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That’s a highly cultural-specific viewpoint. For example Rugby union, league, AFL etc are all contact sports with huge followings - I can’t understand let alone (and probably because of my lack of understanding) stand NFL which I personally think culturally encapsulates an American approach to the world - this is the offence team, this is defence, let’s pad up and beat the shit out of the opposing side. Compared to the other three which display to my way of thinking a fluidity and flexibility that I believe to be more skilful and also a reflection of a deeper cultural flexibility. But now my cultural biases are flooding out heavily.

What is interesting however is that neither rugby union, league or AFL have anywhere near the level of concussive damage, maybe because the lack of protection leads to a different approach to bodily harm. Full disclosure, one of the products my company makes and is commercialising in Australian Rugby Union is a concussion monitoring system so this is a deep interest of mine both from the tech/commercial side but also the medical side.

You are right though, greater awareness of the risks is going to endanger these sports. A parting word of hope - we still allow boxing, and CTE is medically known as ‘punch drunk syndrome’ from the first reported cases of the medical literature.

Concussion management is a rapidly evolving field and my sister (for whom I built the side project which we are now commercialising) thinks that being able to have a biochem test like we do for heart attacks would totally change the field - big head knock, troponin-like test, then follow up and treatment as appropriate. It’s super interesting and we need to put players first whatever we do

> The most impressive athletes in any sport in the world are in the NFL

When I read this I immediately thought this person has never heard of Nadia Comãneci.

Nadia Elena Comăneci (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈnadi.a koməˈnet͡ʃʲ] (About this sound listen); born November 12, 1961) is a Romanian gymnast. An Olympic gold medalist, Comăneci is the first athlete in the history of the sport to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0[1]

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Comăneci

Edited to add: Here is the link to Nadia's 1976 Olympic Games perfect 10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl9QpC8_LiE

"An Olympic gold medalist, Comăneci is the first athlete in the history of the sport to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0"

But then imagine that, in that same olympics, there was a 6'5" tall human, weighing 320 pounds, that scored a 7.

What Nadia did was amazing. What NFL players are doing in the 21st century is otherworldly.

Someone once explained to me that rugby is a contact sport, and American football is an impact sport. The padding allows players to hit each other harder without bruising or direct impact, while the brain still bangs around in the skull.

We have an intuitive understanding of impacts that don't reflect the reality of the risks...

Boxers wear gloves to protect hands, not heads, and those big pillows mean harder hits mean more brain damage. Bareknuckle boxing is better for the brain.

No rugby player is lining up his skull and charging other players skulls like a ram or a goat, that would hurt, so they don't do it. Football players really need less protection for their heads so they stop doing things that are dumb for their brain.

The challenge with football is that the obvious corrections to the game would seem to be quite fan unfriendly... Touch football is hard to imagine on FOX SPORTS.

In the old days they had soft helmets, probably should go back.

Yeah my uncle played rugby for over 30 years with no major injuries when you don't have pads it definitely changes the nature of the game and ironically for the better.

Though Rugby can still break your spine, I think?

Yes, mostly at amateur level. Rugby (union) also has problems with serious injury, and it shouldn't be considered a better, or safer American football. At national level many teams play a very direct style - smash repetedly into the opposition until you create a hole. I think the IRB should make whatever rule changes are neccessary to encourage more running-rugby, and make "the hit" less important.

> the IRB should make whatever rule changes are neccessary to encourage more running-rugby

Turn it into rugby leage?

>What is interesting however is that neither rugby union, league or AFL have anywhere near the level of concussive damage, maybe because the lack of protection leads to a different approach to bodily harm

This is often cited as the cause for the discrepancy, but it doesn't consider the actual rules of each game. Like you said, games like rugby union, league, and AFL are more about fluidity and flexibility than American football. American football is about getting set, lining up, and going at your opponent as fast as you can. The end result is that the number of full speed collisions in American football is much higher since the players are often charging directly at each other. In the other sports the two opposing teams are often moving in the same direction so high impact head on collisions are rarer.

