Well I was the only one in my group of friends of sports nerds that also played for our high school. Actually, 3 of us were sports nerds who knew every player on every team in all major sports, one was a band geek, and the other was always on the cusp of being expelled. But we all played pickup football and tore each other up for fun. It was lame not having any of them on the team with me.
I love baseball and I love baseball stats. Damn my luck, the NFL has pretty good records going back pre-WWII, but I have no interest in it, only college football.
As for sacks, no, they weren't "invented" until Deacon Jones in the late 70s/early 80s, but I've seen some PDFs of stats going back into the 40s that specify tackles for loss.