players)

Answer 5

It is directly descended from rugby football and has its origin in varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, in which a ball is kicked at a goal and/or or carried over a line.

Answer 6

The game is called football because the size of the ball is roughly one foot. The current NFL football is 11.25 inches in length. They called it football because of the size of the ball, not because it had anything to do with kickers as someone suggested.

Answer 7

You so right!
Actually back in the day (a long time ago), the point after was worth 6 points and the actual touchdown was worth 1 point. I saw that on NFL Network.

American Football should be called Ruleball! Because they have so many rules!
You cant move before the snap, you cant touch the Wide Receivers, you cant touch the QB, you cant hold, etc, etc.
Gimme a break!

Answer 8

Its called a football because the ball is 1 foot long.

Answer 9

Its called football because we play with a football genius!

Answer 10

Handball? why handball it used to be called soccer