A lot of the head trauma in American football is really just from the brain rattling around in the skull as people collide at full speed. The helmets basically act as air bags in a car crash. They are there to prevent fractured skulls, but they do very little to prevent concussions and other head trauma.

> NFL which I personally think culturally encapsulates an American approach to the world - this is the offence team, this is defence, let’s pad up and beat the shit out of the opposing side. Compared to the other three which display to my way of thinking a fluidity and flexibility that I believe to be more skilful and also a reflection of a deeper cultural flexibility.

Team sports emulate warfare, and determining who wins or loses is based on achieving goals. Thus the strategy and goals adopted by these sports end up reflecting how each society believes how war should be fought and how wars are won. Thus europeans favour sports and strategies which are focused on achieving the goals without any emphasis on unnecessary manhandling or violence (not because of any pseudo superority or morality, but mainly because it needlessly wastes energy, degrades our side's athletic capabilities and performance, and also lowers the value of what is expected to be conquered) while the US favours a scorched-earth approach where winning is confounded with decimating the enemy in a humiliating manner, without any care preserving any value on which is about to be conquered.

This US-centric view of warfare is very well represented in Ender's game.

> I can’t understand let alone (and probably because of my lack of understanding) stand NFL which I personally think culturally encapsulates an American approach to the world - this is the offence team, this is defence, let’s pad up and beat the shit out of the opposing side.

Out of curiosity have you ever watched the NFL? Like, given it a good chance for at least a few games? Because in pop culture that's how the NFL is portrayed and marketed, but it's not really like that and honestly I'd venture to say that's not why most people like watching it - because there's not really much literal "beating the shit" out of the opposing side anyway, and to give an example: if you listen to the live crowds, you rarely, if ever, hear them lose their shit when the occasional gruesome helmet-to-helmet play or injury occurs, as someone on the outside looking in might expect. On the flipside, any time contact is avoided by the home team to make a good play, the crowd collectively loses their shit, because really what football is about is using physical strength as well as skill - mental and physical - to outsmart and outmaneuver your opponent and "beat the shit out of them" that way.

I've been watching football for years and I still barely understand how, at its core, the game works. Nevermind how physically skilled they are, which is a given - there is so much that goes into the game mentally it's mindboggling. Don't even get me started on the quarterback position which is arguably the most mentally-intensive position in any of the major sports, not just because it requires intelligence but it requires intelligence, FAST, while a bunch of guys are clawing at your offensive line trying to run into you and bring you down for the sack.

I’ve watched a handful, particularly when I was living (studying) in the states, and no doubt it is a game of strategy, and no doubt I don’t understand it well (as I mentioned). I hesitate with your strong endorsement of the intensive mental stress of it however, particularly when compared to the sports I mentioned, particularly Union, which lacks the long pauses and set pieces of NFL and requires more dynamic and on-the-fly thinking without coach or other input. I’m not saying it’s less than, but to use an analogy, I think for example Union is like the US Marine Corps (browsing their wiki article last night) where the outcome is the goal with the methods to be determined by the players, whereas NFL seems to be a continual discussion of strategy and set plays with sideline input, something not overly possible in union

>>That’s a highly cultural-specific viewpoint.

What is? That the NFL has the best athletes in the world?

If the NFL athletes trained for a year to do anything else, or you put all the athletes in the world into a decathalon of power/speed/strength specific events, it would be an insane blowout.

NFL players would crush every other group of athletes individually and probably combined, and I say this as someone who has worked with Rugby Union and AFL players in Australia. There is no comparison, they are the best athletes in the world for any fair value of athletics you want to use.

