Ben Gilbert

All right, so the NCAA is formed.

We've now got the forward pass.

So modern football, does that lead to the NFL?

Why are you taking this esteemed thing that our best and brightest participate in and turning it into this entertainment act?

the founding of the NFL.

Which, of course, is called the Staley's.

Yes.

The sponsorship is so deeply rooted in the NFL that the very first team was actually named the sponsor.

They weren't even sponsors.

This is so ingrained in the NFL that it is basically still true 103 years later.

Here we are in 2023 saying,

you still can't go to the NFL out of high school.

You can only go with the junior year of your graduating class from college.

You can go one year early.

In 100 years, that's the one concession that's been made.

Yeah, these teams that are coming together, some were independent, some were part of the Ohio League, some were part of the New York Pro Football League.

So there are sort of slightly different rule books and slightly different customs that are going on.

And this is the idea that, no, we need to unify these things to set an expectation for fans.

Which is not to say, like, if you put him through the NFL Combine today, he would win.

It's sort of handicapped with all of what we knew about modern sports science of his day.