I have always been interested if Arnold Swarzenegger would of made a good lineman in the NFL because of his build. He’s too old now, but 20 plus years ago,
Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson, why didn’t these guys become football running backs? Surely Michael Johnson was big enough and strong enough to do it.
Renaldo Nehemiah was an olympic runner and played for the SF Fortyniners and he didnt do well…just because Arnold was big dont mean he had quickness or the instinct for the game
here are his stats
Rushing | Receiving |
±---------±----±-------------------------±------------------------+
| Year TM | G | Att Yards Y/A TD | Rec Yards Y/R TD |
±---------±----±-------------------------±------------------------+
| 1982 sfo | 8 | 1 -1 -1.0 0 | 8 161 20.1 1 |
| 1983 sfo | 16 | 0 0 0.0 0 | 17 236 13.9 1 |
| 1984 sfo | 16 | 0 0 0.0 0 | 18 357 19.8 2 |
±---------±----±-------------------------±------------------------+
| TOTAL | 40 | 1 -1 -1.0 0 | 43 754 17.5 4 |
±---------±----±-------------------------±------------------------+
Yea, he was huge, but that doesn’t mean he can move like a lineman needs to move.
Arnold didn’t have the benefit of having played and more importantly, practiced and studied the game for a number of years. Playing the game isn’t merely a matter of being big and strong, as a player also has to know what to do and how to do it. Techniques for making blocks, and shedding blockers, have to be practiced and mastered, which takes a lot of work. All that, and it takes a blood lust for actual physical competition and confrontation. Striking a pose in a body building competition is quite a bit different than fighting off Warren Sapp.
Still, nobody could successfully tackle Arnold because before each game, he’d oil up.
He would look pretty funny out there in his posing speedo. 
Wouldn’t his metal endoskeleton count for something?
Carl Lewis’s back is in a very bad way from taking painkillers when training.
Michael Johnson? Maybe he doesnt like football. Why risk injury when you have made enough money?
Don’t want to lecture here but…
Being a good running back is about much more than straight speed. Lateral movement, hitting the open hole and finding cutback lanes are key. As is the ability to avoid head-on contact.
Speed is an obvious advantage at WR, but world-class sprinters like Nehemiah and Willie Gault only had moderate success. Players like Jerry Rice and Tim Brown lack great speed, but they are able to read coverage and find open spots between zones.
I’d say more than that, Murcielago, speed doesn’t matter so much as durability. It’s not the ability to break for an 80 yard run that’ll win a lot of games, it’s the ability to keep driving in those 3 and 4 yard carries, 20-30 times a game.
As for Ahnold being a lineman, note that he was/is built nothing like an NFL lineman these days. They are obese, frankly. They are strong, but a strong guy who weighs 90 pounds more than another equally strong guy will win, because he has more mass, and is harder to shove aside.
Well, first of all, it’s been a long time since playing in the NFL automatically paid better than running track. Back in the 1960’s, Bob Hayes was the world’s fastest human being, and he found that playing for the Dallas Cowboys was a big step up economically. But I recall hearing Carl Lewis say once that, even if he WANTED to play pro football (and he didn’t!), he just couldn’t afford the pay cut that would involve!
In theory, many of the world’s top sprinters COULD make superb wide receivers or running backs- but it doesn’t go without saying that they would. And even if they could, who says they want to take the hits that come with the job? Donovan Bailey is definitely fast enough to burn any NFL cornerback in a footrace, but could/would he make a catch over the middle, knowing he’d take a beating from the safety the moment he touches the ball? And AFTER taking such a pounding, could/would he pick himself up, dust himself off, and go back to run another pattern on the next play?
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As for Arnold, well, there’s a lot more to football than strength, and there’s much I can’t judge about him. How was his speed? His quickness? How speedy were his reactions? How well would he have handled the pounding he’d have taken, play after play? There’s just no way to tell.
In theory, COULD he have made a good American football player? Maybe. But I’m not sure what position he could have played. Think about it- at what position do you see NFL players with classical Mr. Universe physiques? Nowhere, really. Guys with that body type aren’t ideally suited to play anywhere. Even when Arnold was in peak shape, he was still WAY too small to be an offensive lineman in the NFL.
It’s funny how we automatically associate the bodybuilder physique with top physical performance. I wonder why?
Athletes seldom look like that, in any sport.
Really strong guys typically look like big blocks of meat. Look at Olympic weightlifters or World’s Strongest Man competitors.
Military acquaintances have told me that the typical Green Beret/Navy SEAL is about average-sized, just “fit-looking”.
Is it just skillful marketing, or what?
And therein probably lays the single biggest difference between American football and Rugby - insofar as American Football allows stoppages between plays, and definitive specialisations in certain tasks - and there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just the way the game has evolved over the last century.
