Gridiron football

Gridiron football, or North American football, is a form of football primarily played in the United States and Canada. The predominant forms of gridiron football are American football and Canadian football.

The term "gridiron" originated as a description of the sport's then-characteristic playing field, which, until the late 1910s–early 1920s, was marked with a series of parallel lines in a checkerboard (or grid) pattern, resembling a gridiron. The grid system was abandoned in favor of the system of yard lines and hash marks used today, but the term "gridiron" has survived.