"Best athlete" is a function of the event, where physical strength, speed, and agility alone do not guarantee success. Doesn't matter how much time you give to NFL players, they wouldn't outplay Giannis Antetokounmpo or LeBron James, or out-race Eliud Kipchoge, or out-dribble Messi, or out-swim Olympic swimmers, or out-climb Alex Honnold, etc. Those are all fair measures of athletic ability.

Your argument might be more reasonable if you were trying to compare top NFL athletes to somebody like Ashton Eaton (world decathlon record holder).

How about a literal decathlon?

But come on, there are tremendous differences difference between the body types and skills involved in swimming, gymnastics, bobsled, trick snowboarding, 100 meter dash, marathon, boxing, sumo, table tennis, basketball, archery, rock climbing, ballet, ... https://imgur.com/a/cOTTF

You can’t just say “these particular athletes matching a particular archetype are ‘the best’, and could be retrained to beat anyone at anything”.

Are you saying that almost all of the best athletes in the world just happen to be born in America? Or are you claiming that the NFL training regime is so good that it allows them to beat everyone else in the world? Why would that be? It can't be the money. There's a lot more money in soccer, and unlike NFL it has a pool of talent that covers the whole world.

And no salary caps, and no closed-shop leagues.

Their horsemanship is, by and large, terrible.

>The most impressive athletes in any sport in the world are in the NFL and when you think about the things that happen in any single game, they truly are spectacular.

That seems like a wildly opinionated statement in an otherwise good comment.

> The most impressive athletes in any sport in the world are in the NFL

If you're going make such outrageous claims at least give some explanation? How do you measure how impressive an athlete is?

Context-neutral speed, strength, power metrics would all go to NFL players if you had a worldwide combine of running/jumping/lifting/etc. It would be laughable.

See my bio if you think this opinion is subjective.

> Context-neutral speed, strength, power metrics

But if you choose these traits then naturally it's going to benefit those athletes who compete in sports where it's more beneficial to get.. big..

That's like saying tennis/table tennis/badminton players are all mediocre athletes because they aren't able to lift as much weight even though it isn't as beneficial or is even potentially harmful to be very heavy in those sports but of course any serious athlete is going to optimize their training for their sport.

Your bio has no data to prove what you claim.

First of all, you misappropriated "The Catch" from 1981 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Catch_(American_football).

Second, OBJ's one handed catch has been one-up'd by himself and other many times.

Saying "the most impressive things in the history of sports period" is hyperbolic, and simply wrong. You're neglecting every other sport, olympic achievment, or otherwise. The NE England Patriot's comeback in last year's superbowl is more like something we could talk about as being the greatest sports achievement of all time.

> OBJ's "The Catch" is one of the most impressive things in the history of sports period.

As someone not familiar with football (not from the US), can someone explain to me what makes this catch particularly impressive? Is it the speed (difficult to assess from a video)?

I'm not very familiar with football either, but I can say that OP is heavily exaggerating and probably not familiar with sports history at all.

Heck, I'm not huge sports fan, I can come up with half a dozen more impressive feats in sport off the top of my head.

* Beamon's long jump record in 1968 Olympics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEt_Xgg8dzc

* Maradona's goal of the century: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wVho3I0NtU

* Zidane CL final, won Real Madrid its 9th CL title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFfomw-Z4uE

* O'Sullivan, fastest 147[1] in history (snooker = 4D chess in my opinion): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3C7I5lRZII

* Sotomayor's high jump world record in 1988 Olympics (his lowest time and still 0.01 m higher than anyone else since then!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n6NhV4CaiU

* Usain Bolt

[1] 147 is the maximum number of points you can get in a game of snooker. The only way to do this is to alternate pocketing a red ball then a black ball until all red balls are off the table; this nets you 120 points. Once this is done, you need to pocket the remaining colored balls, ending with the black ball, for an additional 27 points. All this must be done without conceding a single point to your opponent (i.e., no mistakes). Start watching from 1:10 for the action.

