[gpjanik]

Ugh, NFL players need to run on average about half of what a third tier soccer players do. At the extreme, a goalkeeper runs about the same as most running NFL player. For sprinting, the peak speed is similar, but soccer players run 2-3km of sprints during the game (1-1.5km for NFL). I'm not bringing NBA into this because it's just not a running sport altogether.

For explosiveness, top speeds of NFL and top 5 leagues in Europe are comparable, but more consistent for soccer players. They of course have to run with a ball next to their legs, rather than in hand, which makes it technically harder. For jumping, tall soccer players are closer to NBA players than to NFL (Tomori, Ronaldo, Lewandowski, etc, jump around 80cm).

In terms of agility, NFL and top 5 leagues is similar, about 3 seconds to 30km/h, but of course the best performing players in soccer are better.

So, with some similar parameters, soccer players do what NFL players do, but 3 times as long. That's the difference between "I can do this with a bit of a belly" and "I need to look like a god to even survive this game without getting a heart attack".

Edit: my point above wasn't that it's not physically difficult altogether, it was that these are not _elite_ sports in terms of physical requirement. Swimming, climbing, sprinting, soccer (mainly by the virtue of how professionalized it is), bicycle racing, that's physically super difficult. Basketball is super technical and relatively chill in physical requirements compared to these sports, and NFL is generally challenging but not nearly as much as the "top" sports, unless you specifically cherry-pick comparison to favor heavy, fast people. I chose rather versatile metrics that focus on input, e.g. how much you need to train to become fit enough.

[cjpearson]

And a soccer player runs 1/20th of what a marathoner does. Kipchoge would smoke Messi in a long-distance race. And I don't think Messi would get a hit off of Gerrit Cole, or have a snowball's chance in hell of stopping JJ Watt.

[gpjanik]

I mean again, even within a single sport, there are role differences, but the degree of fitness that you have to have to build 130kg muscle mass that JJ Watt has, and to run the 38.5 that Mbappe does... is just not the same level of fitness.

On the reverse, Mbappe has less strenght, and JJ Watt moves like a tank with 27km/h speed. If you compare them to elite strenght sports, they're both weak. If you compare them to sprinters, Mbappe is an amateur sprinter, and JJ Watt is disabled.

Sportsmen specialize in what they do, but NFL simply doesn't require versatility so they are good in fewer categories, and not very good in any. Soccer players are good in multiple categories, and by the virtue of being the more popular and competitive sport and having insanely bigger selection, occassionally very good in one or two (e.g. Bale, Mbappe, and other freaks of nature who are essentially sprinters).

Also, soccer player does not run 1/20th of marathoner runs. Elite wingers run just under _a third of marathon_ each game, of which 3km can be sprint.

[lukas099]

You are grading American football on a world football rubric. One could just say that world football is not demanding because you don’t need much strength, you can be small and fast (easier than being big and fast), you don’t have to be physically resilient enough to get flattened by a 350 pound man and jump back up, you don’t need hand skills, etc.