The first forward pass in a professional football game may have been thrown during an Ohio League game on October 25, 1906. The Ohio League, whose history dates back to the 1890s, was a direct predecessor to today`s NFL. According to Robert W. Peterson in his book Pigskin The Early Years of Pro Football, “setter George W. (Peggy) Parratt, probably the best quarterback of the era,” who played for the Massillon, Ohio Tigers, was one of the first franchises in professional football. [60] Peterson cites the Professional Football Researchers Association as a source, writing that “Parratt completed a short pass to finish off Dan Riley (real name, Dan Policowski)” during a game in Massillon against a West Virginia team. Since the Tigers “ran a 61-0 run over the unfortunate Mountain Staters, the pass didn`t play a big role in the result.” [61] When did Heisman himself use the forward pass? Oddly enough, it happened almost accidentally. Carlisle presented his aerial game in front of 20,000 fans in Philadelphia against the University of Pennsylvania in a battle of undefeated. In his first college game, Jim Thorpe was one of Carlisle`s players who completed an assist in Carlisle`s decisive win.
The quarterback usually starts a few steps beyond the line of scrimmage or steps back a few steps after the ball has been caught. This places him in an area called the “pocket,” a protective region formed by offensive blockers in front of and between tackles on either side. A quarterback coming out of that pocket is supposed to crawl. Under NFL and NCAA rules, once the quarterback comes out of the pocket, the ball can be legally thrown away to prevent a sack. High school rules (NFHS) do not allow a passer to intentionally throw an incomplete forward pass to save yards or save time, except for a stud to buy time after a hand-to-hand kick. If he throws the ball into his pocket, a foul called “intentional grounding” is counted. In Canadian football, the passer only has to throw the ball over the line of scrimmage – whether inside or outside the “pocket” – to avoid the foul of “intentional grounding”. Do you see the problem? It was still a big risk for a team to throw a pass forward. Many coaches don`t take any chances! According to Jenkins` book, the New York Herald reported, “The forward pass was a no-brainer. The Indians tried it on the first down, on the second down, on the third down, on any down and in every emergency – and it was rare that they did nothing about it.
Eddie Cochems, who trained at Saint Louis University in 1906, also claimed to have invented the collar as we know it today. This is not the case, because after the legalization of the pass before in 1906, most schools began to experiment with it and use almost all of them. [16] From that point on, quarterbacks or other players could make a forward pass from any point behind the line of scrimmage. The change opened up the game, allowing attacks to go down quickly. This inspired quarterbacks to be not only good runners, but also good passers. On the other hand, Hall of Famer coach Gus Dorais told United Press that “Eddie Cochems of the 1906-07-08 [Saint] Louis University team deserves full recognition.” [17] More than 20 years earlier, Dorais` Notre Dame teammate Knute Rockne wrote to Cochems as the first leader in pass use, noting, “One would have thought that such an effective play would have been immediately copied and become fashionable. However, the East hadn`t learned much or cared about Midwestern and Western football. In fact, the East did not realize that football existed beyond the Alleghanies.
[18] All of Gridiron`s codes have in common the concept of control – a receiver must demonstrate control of the ball in order to be in possession of the ball while it is still within the limits, as defined by his code. If the receiver handles the ball, but the official determines that he “shake” it before the end of the game, the pass is considered incomplete. Notre Dame`s teams in 1919 and 1920 had George Gipp, an ideal forward pass manager,[48][49] who threw for 1,789 yards. [50] Tom Cappozzoli of New York University demonstrates an early passage technique that is very different from today`s. Heisman and others believed the forward pass would open the game. At first, most of the crowd couldn`t understand what had happened. The ball was only a few meters diagonal, but it was advancing. When the NFL started, the forward pass was a tool teams could use, but it still wasn`t a significant weapon like it would become years later. One of the NFL`s first rules for forward passes was that quarterbacks had to be at least five yards behind the line of scrimmage to attempt the pass. If the quarterbacks weren`t five yards behind the line of scrimmage, a penalty was imposed. When Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Ken Anderson led the NFL with 2,667 passing yards in 1974, it was more than 1,000 fewer than Washington`s Sonny Jurgensen in 1967.The NFL responded in the 1970s by allowing offensive linemen to block with their hands and tightening restrictions on the contact defensemen could make with receivers. “I saw the first forward pass in football. It was illegal, of course. At league meetings next offseason, Spartans coach George “Potsy” Clark lobbied for a rule change to allow passes anywhere behind the line of scrimmage, arguing “because Nagurski will do it anyway!” Nevertheless, the pass was rarely used for the next seven years. Then, in 1913, Notre Dame, thanks to the athletic skills of Gus Dorais and Knute Rockne, used forward passing with considerable success against the United States Military Academy team. After this match, the forward pass took a prominent place in the offensive strategy. Heisman, Camp and Rockne were later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Carlisle`s shutout loss the following week at Princeton, however, showed the limits of forward passing. Without pass interference penalties, Princeton defenders constantly grabbed Carlisle`s receivers to prevent them from catching the ball. But Jenkins says the idea that Notre Dame created the modern passing game is an absolute myth. Newspaper article after newspaper article from the 1907 season describes Carlisle`s passing game. Even Rockne, she adds, tried to fix the record later in life.
This was great news at the time and drew considerable attention to this new forward pass. But there has not yet been a relaxation of the rules against forward passing. That finally changed the following year. Heisman wrote to Walter Camp, chairman of the committee that governed the rules of football. He begged him to consider lifting the forward pass ban. “Cochems said Iowa`s poor performance was due to the use of the old play and its inability to effectively use the forward pass,” Nelson wrote. “Iowa tried two basketball-style forward passes.” Heisman spoke and wrote about the need to move forward in football over the next few years.[41] The evolution of forward passing in American football shows how the game has evolved from its rugby roots to the distinctive game it is today. Illegal and experimental forward passes were attempted as early as 1876, but the first legal forward pass in American football took place in 1906 after a rule change. Another rule change took place on January 18, 1951, which stated that no center, tackle or guard could receive a forward pass (unless such a player first notified the umpire of his intention that he would be an eligible receiver, which is called a tackle-eligible play).
