OK, just read the article. It’s from obesity-related causes more than anything.
Although mostly unrelated to the OP, football does encourage obesity in linemen.
No it doesn’t. It encourages a lineman that’s good at his job. If he’s 290 and raw muscle they’d be fine with that too.
The NFL searches out guys who are naturally big and strong, it doesn’t take random people off the street and force them to eat 12000 calories per day.
Not true. I was kidnapped and force fed deep-fried-peanut butter and banana sandwiches to a weight of 325 lbs. I escaped (slowly) when Tony Mandarich’s carcass got caught in a cell door. I would write a tell-all book but the memories are too painful.
That and banning football is the stupidest idea I’ve heard this week. Just think of all the thugs they’re keeping off the street.
You think football playing thugs are off the streets? Check how many have been tossed into jail or fined.
http://www.listafterlist.com/tabid/57/listid/6916/Sports++Recreation/Football+Players+Who+Went+To+Jail.aspx
So, they find this guy who’s 290 and pretty lean. Do you believe that they won’t try to get him to put on weight?
Muscle, sure. Adding fat doesn’t really help you in and of itself, but it doesn’t hurt you in reasonable proportion either. The strongest guys tend to have the body type to carry around some fat. If you’re not a body builder trying to get your body fat percentage down to nothing, you’ll end up with some. If you watch world’s strongest man type competition they’re often carrying around a decent amount of fat.
When NFL teams ask a guy to put on some weight, they have him concentrate on muscle building excercises, not just drinking 10 milkshakes a day.
It’s not like the guys who have the body type to be NFL linemen would end up being lean skinny dudes if they weren’t playing football.
I agree with all your points overall but want to point out that most retired linemen aren’t staying in the 300-330 lbs range they play at. Most of them weigh more in the 210-250 range after they stop playing. Ross Tucker, formerly of the Browns, wrote a really interesting article in SI about it.
Yeah, I was pretty sure the coaches would tell them to put on muscle. My question was would the coach tell them to lift weights, or tell them to lift weights and drink 10 milk shakes. I’d imagine getting fatter would help your ability to push, but lower mobility. I think I’d tell a nose guard to hit the milkshakes, but you may be right about the other lineman.
Unless you are a beginner, it is very hard to add muscle without adding fat. Even bodybuilders do a bulk/cut cycle, where they pack on muscle and fat on the offseason, and then try to lose the fat while keeping as much of the muscle as possible as the season approaches.
They have to meet certain weight targets regardless of whether it’s fat or muscle. there are several good articles around about the issue. Linemen fight fat after leaving the game - CNN
Lingering health issues of former players - NY Times
Ross Tuckers columns at si are really informative.
I think that part of the problem is that when the old-timers were playing (1950’s-1970’s), a lot of the research into fitness and sports medicine were in their infancy.
I’m not so sure that it’s quite an accurate comparison to compare say… Jim Otto to someone like say… Howie Long. The game, the training and the medical care were vastly and wildly different between the two players’ times.
That’s not to say that today’s players are in the clear, but I don’t know that it’s accurate to look at people whose playing days were 25 years ago, and say that the same things are going to be a problem for today’s players 25 years from now.
I agree, and there’s also the issue of money. Players make a LOT more of it in recent times than they did in the era when guys like “Concrete Charlie” had to have an offseason job just to make ends meet.
I do think that the NFL should provide more monetary/medical support to the aging players that defined the past era, but I also think that modern players should pay more into some kind of UHC program for all players going forward.
UHC for NFL players! Socialism!
It will be worse. The bouncing of the brain inside the skull goes on daily, practice and games. The players are bigger and faster. Collisions are more violent. The game evolves while the body stays just as vulnerable.