Romance of the Chains

A potential game-changing event in a football game is determined with two sticks connected by a chain. Photo by Rick Stewart/Getty Images. Source: NYTimes.com

Recently as I was lying in my easy chair on the back deck, wafting in and out of consciousness in the glorious summertime weather that is the Bay Area, I caught myself thinking about moments in a football game that are unlike any in other sports. One such moment is the measurement.

The first down is the immediate goal of nearly every offensive play in a football game. The more I thought about how football deals with confirming whether or not a first down has been made by the offensive team when the umpire cannot readily make the determination himself, the more I thought how utterly odd it is. The chain, which connects two poles, is something that people hundreds if not thousands of years ago could have used to measure a specific distance.