jazzcyclist wrote:Also not unlike John Capel (6.48 @60), Leonard Scott (6.46 @60), Jeff Demps (6.52 @60), Trindon Holliday (6.54 @60)and Jacoby Ford (6.51 @60), all football players who managed to run very fast indoor times two months after football season and 10.0x in the outdoor season while dabbling in track like Jackson.
All those you cite took track very seriously and trained for it. Deion Sanders could have smoked all of them, but he and Bo and Herschel just ran track as an after-thought to football.
Marlow wrote:Deion Sanders could have smoked all of them.
You don't know that. There's a big difference between 10.26 (Deion's PR) and sub-10, so it's just idle specualtion and conjecture to say that Deion would have run faster than the guys I listed who also chose football over track when they left college, just like Deion and Bo did, although Scott and Capel were forced to return to track after they couldn't cut it in pro football. What I will concede is that Bo and Deion were splitting their time three ways (football, baseball and track) and not just two ways (football and track). If Deion had run 10.0x while in college, I would concede sub-10 ability, but I won't concede it based on a 10.26 PR.
Lord_Zanus wrote:I've . . . always thought 40's were b.s.
Some are; some aren't.
In the sense that they arent FAT, they all are. And this isnt even saying that the runner needs to reqct to a gun. It could be something as simple as breaking a beam which starts the clcok and breaking another to stop it.
jazzcyclist wrote:I doubt very seriously that Bo Jackson is in the top ten since his 100 PR was only 10.44
??!! 40y = 36m, a very different distance than the 100m. Ask Herb or Houston or any other jet-starter would couldn't reach or sustain a high top-end speed. We are JUST talking about great 'accelerators' in the 40.
I'm fully aware of the fact many explosive sprinters who excel indoors, lack the top end to be competitive outdoors and vice versa. However his 55m PR is only 6.18 according to the Auburn media guide. You do the math and keep in mind that at the NFL combine you don't have starting blocks and you run on field turf instead of Mondo.
I coached a guy who had prs of 6.1 & 6.58 and during a workout that same year I secretly timed him in the 40 enroute to a 50 or 60. During the actual rep I hand timed the run at 4.2x. But I then went home and clocked it on the computer using dartfish and got 4.54. In terms of the 100m he's faster than Chris Johnson and Bo Jackson but slower than Trindon Holiday. So in one sense you have a point in that he may not be in the top ten, but you would have to also consider the inconsistancy in timing from athlete to athlete. Especially when it comes to a distance so shirt.
Lord_Zanus wrote:I've . . . always thought 40's were b.s.
Some are; some aren't.
In the sense that they arent FAT, they all are. And this isnt even saying that the runner needs to reqct to a gun. It could be something as simple as breaking a beam which starts the clcok and breaking another to stop it.
At the NFL Combine, they only stop the clock electronically, but they also use the same starter (Mark Gorscak) year after year to start the clock. Anyone who's watch him knows that he's pretty consistent when it comes to disallowing rolling starts and all the other shenigans that players might try to get away with.
jazzcyclist wrote:At the NFL Combine, they only stop the clock electronically, but they also use the same starter (Mark Gorscak) year after year to start the clock. Anyone who's watch him knows that he's pretty consistent when it comes to disallowing rolling starts and all the other shenigans that players might try to get away with.
Really?! I thought the clock starts automatically when their hand leaves the electronic starting pad. If not, I don't care HOW good he is; he is human and therefore subject to variances.
jazzcyclist wrote:Also, I can't think of another sport that places as a high a premium on hand-eye coordination as golf does.
Including hand-eye coordination as one of the many criteria to determine the best athlete is fine with me. What we should also include then is auditory reaction time, which is something sprinters are particularly good at.
Are sprinters really "particularly good" at reaction time? Good sprinters have lots of fast-twitch fibers, but that's not what transmits nerve impulses, and I've never heard there was any link between the two.
Indeed, there was a study in the early '70s by the Soviets, who ran reaction-time tests on all their "sportsmen," as they liked to call them. Of all the sports, guess which one's performers as a group tested best? Would you believe.... wait for it.... chess players! Seriously.
jazzcyclist wrote:At the NFL Combine, they only stop the clock electronically, but they also use the same starter (Mark Gorscak) year after year to start the clock. Anyone who's watch him knows that he's pretty consistent when it comes to disallowing rolling starts and all the other shenigans that players might try to get away with.
