LogFAQs > #979973614

Second point - we're probably just going to end up discussing what "athletic" even means, because the demands of different sports have different needs for physical ability, and people tend to inherently value certain kinds of athleticism over others in these discussions.

I bet the source of this argument is really just that NFL requires people to be very fast and powerful but not a whole lot in terms of cardio endurance.

Compare that to Aussie rules football, a sport you may never even have heard of. These guys need to be as tall as basketball players, as fast as soccer players, able to take hits like rugby players and they need to do all this while running (not jogging, running) 10kms every game. They may well be some of the greatest athletes in general fitness of any sport, and its a sport that is barely known outside of australia.

Ultimately, athleticism is hyper specific, and doesn't always carry over to other sports. I'm not sure why you'd think rugby players could go to the NFL when it already took them a decade or more to just learn how to play rugby at the top level.