I grew up in Japan playing rugby and played college football and it’s a common misconception that football hurts less because of the pads. In rugby people wrap you up to tackle you. In football they just run through you. Football hits hurt incredibly more than rugby hits. While you may have pads and a HARD helmet on the people tackling you also have the same which makes it hurt 10x more.
Plus it has been found the pads actually make them hit harder. They are not as worried about being injured or it hurting so they don't hold back take more risks and just go full force making the hits even harder undue much of what the pads prevent. Making the hits hurt more again and increasing the chances of injures again.
Exactly man, I grew up in Australia playing rugby until I moved to the states in my second final year of Highschool. Got tossed in at wide receiver due to my ruby keeping me so fit. But the first time I truly got levelled by a safety. The knocked me more than any rugby tackle I’d ever received. The two games, while similar in nature, are still quite different.
When things collide they make contact so not seeing the difference. You block, tackle, fight over the ball when it’s fumbled. It’s a chess match with living pieces. The intelligence it takes to recognize a defense formation or a split decision to throw a screen to avoid the blitz. The correct use of leverage to block to create a hole for the running back to run. The proper use of time outs at critical moments. Trick plays and risky decisions that can win or lose the game. It’s a near perfect game. There is so much more to it than colliding.
@Craig Fincher when you have no pads you hit hard but you will always hold back. With pads you don't. Rugby is contact football is getting into car accidents.
Definitely and I am in high school and I have hit a person so hard it gave him a concussion want a contact sport go do cheerleading football is a collision sport
@@mudminnow01 lol its the stops in play that the rest of the world have a problem with. just keep playing the game and it might be the biggest sport on earth. typical americans too many advets, there is a 3 hour game with 16 mins of play. rugby and football (soccer) 90 min game about 60 min of play
As an American that lived in NZ I can tell you a couple huge differences between Rugby and Football. In Rugby, when tackling, you must wrap your arms around the opponent. In Football you simply smash them. In Rugby to can only hit the ball carrier. In Football you can hit anyone (basically). Also, in Rugby it is rare that opposing players are far apart and get up a full head of speed AT each other. That is the norm in Football. Both are very rough sports, no doubt. But it's comparing apples and oranges
Eh Not entirely true. Like 98% of time in NFL they just grab your jersey or hug the wide receiver from behind. I'm pretty sure their are less injuries in the NFL if you compare it to rugby. Rugby is more riskier because they also run full speed and they are also 250 pounds and sometimes when they hit you they hit you wrong and that one hit can send you to the hospital because they have no pads. I would say the 1900s NFL was more dangerous or on par but the current NFL has so many rules now that it's a different game and has more protection. An other thing is in NFL you have offense and defense teams but in rugby it's only one team and the game never stops, it just keep going so they have no rests.
@@richardkim3652 - In a high school football game, there's usually an ambulance parked nearby. At college games, theres two or three ambulances waiting. And in NFL games it's at least three or four. Rugby injuries are scrapes and bruises. Football injuries are broken bones, torn ligaments, concussions, hyperextensions, etc.
@@Mr.Ekshin Not entirely true. Sometimes a rugby player will accidently elbow a runner running full speed at him at his chest or even at his neck. Yes it's illegal but more accident like that happens and that's a literally knockout. If you have seen the hard hitting rugby videos then you will see the rugby players literally just fall asleep knocked out and out cold. Rugby has a lot higher chance of injuries overall compared to NFL.
@@sirwadsontoast5928 Not entirely true. Sometimes a rugby player will accidently elbow a runner running full speed at him at his chest or even at his neck. Yes it's illegal but more accident like that happens and that's a literally knockout. If you have seen the hard hitting rugby videos then you will see the rugby players literally just fall asleep knocked out and out cold. Rugby has a lot higher chance of injuries overall compared to NFL.
One of the best observations I have heard about American football made by an Australian rugby player and TH-cam reactor is that American football players play more aggressively and recklessly than rugby players BECAUSE they wear helmets and pads. He posited that it gave them a sense of protection bordering on feeling indestructible so they could unload full force on an opponent.
@@revtoyota Agreed. Historically, padding (and later helmets, face masks, etc.) were added to satisfy public outcry over the brutality of the sport especially by college officials where the early game was nurtured in the late 19th and early 20th centyury. The innovation of the forward pass is also an evolutionary outgrowth of this concern for safety. It transformed the early game of just teams grinding it out in tight phalanx-like formations to allowing for the opportunity to spread out and create more space in which to play. Modern rules against "spearing", "defenseless receivers", "fair catches", "in the grasp", "forward progress", etc. evolved to help keep players safe but also make the "product" more palatable to the viewing public in person at the stadium and eventually on television.
The funny thing about the Darrell Green anecdote was that he was downright small. 5-9, 185 pounds. His deal was being one of the fastest football players of all time.
I love him and hate him. He was my first favorite football player, that became my team, had a few good years and super bowls... then decade... upon decade... of frustration.
Ikr, "ginormous" my a**. That's basically the average American male. Can't imagine what she would have thought meeting a guy like Tyrone Smith or something who is 6'5 320+ lbs.