Really?! I thought the clock starts automatically when their hand leaves the electronic starting pad. If not, I don't care HOW good he is; he is human and therefore subject to variances.
fortyacresandamule wrote:Do golfers qualify as athletes? For if they do, we might as well called ball room dancers athletes also.
As a former pro golfer I will say that I think ball room dancers actually have to have a much greater degree of athletic skill than golfers. We just had to become automatons. Dancers are pretty athletic in many cases. There was a book in the 70s called The Ultimate Athlete and the author concluded he did not know who the ultimate athlete was, but he bet he/she was a dancer.
In the mid to late 60's Sports Illustrated had an American male ballet dancer on the cover. They proclaimed him to be the best athelete in the world. Not sure if anyone can provide a point to that.
OK, sonuvagun, I did not know that. And it makes no sense, but they can do as they wish. His human error (I don't care how good he is) induces several hundredths of a second error into every time. It really IS time (pun!) for the NFL to go to track FAT.
OK, sonuvagun, I did not know that. And it makes no sense, but they can do as they wish. His human error (I don't care how good he is) induces several hundredths of a second error into every time. It really IS time (pun!) for the NFL to go to track FAT.
The NFL has considered going to FAT but there's a lot of pushback because they know the times will be slower. My suggestion would be for them ween the scouts and players off of SAT times by publishing duplicate sets of times (SAT and FAT) for a few years until people have a sense of what the difference is, and then after three or four years, switch to FAT cold turkey.
Dave wrote:In the mid to late 60's Sports Illustrated had an American male ballet dancer on the cover. They proclaimed him to be the best athelete in the world. Not sure if anyone can provide a point to that.
SI did an article on New York City Ballet's Edward Villella. Villella was a boxer and baseball player in college and married former Canadian Figure skating champ, Linda Carbonetto.
gh wrote:Are sprinters really "particularly good" at reaction time? Good sprinters have lots of fast-twitch fibers, but that's not what transmits nerve impulses, and I've never heard there was any link between the two.
Correct, all I meant to say is that they are good at it because they specifically train for it. Part of becoming a great sprinter is learning how to have a good start, and that includes improving one's auditory reaction time.
gh wrote:Are sprinters really "particularly good" at reaction time? Good sprinters have lots of fast-twitch fibers, but that's not what transmits nerve impulses, and I've never heard there was any link between the two.
Correct, all I meant to say is that they are good at it because they specifically train for it. Part of becoming a great sprinter is learning how to have a good start, and that includes improving one's auditory reaction time.
I remember reading that even ace F1 racers actually don't have übermensch reaction time as is opposed to what people believe, and I would find it very doubtful that sprinters excel the average humans in the raw reaction section, though they certainly do much much better that non-athletes to get the first movement executed - so it's all semantics about how reaction is defined?
Dave wrote:In the mid to late 60's Sports Illustrated had an American male ballet dancer on the cover. They proclaimed him to be the best athelete in the world. Not sure if anyone can provide a point to that.
SI did an article on New York City Ballet's Edward Villella. Villella was a boxer and baseball player in college and married former Canadian Figure skating champ, Linda Carbonetto.
That was who I was trying to remember. I wonder if their kids became athletes or dancers.
dbirds wrote:Most soccer players have very little upper body strength and average or less hand-eye coordination. having said that, they do hit your other criteria quite well
Good point; the criteria to determine the best overall athlete should apply both to lower body and upper body strength/muscular endurance/etc.
Anyone has an idea about how much endurance NFL players have?
Yeah, but soccer players have better foot to eye coordination. I doubt that top flight soccer players are lacking in upper body strength, just look at the likes up Didier Drogba and Sol Campbell. I suspect that most soccer players probably could hold their own in pull-ups with participants in other sports. The idea that "Sports Science" is going to determine the greatest athlete ever on the basis of whatever means that intend to is ludicrous anyway.
dbirds wrote:Most soccer players have very little upper body strength and average or less hand-eye coordination. having said that, they do hit your other criteria quite well
Good point; the criteria to determine the best overall athlete should apply both to lower body and upper body strength/muscular endurance/etc.
