Today's Tidbit... Fair Play Before Hash Marks

Since football began, the ball has sometimes gone out of bounds during play, so the game found ways to deal with those events through tactics that changed dramatically over the years. Until 1926, the ball remained live when it went out of bounds, leading to players scrambling for it, knocking over whatever was in the way while pursuing the oblate spheroid.

These days, balls that go out of bounds are returned to the team that last possessed the ball (or last touched it in Canada), with the ball br...