rugby pros vs NFL players- could they sw+of both sports. first of?

Really? Do you see honestly see any NFL player having the slightest chance of going for the full eighty minutes? Without a breather after every tackle and without endless substitutions? These guys have spent a lifetime training for a sport played in 5 second bursts, and they are great for those five seconds. But cardio is not exactly high on their training priorities list.

And do you really see any NFL runner coping with an offense where there is no blocking and offloading during the tackle is utterly critical to run a successful offense. Bo Jackson might be great -- until he went down. Then it would be a turnover every time as he would have absolutely no offloading skills.

The fact of the matter is that both sports are so completely different -- and take a lifetime of training to compete at an elite level -- that each team would be utterly hopeless at the other sport. Forget the All-Blacks. Any fourth-level English semi-pro club would crush the Packers in a rugby match. As would any Division III NCAA college team crush the All-Blacks at American football should they find themselves on a gridiron pitch.

So my question is why compare rugby and gridiron? You might as well choose basketball and ice hockey. It makes as much sense.

Edit: @ Levi-68. No -- I'm afraid not. A first string NFL RB couldn't play international rugby, if only because they have no on-the-fly kicking skills -- which, by the way, take a lifetime of training to acquire. What is your first string RB going to do under a high ball inside his own 22 with a chaser in his face? He can't run it out (no blockers) nor can he kick it away (no skills). What would happen is the runner would get swarmed, turn the ball over, and give up a try. Every time!

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There is no reason why a conditioned athlete who excels in either sport couldn't at least compete in the other. People who say that rugby players are tougher because they have to run for 40 minutes at a time are fooling themselves if they think that that makes them more fit that an NFL player. One byproduct of the stop-start nature of AF is that there is no point in conserving energy, so every second that the ball is live, the action is all-out. In fact, since so much of the strategy depends on high speed and lightning-fast reflexes, it takes an athlete conditioned enough to sprint full tilt or wrestle with a 300 lb player for the entire length of the play, then rest for 10-20 seconds, then be recovered enough to do it all over again. It's not easy. Think of it this way, if playing rugby is like running a marathon, then playing AF is like interval training. They are both demanding, and while general fitness and conditioning go a long way in both sports, one doesn't necessarily prepare you for the other.

That's a BIG question!

I have played rugby all my life, and American football for about 7 years, so I too have a decent background to answer this question.

Quite simply, the level of specialisation and training a player needs to put in to play at either NFL or international rugby level is so great that neither could really switch with any degree of success.

The only players who seem able to switch codes are the AFL players who go into the NFL as punters, and then only because that one skill is transferable (to some degree).

Given the time and inclination, I am sure some players could transfer, but I don't think it would be worth it in the long run - as they would be relative rookies going up against guys who had played the game since they were children. You would be looking at the guys who are superb athletes to start with, guys like Sonny Bill Williams, Pierre Spies, David Pocock, Adrian Peterson, Greg Jennings, Clay Matthews (yeah I'm a Packers fan, whatever!).

Would it be worth unlearning a lifetime worth of lessons to go from being a star in one sport to merely competent in another? I doubt many players would think so - and yet who knows?

EDIT

Levi, your argument is pointless; you are comparing American Football with American Rugby.

Would this guy have made a Super rugby team?

He definitely wouldn't have made the All Blacks.

You are comparing apples with oranges.

Two guys in my Gridiron team played for Australia at the American Football world cup.

Neither of them are able to crack first grade in their Soccer or AFL clubs, why?

Because here in Australia, we play Rugby, Soccer and AFL at a high level, gridiron at a much lower level.

In America you play Gridiron at a high level, rugby at a much lower level.

Apples and oranges

Comparing the sports is ludicrous, one is all about endurance and all round skill the other is all about speed and individual skill base ie one is big another fast etc

That said NFL players would struggle with the absolute lack of tackling technique. With their lead with the head technique and dive at the knees in their "more physical" less brains way of bringing an opponent down they would get knocked out within two minutes.

Rugby players would struggle with a lack of size in general although if they did not have to worry about cardio and just weights or speed i am sure they would adjust.

But the real question is why do NFL fans have to come on to a rugby site to justify their supposed dominance....insecure much.

Alright, here's a little scope.

Mike MacDonald, one of the better props in Rugby and possibly the best player in America's team history started his career as an athlete playing american football. He went to college to play AF, but never actually got to play because he wasn't big, strong, athletic, aggressive, or fast enough to play even COLLEGE football. That's why he picked up Rugby. Imagine an NFL player playing Rugby, he'd dominate.

Of course, guys like Jonah Lomu or the Tuilagi brothes are probably big, strong and athletic to make it to the NFL, but the third string RB on most NFL teams could play international rugby.

NFL players by majority are; faster (guys running 4.1 over forty on every team), stronger (hundreds of players benching 750lbs and squatting 800lbs) and bigger (linebackers average 6'4 250lbs, lineman 6'6 350lbs) and most of the NFL is comprised of African Americans who are naturally & genetically gifted athletes who have dominated all physical sports from the time they were given permission to compete in white man sports!

The only thing Rugby players trump NFL players in is overall endurance & stamina. Rugby is played at 75% at a non-stop pace, but no-one is ever going 100%. NFL is played at 100% from play to play utilising fast twitch muscle fibers. NFL football is way more high impact, high collision than Rugby and it would take Rugby players a long time to adjust to getting hit that hard. It would also be hard for NFL players to adjust to non-stop football. I think NFL players are in general better all-round athletes and are the best money can buy (the fact that 1 NFL team is worth more than several pro Rugby teams certainly gives the NFL an advantage in scouting and buying anyone in the world they think could cut it) bottom line is it could be done but with great difficulty.

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got to point one, saw the rest and stopped reading. the all blacks are amazing. rugby is better than american football. real football (the kind you play with a round ball and a goalie) is better than both. hockey (real hockey, not on ice) is the best sport in the world. the end.