The National Football League (NFL) is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league globally. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing its name to the National Football League in 1922. The league currently consists of thirty-two teams from the United States. The league is divided evenly into two conferences – the American Football Conference (AFC) and National Football Conference (NFC), and each conference has four divisions that have four teams each, for a total of 16 teams in each conference. The NFL is an unincorporated 501(c)(6) association, a federal nonprofit designation, comprising its 32 teams.
The regular season is a seventeen-week schedule during which each team plays sixteen games and has one bye week. The season currently starts on the Thursday night in the first full week of September and runs weekly to late December or early January. At the end of each regular season, six teams from each conference (at least one from each division) play in the NFL playoffs, a twelve-team single-elimination tournament that culminates with the championship game, known as the Super Bowl. This game is held at a pre-selected site which is usually a city that hosts an NFL team.
Andrew Austen Luck (born September 12, 1989) is an American football quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for Stanford University, won the Maxwell Award and Walter Camp Award as college football's player of the year, and was recognized as an All-American. He was the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy in both 2010 and 2011. He was named the Offensive Player of the Year in the Pac-12 (Pac-10) Conference in both 2010 and 2011. CBS Sports draft analyst Rob Rang called Luck the best prospect he has ever scouted, while the Kansas City Star puts him in line with LeBron James and Bryce Harper as "the most hyped amateurs in recent sports memory". Although widely projected as the No. 1 selection in the 2011 NFL Draft, Luck decided to return to Stanford for his redshirt junior season.
Luck was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Oliver Luck, current athletic director and a former quarterback at West Virginia University and former NFL quarterback for the Houston Oilers, and Kathy Wilson Luck. Andrew Luck spent his early childhood in London, England and Frankfurt, Germany, where his father was general manager of two World League of American Football teams prior to becoming president of the league. He is the oldest of four children, Mary Ellen, Emily, and Addison, who currently reside in Houston. In London, he attended The American School in London.
Franklin John Michael Gore (born May 14, 1983) is an American football running back for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League. He was drafted by the 49ers in the third round of the 2005 NFL Draft. He played college football at the University of Miami.
Throughout his 7 year NFL career, Gore has been ranked among the best running backs to be playing the game, having been selected to three Pro Bowls and having had four straight season with 1,000 rushing yards and a total of 5. After failing for most of his career on having a winning season and reaching the playoffs, he and the 49ers finally did in the 2011 season under new head coach Jim Harbaugh, reaching the NFC championship game, despite losing the game for a late fumble in overtime.
Gore was born in Miami, Florida, and grew up in Coconut Grove, Florida. He attended Coral Gables High School, where he excelled as a running back. He had two notable record-breaking games. Against Miami Northwestern High School, he had a then career high 293 yards and two touchdowns. In the next game, he broke that record with 319 yards and six touchdowns. During his senior year in 2000, Gore broke several Dade County single-season records, including rushing yards (2,953) and touchdowns (34). Heavily recruited, he was named the No. 3 prospect in Dade County by The Miami Herald, as well as No. 4 in Florida and No. 18 nationally.