It s difficult to imagine today when the Super Bowl has virtually become a national holiday and the National Football League is the country s dominant sports entity but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape. In the span of a single generation in postwar America, the game charted an extraordinary rise in popularity, becoming a smartly managed, keenly marketed sports entertainment colossus whose action is ideally suited to television and whose sensibilities perfectly fit the modern age.

America s Game traces pro...