Can gorillas play in the NFL? Would they be any good?
Yes. One must look no further than James Harrison.
“Well, for starters, right here, where it says that all players must wear shoes (which are defined as ‘covering the feet’, so you can’t just wrap them around your neck).”
If you replaced Arena Football with the All-Gorilla Football League, it would probably get better ratings.
Has anyone done experiments to prove exactly how strong a gorilla is? Say, letting him watch you (from his cage) put something yummy in a hole, and then plugging the hole with a weight that he has to lift to get the treat. The weight increases each time until he can’t lift it.
Chimps have been thus tested, per the Perfect Master, and they’re pretty damn strong. Gorillas even more so: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2/can-a-90-lb-chimp-clobber-a-full-grown-man
Special teams. Very special teams.
How about the gorilla they used on Gilligan’s Island? Now there was a smart ape.
Thank you for the link. When I read it, I was puzzled by this part:
“Even more frightening, a female chimp, weighing a mere 135 pounds and going by the name of Suzette, checked in with a one-handed pull of 1,260 pounds … In dead lifts, chimps have been known to manage weights of 600 pounds without even breaking into a sweat.”
A deadlift is done by grasping a bar with both hands, and then using the strongest muscles of the back and legs to lift it off the ground. So a 600-pound deadlift by a chimp means they are very strong for their size, but not as strong as one of those 300 pound behemoths you see in the “World’s Strongest Man” contests, some of whom have unofficially done over a thousand pounds (the lower the bar, the harder it is to lift, and official records are for bars only about a foot off the ground).
A one-hand pull of 1260 pounds, on the other hand, implies being able to deadlift a ton, which seems both unbelievable, and inconsistent with the actual verified value of 600 pounds. I’m ignoring the “without breaking a sweat,” since I doubt anybody checked, and I’m also ignoring the article’s claim that a gorilla could do 1800 pounds “without thinking twice” for the same reason, and also because it’s apparently speculation based on body weight ratios, and not actual trials. If I remember my high school physics correctly, it’s not valid to scale up like that, and even if it were, a lot of a gorilla’s weight is in his chest and abdomen, and wouldn’t be especially helpful for a deadlift.
But when I did some more reading on great apes, it says that the muscles in their arms are much larger than in their legs, so I guess that helps explain it. Apparently their grip is much stronger in proportion to their leg strength than in humans.
It also implies that their dependence on arm strength would keep gorillas out of the NFL. They could probably be trained to carry a ball, but not to dodge tacklers without clubbing them, which would get them ejected from the game fairly quickly.
Gorillas - Ha!
They’d never make it in the Lingerie League.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Seattle_Mist_hike.jpg
Even if you shaved them, I just don’t think that’s a viable business model.
I think that’s the closest I’ve seen to the Chainmail Bikini in real life.
Yes, even though most of the time, gorillas are gentle and docile, it is unlikely “most of the time” includes times when they are stressed, running and surrounded by annoying and super ugly juvenile gorillas. If I had a NFL career yet to wreck, I wouldn’t risk it tackling a huge monster.
I think they’d be best placed in this role, their superhuman pulling strength would make removing the ball really hard, and their confidence on the ground would make tackles inconsequential, they can move almost as fast on 3 limbs as they can on two.
I think they definately have the co-ordination/agility to catch/control a ball and I see no evidence to suggest their eyesight is significantly worse than ours, What stops them is their poor throwing, as Chronos said, their arms and muscles aren’t suited to it. Kicking it accurately would be a problem too.
**A question: **Would they be less bad at rugby, as you only have to throw it backwards. They are social animals with good awareness, so I they wouldn’t have significant problems knowing where to pass, but their body might not be suited to it, and I don’t trust their tactical judgement.
I don’t think they have the speed or endurance to be interceptors.
I think great ape personhood would occur before Gorillas hit the field.
On the pitch, especially if they are playing New Zealand
This is why I love this forum, there’s an expert on pretty much anything here.
May I ask, how good is their catching?
Cite? Not that I’m doubting you, but I’d like to learn more.
A bit of a tangent: Not too long ago I saw a VHS (Right?) from right before the original Air Bud came out. That night, I dreamt of many things, but one scene that I remember was an ice hockey coach shouting, “You show me in the rulebook where it says a mule can’t play ice hockey!”
Every year, NFL teams give the Wunderlic Test to players, to judge their intelligence. The highest scores, bu position?
http://www.listafterlist.com/tabid/57/listid/8716/Sports++Recreation/Average+Scores+by+position+on+the+NFL+Wonderlic+Test.aspx
Offensive linemen come out on top.
Get it on, get it on! Got to get it on, no choice but to get it on! Mandate: Get it on!
Academically, they’d never be able to play their college ball in the Big Ten. They’d have to go to SEC schools.
This thread (specifically the issue of teaching the ape the rules) reminds me of a golf joke. An African explorer (who also golfed when he wasn’t trotting the globe) came across a gorilla who was whacking coconuts a country mile with a big club. So he captures the beast and trains him to hit a golf ball. The day of the big tournament comes, and the gorilla is dressed to the nines. He steps up to the first tee, tees up his ball, and proceeds to whack it 350 yards onto the green 10 feet from the pin. He walks up to the ball on the green, pulls out his putter, and proceeds to whack the ball another 350 yards.
Or the guy who trained a horse to be the greatest hitter in baseball history!
The Dodgers signed the horse and put him in the lineup. His first time at the plate, he hit the ball a mile, then stood there. “Run, you stupid horse!” yelled the manager, “Run!”
The horse shrugged, and said “If I could run, I’d be at Santa Anita.”
I hate to point this out, but there are no potties on a football field. Not all those wet pants spots are sweat. 
Please. Jeff George wishes he could throw as well as a gorilla.
No, you’re not the only one.
“Alright, then, it’s decided - he’s evicted. Now, any volunteers for telling him?”
crickets