Are There Any FACTUAL Studies Showing Average Lifespan of NFL Players?

The Game Room
21

Nice resurrection. Really, who would have thought we’d have this one resurrected by someone who actually can contribute properly?

Very well done, Old, and welcome to the boards. :slight_smile:

22

Yeah, my understanding was that the 50 something number referred only to linemen, not the entirel football player popultion.

23

The major confounding factor in such studies is what to do about the contemporaries who are still alive. Unless you are talking about those born say 100 years ago (which means no or virtually no extant members), that can skew your data pretty strongly.

24

That was my first thought.

Also, that even just a few guys dying unnaturally young would help drag the numbers down unfairly (Sean Taylor, Steve McNair, etc.)

25

Today, Joe Greene stayed alive, at age 64.

26

I only skimmed the thread so I apologize if this has already been noted, but these studies fail in that they tend to compare the average life span of NFL players to the average male. To be more scientifically accurate they should compare the life span of men with similar body composition who did and didn’t play football. Most of these NFL players would have been 6’6" and 300 lbs regardless of if they played football or not, in fact many of those WRs and LB might have been even heavier had they not been financially pressured to stay fast. So does the average 350 lb man die older than the average 350 lb former NFL player? That’s the only relevant study IMHO.

27

Let’s also take into account the drug usage, steroids, and thug lifestyle that contributes to shorter life. Most of them waste their millions on cars and houses and a flash lifestyle and are broke by age 26. The fact they live to 58 is great, considering the average lifespan of a typical male in the hood.

28

I found this story from the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times from 2006: http://www.sptimes.com/2006/01/29/Sports/A_huge_problem.shtml

Here’s the relevant part of the story in regards to this discussion:

29

As this thread has done a Lazarus, I re-checked the Super Bowl I winners (see post #9). All the survivors are still alive, raising the average age at death to 67 even if they all died today (compared with 55 for those who have already died).

30

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/football/freedom-from-55-year-life-expectancy/article1976014/

This article was published this last Friday (April 8th).

  1. The originator of the original number has said that he didn’t perform any studies, he just heard the number from a friend who works in the insurance industry and based his opinion piece on that.

  2. In 1997, the NFL and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health researched this very question and found that players are not dying younger than the US life expectancy for males (72).

IOW, sounds like a full-on BS statistic to me…

31

Brickbacon’s link is unfortunately broken (it wasn’t last week, though) but it was a link to a 1987 article asking about the the same claim, and it was debunked.

Interesting note: 1987 is the last time the NFL faced a work stoppage. Is it a coincidence that this number is floating around again, what with a current NFL work stoppage? Probably not…

32

oops… DP