@@Timmycoohead to head contact isn’t the only type of illegal hit. A lot of these were late and while the ball carrier was in the air. That would qualify as defenseless
@@Darealgoat251 I should've used a slash instead of a dash to make my comment make more sense. My b. Because I was referring to targeting and head on head contact. Late hits are subjective so that's hard to justify an era change.
One of the things people don't often think about with football pads is that they allow players to hit harder similar to how a boxer with a boxing glove can hit harder than a bare knuckle fighter cause he won't break his hand. Most football players lead in with their shoulder so the shoulder pads allow them to hit harder without dislocating their shoulders.
CTE was literally a thing examined because of American Football. It was looked at in other sports (Rugby etc) BECAUSE of american football. The hits that players take in american football reach unbelievable levels of G forces far beyond any other sport other than a wall crash at 200 mph in F1 / Nascar / Indycar etc.
Hall of Famer Darrell Green was a Defensive Back, which is a smaller faster player tasked with covering the fastest offensive players, the wide receivers. In his prime, Darrell was known as the fastest man in the NFL.
As your partner there said, these guys are very very large human beings. Having a restaurant full of them is another experience altogether. By large, I mean larger than life HUGE. The average (50th percentile) size of an Offensive lineman is 6-foot-5, 314 pounds... that's 195.6 cm, 142.5 kg in non-freedom units. And that's the average. They get bigger. The average receiver (the guy the quarterback passes the ball to) size is 6-foot-1, 193 pounds (185.4 cm, 87.5 kg), and the average quarterback is 6-foot-2, 210 pounds (188 cm, 95.3 kg). When you see them up close, it's kind of humbling. There are a couple of "Biggest Freaks of Nature in the NFL" videos floating around that are worth a watch. You might also like the "Mic'ed up moments" videos.
Correction officer here. Max security prison in Texas. We have some guys that are impressively jacked up - have been working out 2 to 5 hours every single day since they got locked up 5/8/10 years ago. And the STFU when they face-up with some of these guys. Same with top level MMA - though a couple " mistakes" have been made - and corrected. Personally, the guys I was "concerned" about when I would confront them - were Special Forces. Never met a legit Seal at the prison (a few wannabes), but did meet A couple Rangers, one pararescue, a couple (old) Green Berets. Almost always smallish guys (5'6" to 5'10", 140 to 180 lbs). When one asked me why I wasn't scared when I faced off against some of the nasty characters we had, I said " Nope. I'm scared. But everyone dies eventually. And I will take a piece with me when I go down." He paid me one of the highest compliments I've ever got."That was what we used to look for."
Yep. My son is 14, plays defense. He's over 6 ft, 155 pounds, size 13 adult shoes, & growing still. He's 14. And he's not even in high school. My food budget *cry*
The level of strategy involved in American football can't be appreciated without years of watching it. It may seem like simple stupid violence, but it's miles deeper than any other sport. Every offensive play is fully planned, and there are thousands of possibilities in terms of runs vs passing, route combinations, the dozens of formations, the blocking schemes, defensive schemes, blitzes, fakes, etc. It's a giant chess match. I could write paragraphs here and only scratch the surface. Perhaps watching a full game broadcast of a classic game on youtube would give you the chance to see a game and rewatch some of the in-game analysis and replays to start learning the learning the rules, and how the teams are working to overcome their opponents strengths and to create and exploit their weaknesses. Off the top of my head Superbowl 49 and 51 were great classic games.
You can grab the shirt. However, what she's referring to is probably a "Horse Collar" tackle. Those are illegal. A horse collar tackle is when a guy is chasing another, grabs the runner's jersey at the neck and drags him backwards or to the side. A lot of knee injuries have happened from those kinds of tackles, so they were made illegal.
horse collar tackle is NOT grabbing at the shirt, it's grabbing the guy from "normally " behind by the "neck hole" of the shoulder pads and using that to pull him down. It's bad cause it causes the front of the pads to come up and impact the neck of the player. now let me spin a bit of a tale here, your a tailback running with the ball a linebacker horsecollar tackles you, your forward momentum come to a almost complete stop, and guess at what point on you body where you impact...you neck/adams apple area...that why they have outlawed the horsecollar takedowns.
@@satricv the horse collar tackles being banned was more of a leg/ankle thing. The foot is planted and the player is jerked backward, possibly twisting, so the body ends up going backward while the foot remains planted. Lots of ligament and tendon damage with that motion on the leg and the way the body gets twisted and jerked. If shoulder pads are on properly, it won't be pulled into the neck as much as you would imagine.
Not all the hits in this video were "legal" hits, and in some cases the rules have changed to not allow those types of hits. For instance, you can't lead with your head anymore (thank God, cause that's how I got KO'ed playing football), and some of the hits you'll see a guy hit low from behind while someone hits high from the front (that one hasn't been legal for a long time). You can grab the shirt, but not the pads (aka Horse Collar tackle). The average size of an NFL player is around 6 feet talk and 230 lbs.
the hits were for the most part all "legal" at the time the game was played, they may not be "legal" in the current mamby pamby NFL, but at the time the game was played, they were for the most part "legal".