In Rugby (both Union and League) you also have forwards who are much bigger in size and strength than the game’s backs, but the greatest differences is that there are no stoppages in play and all players on the field are expected to perform defensive roles when they’re side isn’t in possession of the ball - as a result, stamina is a very important component. You have to be fit enough to still play a useful role in the last 20 minutes of the game or you’ll open up defensive holes which your opposition will exploit. (Rugby is 2 halves of 40 minutes without stoppages). Hence, a defensive lineman probably would really struggle to make it in world class Rugby international matches - primarily because his build is specifically designed for very short intense bursts and the ability to be able to run all over the field for 80+ minutes like a soccer player is just not there.
You’ll see guys as tall as 6’6" playing Rugby Union - but they rarely carry much fat and are usually quite muscular but not overly so - if you know what I mean.
In that context, I think it’s safe to say that Ahhhhhhnold (given that Austria is a soccer only nation with zero body contact football traditions) well I’d say Arnold would have made a shit lineman strategically, and probably would have been way too small to be forward at all - in either American Football or Rugby Union. He sure was pretty though! 
Shaq as a noseguard, anyone?
I mean not that any pro athlete, even if their biggest dream in the whole wide world was to play pro football, who could make top notch dollar as an NFL player or NBA player wouldn’t pick the not-so-dangerous hardwood. (Tony Gonzales, for example, who played with the Miami Heat in their summer league a few years ago trying to make the official team would probably have made NBA league minimum even if he did make the team.)
Seriously, Shaq’s a lot more plausible than Ah-Nuld. I’ve always been interested in whether or not his mix of power and agility that makes him such a monster in the NBA would’ve translated favorably over to the NFL grid-iron. Of course, his sheer size makes it tricky to peg what position he might have player. Obviously with NBA shooting guards/small forwards it’s obvious some of them probably would have made pretty good NFL wide-outs since their roles/positions are the ones current great NFL wide-outs like T.O. and Randy Moss dream of playing.
With Shaq, although I’m sure his actual 40-time is pretty slow I still wonder if he might have the agility to play middle linebacker. (Hey, isn’t Levon Kirkland’s 40-time something like 5.8 or closer to 6?) What about Shaq as a left tackle, protecting the quarterback’s blinside? Seriously, the tallest guys (Jonathon Ogden of the Raves?) currently in the NFL I believe play offensive tackle. Who is going to elude Shaq once he has them blocked with those long arms? Actually, Shaq, because of his height, might be a problem at offensive tackle: I’m referring to the stuff you hear sometimes about undersized QB’s not being able to see over prototype height NFL linemen and this screwing up their view of their passing lanes and such. Shaq as an offensive tackle might present this same problem for even prototype-height QB’s.
Of course, it would be more entertaining to see Shaq play on the defensive line, either on the interior or at end. A point to be made also is when Shaq started out in the NBA he was 70-100 pounds lighter as opposed to this past year’s 360-pound Shaq.
Who knows? Certainly, Shaq as a defensive lineman would have a better chance of racking up sacks and pass deflections like he gobbles up blocked shots and rebounds than Ah-nuld would of making as many Pro Bowls as he won bodybuilding titles.
John Capel, currently one of the fast men in the world, spent a couple season playing wide receiver for the Florida Gators. But he couldn’t run routes correctly and had trouble cathing the ball. So pure speed doesn’t necessarily make a good football player. He had a few good kickoff returns, and once in a while the end around play he was used in would hit for big yards. But his football career was largely unremarkable.
Don’t get me started on Shaq and his supposed “agility” and “speed”. He has decent speed for a big guy and has solid moves, but if you really think he could make it in the NFL as a linebacker or lineman you are spending way too much time listening to Bill Walton. He harps on this point every freakin’ time I hear him do an LA game and I have never for a second believed it. Shaq is not quick enough or agile enough to play in the NFL. Most of the LBs and the DE in the NFL are EXTREMELY quick for their size and would blow by Shaq. Sure, a few are not naturally gifted and make up for it in other areas, but the average LB and DE in the NFL nowadays is much quicker, more agile and faster than they were even 10 years ago. Some of them the best are about probably only a step behind the quickness of some RBs in the league. Shaq is no ways near fast enough to make it.
As for runners becoming NFL players, its just not that simple. Its different sets of muscles. You have to be able to make quick cuts and decisive moves in addition to holding onto the ball after making the catch. Its not just speed. Most of the RBs have a breat combination of speed and power. Not strength necessarily. Most RBs are more on the small side but extrememly built and poweful. Its more cutting and hitting a hole than just straight ahead running. You are asking something similar to why say Barry Bonds couldn't be a great golfer. Its both hitting a ball and hitting it far and straight, but beyond that its two completely different skills.There’s no reason why they need to. Mauro DiPasquale held powerlifting records in five different weight classes, ranging from obese to about 5% bodyfat.
From IMDB.com,
Arnold in his prime was 6’2" and weighed 260 lbs. I looked in www.nfl.com, under the Super Bowl champs Tampa Bay and most of the players outside of Sapp are about the same height and size as Arnold.
Of course, this does not mean that every tall person can play basketball or all short people were meant to be jockeys.
I would bet that there’s not a single NFL starting lineman who is under 270.