"The story begins in 1899, when two Irish-American brothers from the South Side of Chicago got together a team of young men to play a rough and dangerous new sport: football."--BOOK JACKET. "When Football Was Football takes us on a journey from the earliest days of football, when padding was nonexistent and newspapers routinely published casualty lists, through two world wars and tales of singular heroism, to the successful championship victory by the Cardinals in 1947 and the franchise's eventual departure from Chicago. Along the way we meet famous early football greats, such as Paddy Driscoll, Ernie Nevers, Jim Thorpe, and Red Grange; the beloved Cardinals coach, Jimmy Conzelman, who led his team to the championship; and the men who led the fledgling NFL, such as George Halas (Bears), Art Rooney (Steelers), and Charles Bidwill (whose family still owns the Cardinals)."--BOOK JACKET.