Gridiron would do.

Or maybe 'Rugby with padding'.

New Zealanders refer to rugby as 'football' too.Quite bizarre when you consider that the game is mainly about carrying a funny shaped ball to the opposition's end of the field.

Handball is an option
 

What else can we call 'american football'. Well, something that actually maps what its done in the field. What about 'Handball' or "handcer" or something of that sort...

Someone else mentioned the name was adopted before rugby came to the US, well that is not true. Football was the official name given to the sport before rugby came to the US. North American schools were influenced by English universities at the time, and rugby was one of the things that came along with it. Rugby was seen as the sport that 'high class' students should play in English schools. Curious enough the first 'American football' like game played between schools here in North America was years after the rugby and football rules were defined in England, and after football as a name was given to the game that the world as a whole knows as football. Simply football.

It's evident that 'soccer' is a word that the US media and 'american football' organizations in particular are promoting to differentiate football from their form of 'american football'. They are using the argument of football being called 'soccer' at its inception as a widely known fact, which is wrong and simplistic.

-Ef

just watch who'll be lifting it ...germany is in europe right ....yeah , thats what i thought ...2nd place just dosen't cut it

You know, you were right. Second place doesn't cut it.

Who lifted it again?