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My point is that the old canard that rugby, and from that American football, grew out of soccer is not based in fact. The English were playing various forms of “football”, including tackling games, well into the mists of time. One of those was “mob football”:

“These forms of football, sometimes referred to as “mob football”, would be played between neighbouring towns and villages, involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams, who would clash in a heaving mass of people, struggling to move an item such as an inflated pig's bladder, to particular geographical points, such as their opponents’ church. Shrovetide games have survived into the modern era in a number of English towns “

Tackle games may have been brought to Britain by the Romans, who took the game from the Greeks. There MAY have been some rejection of “soccer” because it was considered English, but the game did not evolve until around 1815 -1835, so I would think that the Yanks were pretty much over the hard feelings by then. And, as you wrote, colonialism played no part of our development after 1776.

The important point is not to let people get away with saying soccer is “real” football. It's just another variation, and it's not older than tackle football.