Quote Originally Posted by husseyclarke View Post
Any normal person would realise that most american footballers would not have the endurance to last the fast paced rugby action for 80 whole minutes.
If they went straight from the gridiron to the rugby pitch, of course they wouldn't. But if given a summer or so with a rugby club to work on their cardio and endurance training, I think they'd eventually get the hang of it.

Imagine I'm watching a game of american football. We start, the quarter back throws it, someone gets tackled. 10-20 seconds of play. Lets break for a minute. Another play, quarterback throws it, it goes to ground. Oh no. Another 1-2 minute break. These guys get so much time to rest. Anyone who knows the game of league knows that fat DOES NOT HELP YOU AT ALL. You have to be very fit to play the game. In union, fat helps a little but not much.
The offense has 40 seconds (not "1 or 2 minutes") to run another play, after which the officials call a delay of game penalty.

The game could stand to have far fewer timeouts, especially "media timeouts (ugh)," I'll have to agree.

To clarify, the only "fat" players on an American football team are the interior linemen, who block for the running backs and quarterback on offense and obstruct the running lanes on defense -- the other 6 players on offense (and 8 or 9 players on defense) are expected to carry mostly lean muscle mass.

You know what happens to rugby players when they dont play there heart out? They get dropped. They go back to training and the reserve grade and learn to fix their attitude. That comment is just bullshit. American footballers get far more time to rest during their games. Wow they play their ass off for 10-20 minutes a game. These rugby players play their ass off for upwards of an hour.
Players get benched for half-assing it in just about every team sport.

What I think the poster was trying to get at was that, in American football, EVERY player is doing something on EVERY play; in rugby the rest of the offensive players cannot block the defensive players -- that is obstruction. Therefore, when not in possession of the ball, the most the other offensive players can do is either contest for the scrum, or position themselves to receive a pass.