Inspired by the Redskins currently down 34-0 to the mighty Giants at halftime. If the Skins aren’t the worst team in the league right now, I don’t know who is.
Could Alabama beat them? (or Clemson, Ohio State, Central Florida…)
Nope. The pro game is WAAAAAAY beyond the college game. Look how many early draft picks (who are judged to have a chance) don’t make it or have minimal careers.
No. Think about how many players on Alabama’s roster who will never even be drafted (or signed as free agents). Think about how many players will be drafted and will wash out.
Even the worst player on the worst NFL team will be better than these players.
That’s not quite true; there are a handful of Alabama players that will start in the NFL next year. There’s probably a few 3rd string NFL players that are worse than the best Bama players. But man-for-man, Alabama would be woefully outplayed by any NFL team.
I’ve heard people say things like Miami in their prime in the 90’s possibly could have beaten a terrible NFL team during that period, they were quite dominating at one point, I can almost believe it but it probably would have been them squeaking by for a two point win or something.
It’s not as if Alabama is blowing away all their opponents. They barely squeaked by Georgia in the SEC championship. If they can just barely beat Georgia, I doubt they would have a chance against the Redskins.
Part of it is that you’re comparing young men in their teens and early 20s to men in their mid-to-late 20s and early 30s. If you took the 'Bama players of today, and they all continued playing football, they might as an aggregate be able to do so, but playing college ball?
Still incredibly unlikely. Even if Alabama has 12 people on their team that make the NFL, the Redskins have 75 that made the NFL.
Pretty much every NFL player was a great college player, plus years of both physical and mental development. It would be a major blowout. A huge physical mismatch, and an even bigger mental mismatch (in terms of discipline and execution).
I meant that the worst players on the NFL team’s roster are better than the Alabama players that will wash out.
Nope, they wouldn’t have stood a chance. The NFL game is just that much faster and the players are just that much stronger.
I liked Cris Carter’s take on a similar question a decade or so ago about some other dominant college team. “The question isn’t whether [dominant college team] could beat [worst NFL team], the question is whether you could sign all the [dominant college team]'s players on a single NFL team and stay under the salary cap.”
They’d all be on rookie deals. That’d give you tons of cap space.
Yeah, signing one college team to pro contracts would be trivial. Baker Mayfield’s cap hit is only $6M. You’d have a dozen people that take up $50M of salary cap and then 40 people on the league minimum.
You’d almost certainly be able to sign anyone from any team in the NCAA and stay under the cap. The current salary cap works out to an average of ~$3.3M per player. Which is roughly the salary hit of Roquan Smith, the #8 draft pick this year.
I would be impressed if Alabama lost by fewer than sixty points, assuming the NFL team didn’t stop trying at halftime.
Football is won and lost at the line, and the NFL lines would just steamroll them, every single down.
Well I guess I got my answer, thanks all. But watching the Skins today, I wouldn’t have thought they could have beaten William and Mary.
The Redskins stunk up the field today but they’re far from the worst team in the league. The Cardinals and the Raiders are far worse. Still, any NFL team will crush any NCAA team.
It’s a bad take done over and over. I remember when the 76ers won 10 games a few years ago a crack about Kentucky beating them. The worst NFL or NBA team on their WORST day would still destroy the #1 ranked team in the NCAA on their best day. To think otherwise is absolutely ridiculous.
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I’d like to see this be a regular exhibition game annually - worst NFL team vs. NCAAF champs. But there’d be no meaningful incentive for either side to risk their health this way, except maybe some promise of big money involved.
there used to be an preseason game of Super Bowl champs vs. college all stars (who had just graduated) . pretty sure SB champs won every game.