Who are the best overall athletes in the world? I am a global sports enthusiast and evaluator. In my experience, the best overall athletes in sport are NFL players.
This does not mean I am a great fan of the game, but the fact is they are the best of the best for a number of reasons.
A high percentage of the NFL is made up of African-Americans who are arguably the best natural athletes in the world, evident by their domination in all physical sports throughout history (sprinting, boxing, track & field etc).
The NFL tests a range of attributes at the highest level including speed, strength, toughness and coordination. The fastest men in the NFL are literally 0.4 seconds from world record times in the 100 metre and 40 yard dash. Indeed some NFL players have gone on to win medals at the Olympics.
The most impressive players in the league (LBs and RBs) average 6’3 260lbs with 2% body fat. The league is big and rich enough to draft and acquire the best athletes from anywhere in the world.
And, the reason they where helmets is to avoid skull fracture; it does not protect them from impact (concussion, spinal problems). The NFL is without a doubt the highest impact game around with a ridiculous amount of injuries based on speed to weight ratio. This impact alone prevents most any other athlete from any other sport from competing in the NFL.
That deserves some respect.
Recommend this story.
November 8th 2009 @ 9:50pm
Tifosi said | November 8th 2009 @ 9:50pm | Report comment
The problem with regarding NFL players as the best athletes is that for large portions of the game they get to rest.
Having Offence and defence teams means less workload for these players. Compare it to rugby or league or Australian football where players have to both defend and attack.
Australian football players are pretty good athletes. They need endurance to last 4 qtrs, speed when attacking, and upper body strength for contact. They are good all rounders i guess.
November 8th 2009 @ 9:51pm
westy said | November 8th 2009 @ 9:51pm | Report comment
The lack of opportunity social disorder cultural attitudes and poor resources simply stunt sporting achievement in many parts of the world
November 8th 2009 @ 10:06pm
bever fever said | November 8th 2009 @ 10:06pm | Report comment
Genetically based, anatomical differences help explain why athletes of primarily West African ancestry hold 97 percent of top sprint times, including 494 of the top 500 100-meter times, yet are not very good at endurance sports, which requires a much different physiology.
The body type of whites falls in between West African descended and East African athletes. They have more natural upper-body strength, which contributes to their domination of weightlifting, field events such as the shot put and hammer (whites hold 46 of the top 50 throws), and the offensive line in football. Where flexibility is key, East Asians shine, such as in diving and some skating and gymnastic events — hence the term “Chinese splits.”
Why do we so readily accept that evolution has turned out blacks with a genetic proclivity to contract sickle cell, Jews of European heritage who are one hundred times more likely than other groups to fall victim to the degenerative mental disease, Tay-Sachs, and whites who are most vulnerable to cystic fibrosis, yet find it racist to acknowledge that blacks of West African ancestry have evolved into the world’s best sprinters and East Asians, the best divers?
http://blackathlete.net/artman2/publish/Track_amp_Field_36/Why_Black_Athletes_Dominate_Sports_and_Why_We_re_A_188.shtml
All sounds very stereotypical … but thats why stereotypes come about.
November 8th 2009 @ 10:37pm
Glen said | November 8th 2009 @ 10:37pm | Report comment
Good reply and further food for thought…
You are nearly correct, “Genetically based, anatomical differences help explain why athletes of primarily West African ancestry hold 97 percent of top sprint times, including 494 of the top 500 100-meter times, yet are not very good at endurance sports, which requires a much different physiology”.
That’s because there ain’t no money in running….name one sprint multi-millionaire! Come on… just one. if there was a huge amount of money to be made from running 100 metres quickly, guess what?
And what, golf and tennis are endurance sports??????
As to your assumption that endurance runners are not African… 200 of the world’s top long distance runners are from Kenya. Hmmm, go figure. Even the US has only 180 at the same level and most are of African origin. In countries like Columbia it’s 7. Not scientific I know but telling all the same!
I should also point out that I wasn’t calling the poster a racist, rather that the prevailing attitudes and social mores of the last century precluded many “minorities” from the very opportunities that would have seen them develop as great athletes across an enormous spectrum of sports.
I firmly believe that the next 50 years will see a great leveling of that imbalance.
But, hey.. what would a skinny white guy geek like me know?
November 9th 2009 @ 6:36pm
Jerome said | November 9th 2009 @ 6:36pm | Report comment
Usain Bolt. His appearance fee at events is in the 100′s of thousands
November 9th 2009 @ 8:39pm
Freud of Football said | November 9th 2009 @ 8:39pm | Report comment
Track & Field athletes don’t earn their money from competing, they earn it from wearing three striped shoes.
