Football has had a few twists and turns in the evolution of the game. Some of the early twists were the worst. Sports Historians agree in the eighth century the Vikings, real ones not football players played an unexpected roll in that evolution. Mainly they attacked England. More on that later. Just keep in mind that the early stages of football started here.

In time the Middle Ages rolled around and the Viking involved football game still existed. Only now it was called "Townball", and literally involved the whole town. Like the early version hundreds of years before there were no known rules. However a sense of fairness did evolve and the opposing teams tried to have the same amount of players. Age, gender, or ability mattered little. Just so long as the each team more or less had the same amount of participants. It was not unusual for each team to have one hundred or more mates in their cause. That cause was being getting a ball through the opposing force to the other end of town.

Force being a keyword. The game could last for hours and often resulted in multiple injuries, and too many deaths. However, it was very popular. In time the ruling fathers could deal with the mayhem, but disliked the damage it did to the town. So the games were moved into fields outside of the village. At this point the game looked more like soccer then NFL football.

A few more hundred years went by, and the game remained popular. Many rules were added, and the size of teams had shrunk, but the violence was there. Then one day a young English student got tired of the slow pace of kicking the ball around. Master William Ellis picked up the ball and ran it in for a goal. His coach bellowed, his teammates laughed, the fans loved it. A new version of the game was born. It was named after the private school Ellis attended. A school named Rugby.

In time the game to America. For the most part players would stand across from each other. When the ball moved fists went into action. There were few rules, no protective equipment, and little in the way of penalties. One of the first football devices used to prevent injuries was hair. Players would grow it long. On game day they piled it on top of their heads in hopes of avoiding concussions. It helped. In an odd turn of events James Naismith invented the first real head helmet. Naismith later was credited with inventing the game of basketball. Football was not on his mind.

Meanwhile let’s not forget about the Vikings. They played a roll in this bacon story. It seems they underestimated the English, and found themselves on the losing end of lances and swords. The English celebrated their victory by cutting off the heads of the Viking rulers. To further show contempt they would kick the heads around among themselves. This turned out to be fun for them. However they soon learned they had two obstacles to their fun.

Human skulls only last so long when being kicked. Plus there was a lack of battles to supply more heads to kick. So someone had a grand idea. They took the bladder of a dead cow and dried it out. They then stitched it up, blew some air in it; and tied it off. Dead cows were easier to come by then heads of enemy rulers. Trouble is the bladder kept on breaking. So they wrapped the bladder in the skin of the cow.

That helped but even then the ball could only be kicked just so many times. So they tried deerskin and in time hide of goats. Not getting what they wanted they finally tried pigskin. It worked well, and was used for centuries. Some of their early attempts led to words used today. "Bladder" is still the term referring to the air filled bags inside of modern footballs. Of course "pigskin" is a fading term for the football itself.

So when a player takes the pigskin for a touchdown you could say they brought home the bacon. Thank the Vikings for lending a hand, I mean head, in the evolution of that term.