What about an NFL Weight Limit?

[albionmoonlight]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/football/nfl/10/07/sampson.collapse/index.html

This may have nothing to do with weight, but once again we have a 300+ lb. football player collapsing. The problems with obesity in sports has been documented several times recently by the "outside the lines" crowd. Let's assume for purposes of this post that it is a problem.

What if the NFL were to set a rule (effective years down the road so players and teams could adapt to it) that said that no player over X pounds at the beginning of the season will be allowed to play (or you could weigh them before every game, but that would get complicated).

It would be fair because it would apply to all teams equally. And it would discourage guys from bulking up to 350+ and putting their health in danger. And I don't think that overweight guys are a protected class or anything.

I don't think that it would really diminish the game either. If anything, it may help open it up a bit.

I'm not saying that we need to make the limit 250 or something. But it might be nice to discourage the extreme end of morbid obesity in the league.

[rkmsuf]

I don't think we need a rule. Potential death is a pretty good deterrant.

Besides the sumo don't have this problem.

[Fonzie]

That's a fine idea, but I suspect you'd start to see a lot of bulimic behavior amongst football players, just like we see for wrestlers. The resultant frequent increases and decreases in weight might end up being more harmful to the health of the football player than the excessive weight.

I do sympathize with the idea, though.

[stevew]

I think it might not be a bad idea if these guys were capped at around 330 pounds. Im curious how some of these guys adapt when they quit football, and suddenly are 350 pounds. Ping:Jerry Ball.

[Logan]

That's a fine idea, but I suspect you'd start to see a lot of bulimic behavior amongst football players, just like we see for wrestlers. The resultant frequent increases and decreases in weight might end up being more harmful to the health of the football player than the excessive weight.

I do sympathize with the idea, though.

I agree on both points.

[Samdari]

I think the NFL needs to intelligently address the problem of health risks for heavier players.

I have several ideas of what would be considered intelligent, I realize I am not an expert, and they would be very uneducated ideas.

I am relatively certain, however, that a single, arbitrary weight limit, is not a way to intelligently address the problem.

And the most recent problems which have occurred seem not to have been directly linked to excessive weight. Thomas Herrion had an obscure, congenital, heart condition, which may have been exacerbated by his weight and activity level (both being somewhat driven by his chosen profession).

Sampson, we have no idea what his health problem is, let alone if it is weight related (FWIW, Sampson is a pretty svelte 312 lbs, and I am pretty sure does not have an excessive body fat %). Lets not jump off the deep end, when we don't know what the probelm is. KC is on a bye this week, and had not practiced all week, so this is very different from Korey Stringer, which was very different from Herrion.

[bhlloy]

The only problem I can see with a straight weight limit is there is a big difference between 6'0 300 and 6'7 300. I mean nobody would ever call Julius Peppers even close to obese, but he is weighing in at just over 300 pounds this year. He's probably one of the fittest players in the league. Richard Seymour likewise. There is a huge difference between a lot of guards who are just maulers, and a tall tackle like Jonathan Ogden who is at least 320 but is completely ripped.

Maybe BMI would be a better thing to base it on?

[albionmoonlight]

I am relatively certain, however, that a single, arbitrary weight limit, is not a way to intelligently address the problem.
That's a fine idea, but I suspect you'd start to see a lot of bulimic behavior amongst football players, just like we see for wrestlers. The resultant frequent increases and decreases in weight might end up being more harmful to the health of the football player than the excessive weight.
Good points, both. I can see how a set weight limit is probably not the answer.

The human body was not meant to be 350+ pounds, and it was certainly not meant to be 250+ pounds and run into other 250+ pound bodies running at 4.3 speed. It is an interesting puzzle--how to keep people safe and healthy when they are doing things that, on some level, are very dangerous and unnatural.

[Solecismic]

We could ban football entirely.

On the whole, it's a lot safer than many sports. I think they're on the right track with a decent anti-steroid policy. Stringer's death ensured better immediate access to doctors who know what they're doing.

All jobs carry a certain amount of risk. And usually, you get higher pay for higher-risk jobs.

[Greyroofoo]

I wish that were true with the military :(

[Pumpy Tudors]

Just because I'm having a ball with the Minitab statistics software right now, I propose that we bring out some ANOVA up in here.

Never mind me.

[gstelmack]

Skinny people have seizures too. A friend of my sister has a seizure disorder and quit her job because she couldn't chance driving for an hour to work everyday. (She had a seizure while driving and was involved in a head-on collision.) The girl is about 5'3, 105.
You don't even have to go outside sports. College and Pro Basketball players seem to be dropping like flies...