Their contracts with sportswear companies are extremely lucrative as they all know how much coverage these events get, how many newspapers ran with Bolt breaking the WR for the 100m at the olympics with a icture of him crossing the line in Pumas? 95% in the entire world? Not to mention the amount of times the race was shown on TV.
Do you think Bolt is just wearing Puma for fun or is he raking in millions?
November 10th 2009 @ 12:12am
Glen said | November 10th 2009 @ 12:12am | Report comment
Ok… you got one. And no doubt, there are a half a dozen or so more, but…
The average income for a premiere league soccer player (before endorsements) is US $1.1 per year and there are over 300 of them and that’s just in England. Extrapolate to the world stage and we are talking many, many thousands of multi-millionaires every year.
The average income for an NFL player (before endorsements) is US $770,000 and again there is a shit-load of them.
That’s just football.
Usain is a superstar, and soon to be a very rich one, but there is only one! Only one man in the world can be the fastest, but loads of them can run around with a footy.
November 9th 2009 @ 6:07am
katzilla said | November 9th 2009 @ 6:07am | Report comment
‘The body type of whites falls in between West African descended and East African athletes’
Does this mean White people are from middle africa?
November 9th 2009 @ 12:11am
bever fever said | November 9th 2009 @ 12:11am | Report comment
Did you read what i wrote …. sprinters are from west african heritage, distance runners from east african.
Have you watched the olmypics and the chinese divers … they look to have a advantage over the rest of the competition due to their very slim physical make up and because of their small size make very little splash when hitting the water (they tell me this is good when diving, although the opposite was true in my neighbourhood)
IMO genetic makeup in some races tends to give them a advantage, i am not saying every kenyan is a great marathoner or every american negro is a great sprinter, but across the board they stack up.
November 10th 2009 @ 12:13am
Glen said | November 10th 2009 @ 12:13am | Report comment
Sorry Bever, you’re right.
I mis-read your reply… but there is still some fuel for this debate!
November 9th 2009 @ 9:19am
Jameswm said | November 9th 2009 @ 9:19am | Report comment
Geez I almost wish I hadn’t read that article. It comes after a weekend meeting when a teacher tried to talk us out of letting our son focus on rugby because of the head blows.
November 9th 2009 @ 10:53am
sledgeross said | November 9th 2009 @ 10:53am | Report comment
NFL players are too specialised to be taken as great “all round” athletes. Sports like Union, League and even AFL have just as much g-force in some tackles as the NFL.
November 9th 2009 @ 3:34pm
Mr Sports said | November 9th 2009 @ 3:34pm | Report comment
I certainly agree that NFL players are amongst the most incredible athletes in the world, and i cannot imagine more scary prospect on a sportign field than Justin Tuck or DeMarcus Ware coming after me. But i agree with several Roarers who have commented that ‘best athlete’ is simply too broad a characterisation.
There really is no way to compare the explosive first step of an offensive lineman with the remarkable concentration of a shooter or the endurance of a football midfielder.
All that being said i were told i could pick one sport in the world and i would get the same athletic capacity as a star player in that sport, i’d take AFL player every time (well so long as i wasn’t turned into a ruckman). I follow almost every sport known to man and i cannot think of a sport that requires the combiantion of speed, power, endurance and ball skills that AFL requires.
November 9th 2009 @ 8:47pm
brad said | November 9th 2009 @ 8:47pm | Report comment
NFL players have specific skill sets, so the guys who can run the 100m faster than the the olympians can not handle being hit on th escrimmage line. An NFL team can use a crazy number of players in a match. in AFL and rugby the guys have to do alot more, ie defend and attack and sometimes kick. Pierre Spies is the best Athelet in the world. He can handle himsefl on the scrimmage line, can leap with the AFL and could probably beat the worlds best at chess.
November 9th 2009 @ 9:36pm
Ian Whitchurch said | November 9th 2009 @ 9:36pm | Report comment
Brad,
“so the guys who can run the 100m faster than the the olympians can not handle being hit on th escrimmage line”
Pssst. Look up “Bump and run”. Just sayin.
November 11th 2009 @ 10:08am
Mushi said | November 11th 2009 @ 10:08am | Report comment
It’s not really “hit” and the 100m sprint times guys typically aren’t the most contact friendly
November 10th 2009 @ 4:02pm
brad said | November 10th 2009 @ 4:02pm | Report comment
my bad NFL are the best sportsman in the world. thats why they get paid the most.
November 10th 2009 @ 4:33pm
Jerry said | November 10th 2009 @ 4:33pm | Report comment
By that logic the best sportsmen in the world are golfers and F1 drivers.