Could the average NFL fan make it to 20 carries in a game??

[PokerFink]

I'm really surprised you have actual experience given your answers:

1. Pads. So what? Much like boxing gloves, shoulder pads are to protect the tackler from hurting themselves, not the ballcarrier. Besides the helmet, pads don't do that much to protect you from getting hit. Except for the QB, most players have very little padding on their ribs.

2. "Nobody will get a clean shot on you." The average NFL fan has little to no actual football experience. They will have no idea how to defend themselves. Their vision will be hurt by the helmet. They won't spot tacklers coming at them.

3. "Rarely will someone land on you." In 20 carries, it's going to happen. It hurts when 300 pound gentleman fall on top of you. It hurts more when two 300 pound gentleman fall on top of you.

And yes, I have.

[amead]

Let me pose it like this:

Quarterbacks are certainly athletes, but they are not accustomed to taking nearly the punishment that an NFL running back takes. In all my years watching football, I've yet to see a quarterback get injured on a quarterback sneak. Hundreds upon hundreds of times they come out unscathed.

What I would do, given this challenge, would look an awful lot like a quarterback sneak. Run up the back of your lineman, lean, go down. I suspect the average NFL fan would do the same, but who knows for sure I guess. Just using what I'd do as an example.

There is absolutely no reason that you'd need any sort of vision, as you would be doing absolutely zero eluding of tackles. We aren't talking about juking a guy out in the open field. We're talking grabbing the ball and literally plodding <10 feet forward. This would probably take around a second. No weird safety/corner blitzes are going to get to you before you take 3 steps straight forward.

Saying that football pads do not protect you that much is simply untrue.

A 300 pound man lying on you (even with pads) will be uncomfortable. But realize that there are like, never really times when a guy flat out lays on you with all of his weight. And it never happens that a guy is lying with his weight fully on you (his arms and legs are completely off the ground, just riding you like a surfboard), with another guy doing the same thing on top of him. This isn't some sort of weird stack of pancakes. It will be unpleasant to have the weight on you, but their weight will also be dispersed to the ground as well. Either way, you don't think that the pile would be enough to get you to stop the challenge, right?

With NFL-calibre running backs dodging, eluding, and trying to make people miss in the open field at full speed, 14 times out of 15 a running back is tackled without any pain being delivered. Tripped up, spun down, tackles around the ankles, and that's for backs actually trying to dodge and stay up for pursuit to reach them.

3 steps forward, and lean into your lineman. A quarterback sneak. You can't lose this.

[PokerFink]

Except it's specifically stated in this thread that you can't just fall foward like a QB sneak. You need to take the ball and hit the hole as hard as you can at full speed ala a real running play.

If you were allowed to take the hand-off and fall foward it would be a pretty stupid hypothetical, no?

[PokerFink]

Here's an anecdote from my experience with highschool football, hopefully it will shed some light on this hypothetical or atleast be funny.

My only experience with organized tackle football was freshman year in HS. Our league had a rule that freshman were not allowed to play varsity or even JV, so all the schools had a freshman team as well. I joined the freshman team on a whim to be the punter, but I wanted to try out other positions as well.

I'm pretty small, about 5'8" 165lbs with my college beer belly. So you can imagine what I was like as a HS freshman. I'm reasonably athletic/agile but not too fast. But one thing I did have going for me is that I'm smart, while almost everyone else on the team was dumb as [censored]. We had basically four smart kids on the team; the quarterback ran the offense, the MLB ran the defense, and the LT ran the O-Line. And me. So coach put me on punt/kick coverage, where my job was to make sure everyone else didn't [censored] up out of their own stupidity. (Someone else was better at punting than me but I still wanted to play.)

Anyway, about half-way through the season I also learned all the defensive packages and their signs (defensive coach would use hand signals to relay the defensive play), and I would occasionally spell the MLB for a play or two and call the play in the huddle because everyone else was too [censored] stupid to do that. Unfortunately, that also meant I had to play MLB for a few plays every game.

My first play at MLB, I called the play in the huddle, and took my position. My read was the FB; my job was to meet him at the line of scrimmage and do my best to clog up the hole. (Ideally I would shed the FB and tackle the RB, but let's be serious here). On the snap, I read the FB going to the A-gap on my left and took a few steps and then...

... I was flat on my back and my head hurt.

