At the dawn of the twentieth century, George Halas was four years old and pro football was about as foreign a concept as astronauts on the moon. One hundred years later, on the eve of its eighty-first season, the NFL represents the pinnacle of American sports. Stadiums are filled to 90 percent capacity, and average attendance exceeds 65,000.
Every game is televised, every play is critiqued, and every outcome is reported around the world.
Super Bowl Sunday, when the league's champion is crowned, is an unofficial holiday on which parties flourish, traffic dissipates, and a national audience of more than 130 million watches the year's biggest television event. The story of the NFL Century is one of circumstance and fortune, of preparation and opportunity. It is the story of great players, coaches, teams, and games emerging at the height of the media age. But it also is a story of the game's fundamental appeal, which embodies strategy, execution, finesse, brute force, steely nerves, and raw emotion choreographed grandly on a public stage. It derives as spectacle from the gladiator shows of the Romans.