Anyone has an idea about how much endurance NFL players have?
dbirds wrote:Most soccer players have very little upper body strength and average or less hand-eye coordination. having said that, they do hit your other criteria quite well
Kyle Rote, a reasonably talented soccer player, did win the Superstars competition a few times. Just saying. What this back and forth points to for me again and again, one name, Thorpe!
dbirds wrote:Most soccer players have very little upper body strength and average or less hand-eye coordination. having said that, they do hit your other criteria quite well
Good point; the criteria to determine the best overall athlete should apply both to lower body and upper body strength/muscular endurance/etc.
Anyone has an idea about how much endurance NFL players have?
Defensive backs can probably run a little. By the nature of what they do, they have to be able to. When Bill Arnsparger was the coach at LSU, they concluded their practices with wind sprints, but defensive backs had to typically run at least twice as much as everybody else, and it was common for the other players to see the defensive backs still running after they had showered and were on their way home.
jazzcyclist wrote:Anyone has an idea about how much endurance NFL players have?
NFL pre-season camps are no picnic, that's for sure. They go into the season VERY fit. Once the season starts, the regulars get game-fit, which is a specialized kind of fitness, which mere mortals would find insanely difficult to reach, like NBA regulars who can go up and down the court with enormous aerobic AND non-aerobic fitness. As mentioned, Pro soccer midfielders are ridiculous in their ability to sprint, jog, walk, sprint, jog, walk for 90+ minutes.
jazzcyclist wrote:Whatever defense has to face Oregon this bowl season will spend a good portion of December running their asses off, and you can take that to the bank.
jazzcyclist wrote:Whatever defense has to face Oregon this bowl season will spend a good portion of December running their asses off, and you can take that to the bank.
The have scored 70 points so far this afternoon.
I was thinking about the Ducks as an exception to the fitness rule....On to USC!
And Florida is down by 10 with 7 minutes to go....
jazzcyclist wrote:Whatever defense has to face Oregon this bowl season will spend a good portion of December running their asses off, and you can take that to the bank.
The have scored 70 points so far this afternoon.
I was thinking about the Ducks as an exception to the fitness rule....On to USC!
And Florida is down by 10 with 7 minutes to go....
Actually they're down by 8. Final score:
Georgia 17 - Florida 9
By the way Florida beat LSU 14-6, and who can forget LSU's 9-6 OT win over Alabama last year. How is Oregon going to react when they get in a dogfight like this? What are they going to do when they have to face a defense that has the athletes to make a football field seem as small as a basketball court?
dbirds wrote:Most soccer players have very little upper body strength and average or less hand-eye coordination. having said that, they do hit your other criteria quite well
Good point; the criteria to determine the best overall athlete should apply both to lower body and upper body strength/muscular endurance/etc.
Anyone has an idea about how much endurance NFL players have?
Not a lot I dare say. Especially compared to other sports. Richie McCaw, New Zealand's iconic All Black captain would eat alive every NFL player in the fitness stakes, as would most go the top tier rugby internationals.
However, in saying that, American football is a game that does require that level of fitness. And by the way I am not anti-American football as it is still my favourite game and following division one NCAA football from the bottom of the planet is still my favourite armchair past-time.
The only downside is that I am forced to be a supporter of the Ducks as my alma mater WSU is not exactly a winning team so I then resort to supporting the PAC 12 and so ipso facto "go Oregon".
Tuariki wrote:Richie McCaw, New Zealand's iconic All Black captain would eat alive every NFL player in the fitness stakes, as would most go the top tier rugby internationals.
You usually know what you are talking about, so I will just ask why you say this? They seem to be pretty fit to me.
Tuariki wrote:Richie McCaw, New Zealand's iconic All Black captain would eat alive every NFL player in the fitness stakes, as would most go the top tier rugby internationals.
You usually know what you are talking about, so I will just ask why you say this? They seem to be pretty fit to me.
The demands of the two games are very different. There is no need for NFL players to have the level of aerobic fitness that an international level rugby player needs. NFL players have plenty of rest time during the game. There is a rest after every play; a lengthy rest when the other team gets the ball as offense and defense swap over; and unlimited substitutions.
NFL players are trained to have an intensive explosive burst of energy usage for a few seconds and then they get to rest. Rugby forwards who are the equivalent of linemen must play pretty much non-stop for 40 minutes each half. It is, IMO, one of the reasons that NFL linemen are much bigger than rugby forwards. Rugby forwards weighing 350 pounds don't make it in rugby as they are just too big and would be unlikely to last the game. The current All Black forwards are the biggest they have ever been but they average about 245 pounds; which is pretty big but next to NFL linemen they are midgets.
