I just threw up again, this time my laptop got it.
I’m quite confident that the minority is still tiny. College football would likely be the last place they’d institute it - the conferences are their own separate organizations who have poured over numbers to decide who to extend invitations to. They aren’t going to toss that away for pro/rel. In addition, there is NO WAY that a league like the Big 10 is going to be ok with either Ohio State or Michigan getting relegated due to a bad year, or Big 12 with Texas, etc.
And I am confident we will not be seeing pro/rel in MLS in my lifetime. People have got to accept that in an American context, with American media contracts, pro/rel is a non-starter. Add to that the the 2nd tier (the new NASL) doesn’t even have a handful of teams that have stadiums that can seat 10,000. It would damage the league irrevocably and the slide into NASL collapse would commence.
Yeah, I’m not getting what Niply is saying either. I think it’s that if you change the rules, then different body types would be more successful, which is possibly true, but I’m not sure what the hell the point is. And I don’t get where this idea that somehow a fitter person is less likely to get injured when a 300 pound man throws them to the ground than a slightly heavier person. Third, I don’t understand how this “natural selection” would lead to less injuries when everybody is “fitter” and still slamming into each other with great amounts of force. Finally, it’s the running backs who suffer the most injuries, and by and large, they aren’t the obese ones.
Thinking about it further, I also don’t get how a game day roster of 53 is 175 bajillion people and how lowering it would result in less injuries.
I must not understand NFL football.
Natural selection doesn’t work that way, but that’s a separate debate.
That’s not stopping you, is it?
So, you’re saying you have a “just so” story, i.e. one that kind of makes sense but only if you don’t look too closely at the details?
Professional (and college) football schedules have gotten longer with less rest for players over the last 4-5 decades, not shorter. And the result has been more chronic injuries.
If you hadn’t noticed, one of the big debates right now deals with head injuries of the concussive AND sub-concussive varieties, which affect larger and small players, regardless of their BMI.
“Obviously”? Not so. Most proposals for a longer season actually increase roster sizes and support more flexible injured reserve rules, because even proponents realize more injuries will be the result.
He’s basically trying to turn football into soccer.
Yeah, I know. But I was already explaining something relatively complicated and I didn’t want to throw in more information
Something to consider. A 300 lb man at 10-15% bodyfat (quite good especially as football is not a bodyweight conservation sport like marathoning) is still carrying 30-45 lbs of fat, most of it at the waist. So he may appear to be obese while at a healthy to athletic level of bodyfat.
True, but I do think that a good majority of the fat guys (the linemen) would be considered obese. One study, which the NFL disagreed with, found roughly 56% of NFL players would be considered medically obese.
English Premier League has started to explode in popularity in the US. Its still very early on, but here in Chicago its becoming a big deal. Still a long ways to go, but now you can see games every week on TV, and many sports bars are showing the games on TV.
I agree it’s flawed by using only BMI measurements.
Even Mr. Olympia level bodybuilders are “obese” on BMI charts.
That was new for the 2014 season. When it started 7 or 8 years ago, it was only the second half of the season and only on NFL Network.
I’d say the only controversial thing about Sunday Ticket is that it’s a DirectTV exclusive. All other sports have similar packages that are provider-agnostic.
I don’t think that’s completely true. There are lots of casual to serious soccer fans in the US. (you and me, for example). But many of them are not fanatic enough to adopt a European club team to follow, though still being able to have some level of interest in national teams. Speaking for myself, I’d rather watch a UEFA final Spain vs Germany than a Champions League final Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich, even though the talent levels are pretty much the same, and play is probably at a slightly higher level on the club teams (as they have more time playing together and likely fewer holes in personnel).
Nonsense. I realize that you have a hardon against soccer as evidenced by your posts in this thread. I’m objecting to common assumption that NFL teams can’t play more than 16ish games per year. The NFL could very well set up two tournaments per year. Two Super Bowls per year would be awesome. It just would be played by a different set of people that we have now.
I’m sorry if my message turns you off because I’m a bit forceful and blunt about the current health situation of the average NFL player. As such I don’t feel that I have to water down or tiptoe around people’s delusions that the status quo is ok. Believing that football players are overall healthy is like believing that the moon is made of cheese.
The NFL will disagree with outside medical studies in the same way that police unions object to investigations into police brutality, unjustified shootings, etc. they will stick by their players, and that’s ok and expected. Can you imagine the embarrassment if players actual medical histories was published by the NFL? Patient confidentiality notwithstanding, if medical records were anonymized it would allows great statistical analysis while allowing some players to save face.
Yes totally agree. But realistically speaking if you put mr Olympia and an average lineman side by side with their shirt off the differences are visibly obvious.
First, this isn’t true. I love soccer. I played it growing up and even catch a few Revs games from time to time. I’m hoping to see Liverpool at Fenway if they come this year.
It would be a different game than the one they play now. The current NFL injuries are not due to fitness or extra weight. They are due to the jarring impacts implicit in a game where players that big, strong, and fast are hitting each other at full speed. If you want to eliminate the injuries you have regulate that out of the sport. Yes, there are positions that rely more on mass, and you’ll find higher bodyfat percentages among those. But the average NFL player is extremely fit.
What would you expect those records to show? What unhealthy metrics would you anticipate seeing? What specific injuries do you think are caused by poor cardiovascular health or high bodyfat percentage?
The injury problem in the NFL and the extended season is not caused by the players healthy or unhealthy habits. It is a direct result of the type of play that is needed to win in the NFL, the fact that the players are bigger, faster, and stronger than ever; and the knowledge we’ve gained on head trauma. You put the fittest person in the world in pads and have them play a full NFL season and they’ll be banged up or worse.
I hope this isn’t hijacking too much, but this is just not true. Kansas City just went to the World Series last year. One could argue that San Francisco has the makings of a dynasty and they’re outside the top 10 MLB most populous cities even if you include Oakland. The exact opposite has been seen in baseball, with small market teams rising to playoff caliber (Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, KC, Cincinnati, St. Louis, etc.). Meanwhile, the NFL playoffs typically feature the usual suspects.
This isn’t borne out by the facts. Larger players are not more injury prone than smaller players. Offensive linemen often have much longer careers than the ‘speed-based’ positions like RB and DB.
And if you had them run sprints, or agility drills, or other tests of actual athleticism, the difference would be extremely obvious in favor of the NFL player.
NFL players are, for the most part, freakishly strong and fast, whether big or small. The small ones tend to be faster, and the big ones stronger, but it’s absolutely ridiculous to claim that they are not good athletes.
Conferences are roughly akin to franchise owners in that they have vested financial interests in the league structures. My question is why more American fans don’t embrace the concept.