[WrongWay]

Besides the sumo don't have this problem.

Is this true?

Maybe it is all the red meat in their diets? It would be cool if they posted some cholesterol numbers of these players. Maybe they should just ban everyone that eats red meat from football.

I for one am all for a weight limit, especially in the real world. I would love it if we could treat fat people the same way we treat smokers. Go into a diner and ask for the Non-Fat dinning room. Or, how about a Non-Fat bar; that way I don't have to worry about who I leave with at 3AM.

Yeah, if we could keep all the fatties behind glass in or in another room entirely that would be great. :D

[Buccaneer]

That reminds me. I remember catching a glimpse of a Ravens game (I think it was the first week of the season). They were focusing on the OL and had a camera angle at field level. Then I saw Jonathan Ogden in comparison to the other players standing around him. I could believe how big he was, sort of like a giant among giants.

[miami_fan]

I wish that were true with the military :(

Preach on!

[lcjjdnh]

On a slightly similar note, a great story from former all-American Ed Muransky in this week's Michigan Daily (student newspaper).

http://www.michigandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/10/07/434613e707b8a?in_archive=1


TMD: Was it perceived that, if you weighed that much, you were out of shape?

EM: No, it had nothing to do with physical shape. We worked out like fiends. We didn’t know what the hell steroids were. We were big guys who liked to eat. We had the same conditioning coach that had been there since 1978, Mike Gittleson (who is still with the team). He was there for our freshman year, and we were kind of a test group. We were trying to do as much as we could from a running standpoint. We lifted weights like crazy and we were very strong.

But sometime in the beginning of July, Bubba said, “We have to get moving on this. I have these plastic suits, and I’m going to take some Exlax to get this started.” Bubba weighed about 335 at the time. I was about 315. We were five weeks away from camp. So we started working out, and after about 10 days of running our butts off, lifting and starving, I think he lost three pounds and I lost two pounds. We were very, very depressed that we weren’t going to make the weight. But we continued to work out.

The following Sunday, I was in my apartment and I got a call telling me to come down to the football building immediately. We used to have these meat scales in our locker room. Bubba had a friend who used to service them. So here’s this guy on the scale, and Bubba says, “We might have something we can work with here.” He got tongue depressors and one by one, put them under the pad of the scale so that, the first time Bubba got on the scale, it would only go to 305. He put a couple more tongue depressors under the scale, Bubba got back on, and we got it to the point that, no matter how much weight you put on the scale, it would read 284 pounds.

So we made our mile-and-a-half time because we were in shape. Then we had to come in for the big weigh-in. You have all the freshmen, all the coaches, we’re all soaking wet from running. We starved ourselves the night before. And Bubba gets on there, and WHOOM! The scale goes up to 284 pounds. There’s a cheer, everybody’s hugging him. Nobody had any idea. I got on the scale, 283 7/8, everybody’s going crazy. So the entire year during the season, on Tuesday and Wednesday, you had to weigh in after practice and before, so you wouldn’t get dehydrated. Bubba and I were between 282 and 285 the entire year.

We go to Ohio State, and it’s an autumn, Indian Summer day. Mike Gittleson told everybody to weigh in to make sure that nobody got dehydrated. It was 80 degrees in November. So Bubba and I looked at each other. We were in a strange locker room, a scale that we did not have fixed, and we didn’t know what the hell to do. Just about the time everybody was leaving the locker room, Bo said from around the corner, “You two fat-asses, don’t leave before you weigh in. We don’t want you dehydrated.” So now, there was a small group gathered of Gittleson, Bubba, me, Bo and Jerry Hanlon, the line coach. Bubba got on the scale: 337. I got on the scale: 315. Bo gave us one of his looks where he didn’t have to say a thing. He just shook his head.

It was Ohio State, and there was no damned way we were going to play the game. We were going to be kicked off the team or suspended. He and I were roommates, and the night before the game, Bo would come up to say goodnight and tell us what we would work on tomorrow. So we were dreading getting the knock on the door. At 10 o’clock, it’s Bo. Bubba and I, for the last half an hour, were figuring out how to explain this to our parents. It was so embarrassing. So Bo comes in, he looks at us, shakes his head again, and he says, “Do you fat-asses really think that I thought you weighed 284 pounds the entire year? Go kick some ass tomorrow.”

[JimboJ]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't playing football a health risk in itself? Is dying from obesity any more likely than dying from a broken neck?