Originally posted by Bille:Originally posted by Aussie49er:Originally posted by silkyjohnson:Originally posted by pantstickle:Originally posted by Aussie49er:Originally posted by Bille:Originally posted by Aussie49er:
Thats why I have always laughed at people talking NFL players up as elite athletes. To think 11mins of action in total.
Meaning Peyton Manning plays 5mins a game, maybe 6 to 7.
Rugby player > NFL players
So you wouldn't consider Usain bolt a world class athlete, he is done in under 10 seconds?
Yes I do, there is a big difference between find out who is the fastest man in the world, than players who stand around for hours on the sidelines.
What do you think Bolt is doing the other 23 hours, 59 minutes and 50 seconds the day of a race? To say that NFL players aren't elite athletes is laughable.
For real. They gotta work their asses off to get to the level they perform at. You come off sounding a bit ignorant with your rugby talk. I'm sure NFL players would beast it up in Rugby if they trained for Rugby. Hell even without training, they would kick some Rugby ass.
Just because the game doesn't require them to run around for 60 minutes, doesn't mean they're not elite
The irony of an American calling a foreigner ignorant. Every athlete has to work their arses off to be at the top level, that isn't anything new. However when 53 players take 3+ hours to play 11mins of football, I find it hard to really call them AS A WHOLE, elite athletes.
I've been watching both religiously for 20 years now. The skill set required to be a rugby player outweighs the skill set for an NFL player. Then throw in the fact that the do it 6-7 times as long as an NFL player in each game. Its just too hard to call them AS A WHOLE, elite athletes.
I get what you are saying there are some nfl players that are not that athletic if you account for kickers, punters, qbs.
But when I think of an athlete, I think the whole thing like speed, strength, agility, explosion, size and endurance. And IMO people like say vernon davis have rugby players beat on all but maybe endurance.
Football is an explosive sport by nature, which is why the plays are so short but you generally go full throttle during that, where as in rugby it seems to me to be more like soccer, which I would say was an endurance sport.
If you take a look at sav rocca, who is an ex Aussie footbal player, he is one of the least athletic people in the league. Although not by punter standards, but put him at say defensive end and he wouldn't stand a chance.
Sav Rocca, really? The dude played Aussie Rules (the most grueling endurance football) for 15 years prior to entering the NFL. Became a NFL punter at age 32, after a hamstring injury forced him out of the AFL (Australian Football League). Now 36. That's like me using Favre as an example.
The answer to Vernon Davis would be Pierre Spies of South Africa. Or Alesana Tuilagi from Samoa. Lote Tuqiri from Australia and so on. They could hang with a Vernon Davis or a Ray Lewis any day of the week. Except they play more football in 3-4 games than Vernon Davis and Ray Lewis do in a whole year.