Ball changes?

[65 toss power trap]

Not sure the impetus for the K ball was to reduce the distance, but more to reign in the very extreme measures that equipment managers employed for kicking balls. By baking, sanding, and compressing balls intended for the kicking game, it actually distorted the ball. The only way to be consistent was to issue a set of 6 first-use game balls for the kicking supply, shipped directly to the officials' hotel for every game.

Of course the muffed FG placement in the 2006 Wild Card game added another layer to the K ball procedure: equipment managers could use fine brushes and towels to remove the waxy surface from the 3 K balls assigned to their team.

[timmyb]

Not necessarily related, but what were the official game balls throughout history of professional football?

To my knowledge these are they:

NFL:
Spalding. 1920?-1940
Wilson. 1941-current

AAFC:
Wilson? 1946-1949

AFL1:
1926?

AFL2:
1936-37?

AFL3:
1940-41?

AFL4:
1960-1969. Spalding

CFL:
1958-? Spalding
?-Current. Wilson

WFL:
1974-75. Spalding?

USFL:
1983-1985. Wilson
As far as the early years of the NFL (pre-1933), was there really an official game ball? I would think with the threadbare existence of some teams, as long as a batch of footballs were properly inflated and in playable condition, I don't think it would have mattered what make it would have been.

[fgoodwin]

I remember in the pre-merger years the announcers and press made mention of the fact that there was an AFL ball and an NFL ball, and I seem to remember for the Super Bowl they'd used the NFL ball when the NFL was on offense and the AFL ball when the AFL was on offense. I found some history regarding the AFL ball here, but no mention if the dimensions were a bit different compared to the NFL football.

http://www.remembertheafl.com/J6-V.html

I think I've mentioned this before, but it bears mentioning again.

The Super Bowl III program had a great article comparing the AFL football (J5-V) to the NFL football (F1100, or "The Duke"). My copy is locked away in storage so I can't get to it easily. But my recollection is the dimensions were virtually identical, the only difference was in the "ogive" which is the curve from the middle of the ball to the points. Again, speaking from memory, the AFL ball had a sharper ogive, the NFL ball a more rounded ogive, meaning while the balls were the same size, weight, and pressure, the AFL ball was "pointier". I firmly believe it is a myth that, at the merger, AFL QBs found the NFL ball to be fatter, but it was psychological due strictly to the difference in the ogive.

If anyone has easy access to a SB III program, I'd love to have my recollection either confirmed or refuted.

[jmvillelabeitia]

This is in the website of the Hall of Fame

https://www.profootballhof.com/photos/g ... -football/