Editing Forward pass (section)

===First pass in a professional game===
The first forward pass in a professional football game may have been thrown in an [[Ohio League]] game played on October 25, 1906.  The Ohio League, which traced its history to the 1890s, was a direct predecessor of the [[National Football League|NFL]]. According to Robert W. Peterson in his book ''Pigskin The Early Years of Pro Football'', the "passer was [[Peggy Parratt|George W. (Peggy) Parratt]], probably the best quarterback of the era", who played for the [[Massillon Tigers|Massillon, Ohio Tigers]], one of pro football's first franchises.<ref>[http://massillontigers.com/history.htm Massillon Tiger Football History] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081011062015/http://www.massillontigers.com/history.htm |date=2008-10-11 }}</ref>  Citing the [[Professional Football Researchers Association]] as his source, Peterson writes that "Parratt completed a short pass to end Dan Riley (real name, [[Dan Policowski]])" in a game played at [[Massillon, Ohio|Massillon]] against a team from West Virginia.  Since the Tigers "ran up a 61 to 0 score on the hapless Mountain Staters, the pass played no important part in the result".<ref>Peterson, Robert W., ''Pigskin The Early Years of Pro Football'', pages 52–53, 1997</ref>

According to National Football League history,<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.nfl.com/history/chronology/1931–1940 |title= NFL History by Decade (1931–1940) |access-date=2008-06-11 |work= NFL.com |publisher= [[National Football League]] }}</ref> it legalized the forward pass from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage on February 25, 1933. Before that rule change, a forward pass had to be made from 5 or more yards behind the line of scrimmage.

Forward passes were first permitted in Canadian football in 1929,<ref>[https://www.cfl.ca/page/his_timeline_1920 CFL.ca History, Timeline, 1920] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100625032212/http://www.cfl.ca/page/his_timeline_1920 |date=June 25, 2010 }}</ref> but the tactic remained a minor part of the game for several years. [[Jack Jacobs]] of the [[Winnipeg Blue Bombers]] is recognized, not for inventing the forward pass,  but for popularizing it in the [[Canadian Football League West Division|Western Interprovincial Football Union]] (one of the forerunner leagues to the modern [[Canadian Football League]]) in the early 1950s, thus changing the Canadian game from a more run-dominated game to a more passing-dominant game.