That [censored] happens fast. It's not like your game of touch football in the backyard. There's so many people and bodies in the way, it's hard to see where everyone is coming from. The helmet obscures your vision some. People are running full speed and coming at odd angles.

Since this was only freshman football, I was able to get up and I was ok, although I was immediately yanked from the game and people were probably laughing at me for getting blown up. But if that was some 250 pound world-class caliber athlete running at me? And to do that 20 times? Are you [censored] serious? There is no way in the world I could do it.

Remember that the average NFL fan has little or no experience playing tackle football. They would be just like me that first time playing MLB.

Is there some percentage of fans that could do this? Yes, but it's small. Maybe 10% or something.

[amead]

I didn't say I would fall forward. I said I would run forward and get immediately behind my center, and lean forward into him.

But I mean, if we're going to make this challenge that you need to run straight ahead and take a full hit by an NFL linebacker 20 times, then it's a really dumb question.

Running up the middle into your surging linemen doesn't seem cheap to me, it seems to be the only way to give yourself a chance at success. Kneeling, or diving into the ground seems unfair.

Using your linemen as protection until the defense can pull you to the ground sounds exactly what we were talking.

But sure, in your scenario where you are purposely opening yourself up to clean shots by NFL defensive players, you could not last 20 hits, in all liklihood.

Might as well have made the thread "Can an average person take a piledriver to the nutsack 20 times?" if you couldn't take the challenge smartly.

[PokerFink]

What happens when the center gets pushed aside by the DT and you're met head on by the charging MLB?

Or the guard pulls and the OLB reads the play perfectly and meets you in the backfield?

An NFL RB can read these things and either avoid the tackle or atleast put themselves in a position where they won't get destroyed. A guy out of the stands won't ever see it coming and they will get flattened.

There are going to be some plays where you can follow the FB or Center or whoever and you will get tripped up and survive. But over 20 carries, it's not always going to work out for you, and 1 or 2 big hits is probably enough to end it.

[Triumph36]

PF - good story.

the paradox is that most of the people theoretically big enough to withstand the punishment are probably out of shape, and the people who are in shape are too small to handle the punishment. the people who fall into both categories - they tend to be NFL running backs.

it would be more interesting with 10 or 5 carries, IMO.

[amead]

When the center gets pushed aside, the DT will be able to shove me to the ground. But again, the DT isn't going to be able to pick up the center, toss him aside, and charge forward at full speed in order to "flatten" me in the 1 second it'll take to get me pressed up against the center's backside.

Also, I'd like to hope that my coach in this scenario wouldn't call draw plays, trap/counter runs, off-tackle runs, or pitches.

Ideally, I'd like a 3TE set with a straight up man-blocking scheme. No pulling, no zone blocking. I'd hope that my team realized that I was a novice and would keep it simple.

But again, if we're going to pull away the guards and give guys free runs at me, obviously this is a silly debate. I was assuming that my team wanted me to succeed [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[SBR]

Amead getting pulled to the ground by an NFL D lineman would hurt more than any hit you've ever taken at any level of football.

Also remember these guys are going to fall ontop of you. Have you ever had a 300 lb man jump on you? How about 2?

I think the craziest guys would do this once or twice then stop because it hurt too much.

I'd say of the general population who haven't played football or rubgy at a college level about .05% of all people could do this.

[amead]

SBR - This is just not true.

The vast majority of tackles made in the NFL do not cause an iota of pain to the running back. And it isn't just because they are super studs. Most tackles do not hurt.

And again, having a 300 pound guy sit on you while wearing pads wouldn't be pleasant, but if there was money on the line (which was the premise of this), the discomfort of being smooshed for a couple seconds while people get up (and this would not happen every time) shouldn't be a deal breaker. Even if you get the wind knocked out of you, you would be able to continue.

But I mean, NFL backs dodging and eluding tackles and keeping plays alive are rarely hurt on a tackle. And you'll be giving FAR fewer players the chance to hit you.

Oh, and getting pulled to the ground by a 500 pound guy wouldn't really hurt more than if you were pulled down by a 200 pound guy. It is being lifted and driven into the ground that you need to avoid, which I believe you can in almost every situation.

As long as you didn't have someone roll up on your leg and blow out a knee/ankle, your chances are good with a conservative gameplan.