The South African Springboks are generally significantly bigger than the All Blacks, averaging closer to 260 pounds. However, while the the All Blacks often struggle to contain the Boks for the first 60 minutes the All Blacks usually over power them in the last 20 minutes as their aerobic fitness levels come through.
In the past I have often almost (well not really) come to blows with diehard All Black supporters by arguing that if I was a squillionaire and could afford to buy an American rugby team made up of hand picked NFL players, that team, if given the right coach and 12 months, would beat the All Blacks. Basically they would need 12months to learn sufficient of the nuances of the game and to get fit enough to last 80 minutes of continuous activity. At the end of the day I am a pretty firm believer in all other things being equal then the good big guy will nearly always beat the good little guy.
It is why I happen to believe that if the USA wants to win the rugby sevens Olympic Gold in Rio, and the USA gets buy in from all NFL players, I believe that even though NZ is currently the deserved heavy favourite, this mantle would pass to the USA. This is because the USA can put 7 guys on the field who are huge and who are legitimate near 10 second 100m sprinters. Remember sevens rugby is not the full 15 man game. There is probably only a couple of All Blacks who could break 11 seconds for the 100m.
However, it will be a lot harder for the USA to beat the All Blacks in the 15 man game. But the USA has the manpower to do it. But it won't happen because NFL players will not want to take a massive drop in income just to prove a point.
Tuariki wrote:.... Richie McCaw, New Zealand's iconic All Black captain would eat alive every NFL player in the fitness stakes, as would most go the top tier rugby internationals.....
balderdash!
There are all kinds of fitness freaks in the NFL, even if the nature of the game doesn't require it the same way rugger does.
At any rate, give me a team made up of NFL tight ends and I think they'd run amok in a game of Sevens.
Tuariki wrote:.... Richie McCaw, New Zealand's iconic All Black captain would eat alive every NFL player in the fitness stakes, as would most go the top tier rugby internationals.....
balderdash!
There are all kinds of fitness freaks in the NFL, even if the nature of the game doesn't require it the same way rugger does.
At any rate, give me a team made up of NFL tight ends and I think they'd run amok in a game of Sevens.
Great point, Given a few of those Gronkowski-like, robo-alien-beasts, there are not too many man-sports that they can not dominate. I wonder what the Gronk could do in a reformulated beast-Decathlon where the 35lb weight is added and the 1500m is dropped.
Tuariki wrote:.... Richie McCaw, New Zealand's iconic All Black captain would eat alive every NFL player in the fitness stakes, as would most go the top tier rugby internationals.....
balderdash!
There are all kinds of fitness freaks in the NFL, even if the nature of the game doesn't require it the same way rugger does.
At any rate, give me a team made up of NFL tight ends and I think they'd run amok in a game of Sevens.
Great point, Given a few of those Gronkowski-like, robo-alien-beasts, there are not too many man-sports that they can not dominate. I wonder what the Gronk could do in a reformulated beast-Decathlon where the 35lb weight is added and the 1500m is dropped.
I agree with you and gh, but I would opt for athletes like Calvin "Megatron" Johnson rather than ones like Gronk. Megatron would probably match Gronk in all the power events and dominate him in running and jumping events of a decathlon.
As for conditioning, I have a hunch that quite a few NFL cornerbacks can run the 1500 in times comparable to world class decathletes when they're in mid-season form.
Tuariki wrote:.... Richie McCaw, New Zealand's iconic All Black captain would eat alive every NFL player in the fitness stakes, as would most go the top tier rugby internationals.....
balderdash!
There are all kinds of fitness freaks in the NFL, even if the nature of the game doesn't require it the same way rugger does.
At any rate, give me a team made up of NFL tight ends and I think they'd run amok in a game of Sevens.
Great point, Given a few of those Gronkowski-like, robo-alien-beasts, there are not too many man-sports that they can not dominate. I wonder what the Gronk could do in a reformulated beast-Decathlon where the 35lb weight is added and the 1500m is dropped.
I agree with you and gh, but I would opt for athletes like Calvin "Megatron" Johnson rather than ones like Gronk. Megatron would probably match Gronk in all the power events and dominate him in running and jumping events of a decathlon.
As for conditioning, I have a hunch that quite a few NFL cornerbacks can run the 1500 in times comparable to world class decathletes when they're in mid-season form.
I thought my Gronk-like robo beast umbrella more than adequately covered Calvin Johnson but I like your focus.