One of these is not like the others. I'm as big a Ronnie fan as any body else, but Snooker is less physical/athletic than any of the other sports in that list. I am not discounting the skill by any means, however - Ronnie in full form is unlike any other snooker player, perhaps except jimmy white.

If you think snooker has even the slightest resemblance to chess then you have never played snooker or chess seriously.

I'm using the term "4D chess" to convey that snooker is an amazingly complex game when played at the highest levels.

At that distance, at the complete edge of the field (could’ve easily gone out of bounds), swarmed by two guys, with one hand. Most impressive things in history of sports might be a bit hyperbolic, but it’s pretty incredible.

Impressive but yeah I don't really get that quote. Look at cricket just because I know it. It don't have the fight with other players but talk about the reflex time needed for the close catch, athleticism and presence of mind to make sure the ball doesn't go over the boundary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boHfs7nopHc

But they are all really different. Different sports required different skill calling one set of skills most athletic is really weird.

I'm pretty certain society will look back on football at all levels, most likely the younger "tackle" leagues especially, and think how barbaric it was in hindsight, specifically with the information we have about head injuries.

This is sad, because I really enjoy relaxing fall/winter Sundays watching NFL games, but as you said, I'm starting to really struggle with the morality of it.

I remember thinking I had just watched a player die on the field with the Ricardo Lockette injury a few years back - not a dirty hit, or anything, just the result of a violent game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BEx1BqTlhI

>>I'm pretty certain society will look back on football at all levels, most likely the younger "tackle" leagues especially, and think how barbaric it was in hindsight, specifically with the information we have about head injuries.

Absolutely. It's a ridiculous sport and the NFL specifically themselves are completely unethical scum for perpetuating the myth that they care about player safety. Yet I find more contempt in my heart for the NFLPA, whose union has got to be the least competent and least effective group of organized workers in the United States, if not the world.

OBJ's "The Catch" is one of the most impressive things in the history of sports period.

Every sports record is hailed as the most impressive thing in sports ever. I think your enthusiasm for the sport might be leading you into a bit of hyperbole here.

Yeah it's an impressive catch but I can recall a number of equally impressive catches from cricket too.

I will see your 50 MPH catch and raise you 100: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX8EQXMtX8w

While OBJ's was impressive, I have seen even more crazy catches in Cricket and Baseball!

Funny thing when I thought of fantastic catches the first thing I thought about the first catch in that video of yours. I remembering seeing that live and I think that was the first time in cricket history someone consciously did that double step catch. It seems in recent days (I haven't followed much lately) that thing has become a lot more common even two players in tandem doing it. It's so interesting that once you know something's possible a lot more people can do it. But yeah that first one was special at points, both the reflex and the speed of thought to find a way to do this that never been done before. I think he single handedly raised the level of fielding in cricket by showing what's possible and that it can truly be a game changer in terms of producing result.

The most impressive athletes in any sport in the world are in the NFL

Call me when one of them free-climbs El Capitan.

Why would the NFL fund this? Then they might actually find the CTE, in people who were still alive to sue. They know that success means the end of their sport in its current form. This is like asking why the cigarette industry doesn't fund cancer research.

> Football is a sport that is designed to really allow people to showcase the limits of the human body.

Not really; depending on dimension, gymnastics, ballet, marathon, short-distance sprinting, powerlifting, and any number of other sports and physical arts are far better at showcasing the extremes of what the body can do.

> The most impressive athletes in any sport in the world are in the NFL

Well, “impressive” is subjective, and all this really says is that you are particularly prone to being impressed by the kind of display that the NFL provides.

> "The Catch" is one of the most impressive things in the history of sports period.

So I finally got around to watching the catch. Cool catch, but isn't the catching ability of a receiver augmented by tact gloves?[1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protective_equipment_in_gridir...

I have been wat hung football since i was kid but like you the past couple of years it has become harder to justify watching these big hits and traumatic injuries knowing the damage it is doing to players when they get older.