page_title: Modern history of American football
section_title: Post-merger NFL
hierarchical_section_title: Modern history of American football / Modern history of professional football (1933–present) / Professional football (1970–present) / Post-merger NFL
caption_attribution_description: English: New York Jets running back Thomas Jones scores a touchdown on a run while being tackled by several St. Louis Rams players.
context_page_description: The modern history of American football can be considered to have begun after the 1932 NFL Playoff game, which was the first American football game to feature hash marks, the legalization of the forward pass anywhere behind the line of scrimmage, and the movement of the goal posts back to the goal line; it was also the first indoor game since 1902. Other innovations to occur in the years after 1932 were the introduction of the AP Poll in 1934, the tapering of the ends of the football in 1934, the awarding of the first Heisman Trophy in 1935, the first NFL draft in 1936 and the first televised game in 1939. Another important event was the American football game at the 1932 Summer Olympics, which combined with a similar demonstration game at the 1933 World's Fair, led to the first College All-Star Game in 1934, which in turn was an important factor in the growth of professional football in the United States. American football's explosion in popularity during the second half of the 20th century can be traced to the 1958 NFL Championship Game, a contest that has been dubbed the "Greatest Game Ever Played". A rival league to the NFL, the American Football League, began play in 1960.
context_section_description: The NFL continued to grow, eventually adopting some innovations of the AFL, including the two-point conversion in 1994. It has expanded several times to its current 32-team membership, and the Super Bowl has become a cultural phenomena across the United States. One of the most popular televised events annually in the United States, it has become a major source of advertising revenue for the television networks that have carried it and it serves as a means for advertisers to debut elaborate and expensive commercials for their products.  The NFL has grown to become the most popular spectator sports league in the United States.
  One of the things that have marked the modern NFL as different from other major professional sports leagues is the apparent parity between its 32 teams. While from time to time, dominant teams have arisen, the league has been cited as one of the few where every team has a realistic chance of winning the championship from year to year.  The league's complex labor agreement with its players' union, which mandates a hard salary cap and revenue sharing between its clubs, prevents the richest teams from stockpiling the best players and gives even teams in smaller cities such as Green Bay and New Orleans the opportunity to compete for the Super Bowl.  One of the chief architects of this labor agreement was former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who presided over the league from 1989 to 2006.  In addition to providing parity between the clubs, the current labor contract, established in 1993 and renewed in 1998 and 2006, has kept player salaries low—the lowest among the four major league sports in the United States— and has helped make the NFL the only major American professional sports league since 1993 not to suffer any player strike or work stoppage.  In 1994, Paul Tagliabue approved the creation of the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) Committee with the stated goal of studying the effects of concussions and sub-concussive injury in NFL players. Tagliabue appointed rheumatologist Dr. Elliot Pellman to chair the committee. Pellman's appointment was met with harsh criticism, because he is not a neurologist or neuropsychologist and often admitted ignorance about head injuries.
  Since taking over as commissioner before the 2006 season, Roger Goodell has made player conduct a priority of his office. Since taking office, several high-profile players have experienced trouble with the law, from Adam "Pacman" Jones to Michael Vick. In these and other cases, Commissioner Goodell has mandated lengthy suspensions for players who fall outside of acceptable conduct limits. Goodell, however, has remained a largely unpopular figure to many of the league's fans, who perceive him attempting to change the NFL's identity and haphazardly damage the sport.
  In 2010, the NFL finally acknowledged that many of its ex-players were suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).  In 2013 a book written by ESPN reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, which was initially broadcast as a documentary film, was made about traumatic brain injury in the National Football League (NFL), particularly concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The documentary, entitled League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis, was produced by Frontline and broadcast on PBS.  The book and film, both devote significant attention to the story of Mike Webster and his football-related brain injuries, and the pathologist who examined Webster's brain, Bennet Omalu. The film also looks closely at the efforts of researchers led by Ann McKee at Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, where the brains of a number of former NFL athletes have been examined.  On September 30, 2014, it was announced that 76 of the 79 brains of former NFL players studied by Dr. Ann McKee and her colleagues tested positive for CTE. The study conducted was the largest brain bank study to date and was a twofold increase in the number of confirmed cases of CTE.  Playing American football continues to have deadly consequences with 92 p
caption: Thomas Jones scores a touchdown for the New York Jets against the St. Louis Rams in week 10 of the 2008 NFL season
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