The general rule is you can hit another player from the top of th shoulder to to top of the knee. (Not always). Usually blows to the head or knee are no longer legal. There is a lot of nuance though.
I went to a European rugby practice in Switzerland once. I kept getting in trouble for hitting too hard with my shoulders and head. Also, I was knocking people down with blocks. They were amazed I hit that way with no pads. I’m like, yeah and? We only wear pads in school or organized football. We play full contact on weekends with no pads. After practice the Scottish coach asked me where I was from. I told him, “Texas.” He threw his arms up and chuckled, “Well that explains everything now.”
The NFL is comprised of the largest, fastest, and strongest athletes in the world bar none. Anyone who thinks ruby is brutal or that American Football players wearing padding makes them “softer” is just speaking out of ignorance. I mean not to be too hard on rugby but it’s a lot of hugging where as in the NFL they HAVE to wear pads because there are literally brutal collisions every single play.
Lol what? Half the players jobs in America football is to spend the entire game hugging in the middle of the pitch. There are only like 5 players who actually run. Also rugby is a far more fluid game. You get tackled, play continues. You play 40 minutes straight, have a break, then play another 40 minutes. Meanwhile in America football you stop every 10s, only half the players are ever on the field and you have ad breaks every 10 minutes.
Have you watched Rugby properly? If you got padding on it’s easier to go smashing into another player. Rugby players padding is their muscles and strength. This is a subject that there is always going to be disagreements on. I don’t think you have seen a lot of rugby players and how strong and athletic they are also their tackling is very technical. They don’t keep stopping either play is continuous .
@@babomb2146 yea that’s called a high intensity interval sport. Football players exert more power, speed and energy on any given play, then a rugby player does all game. It’s causes you to preform at a peak level all game, whearas stamina can determine a game in rugby.. that’s trash. And the other players on the field are just hugging each other? That’s exactly why OP said y’all speak out of ignorance 😂 you arguably have more work to do without the ball than with it.
@@deb1544 this isn’t a topic of debate. NFL players and even college players are leagues above professional rugby players in all athletic abilities.. proven fact. Padding doesn’t do much protection against collisions comprable to car crashes. Rugby collisions don’t generate nearly as much force specifically because they don’t have pads. Football players having pads is one of the inherit reasons that’s it’s more dangerous. Proven fact
They say a full on NFL hit is like being in a 30mph/48kph collision in your car with no seat belt. And over a game you may be in that collision somewhere between 0 and 8 to 12 times depending on what position your playing. I used to play both HS and college ball(left side DE and strong side middle linebacker), loved every bit of it, but now in my 50's am paying for it hard. Even down into HS and junior HS the hits can be quite hard, its a fun game, but a hard game, not everyone can play.
As someone who has played both, I can most assuredly tell you American football hits are harder, more vicious, and result in way more injuries than Rugby. My worst injuries I have ever had came from American football as opposed to Rugby.
A lot of the rules have changed in recent years due to the amount of injuries. In 1984 the Chicago Bears and Raiders played in a game where the Raiders Quarterback had a couple of teeth knocked out, knee cartiledge torn etc, both the starting and backup quarterbacks were injured and the only player they could use as a third string quarterback refused to go into the game. The Bears Quarterback also suffered a lacerated kidney +++ I don't remember all of the injures. Another memorable game was the 1990 game between the Eagles and Redskins nicknamed "the body bag" game. So , the rules were changed for a reason. :D They still hit very hard though and some of these hits are still legal.
Speaking of Darrell Green, he played for then Washington Redskins (Washington Commanders) from 1983 to 2002 as a Cornerback or CB. His team won 2 Superbowls. Besides playing football, Green was a standout at Track and Field. Green is inducted in both NFL and College Hall of Fame.
Having played both, football is scarier. The injuries in rugby are much more frequent but they aren’t as serious in football because there’s no requirement to actually wrap for a tackle in football so a lot of football tackles are an instant red card in rugby.
ESPN had a show called Sports Science. One episode tested which sport actually had harder hits/tackles. The fact that American football has pads made the hits harder. It’s the pads and helmet that makes the hits/tackles harder because of their existence. Sounds weird to me but having no protection causes Rugby to have subconscious way of pulling up. It might not be noticeable to the players and watchers but, I guess, their scientific instruments showed it.
10:07 there's only been a single on field death during a game. It was in 1971. There have been several people to have been permanently paralyzed from hits in games. The amount of players that have died later in life at rather young ages due to repeated blunt force injuries to the head, specifically concussions, is staggering though.
The person that died was not even touched. He suffered a heart attack between plays. There is a famous picture of Dick Butkus, one of the toughest of all time defenders, standing over the player, Chuck Hughes, but he did not hit him.
In most cases we find that wearing the pads adds confidence to the player letting them hit that much harder without worrying about getting hurt so much. It liberates them to fully take off the restraints and slam into each other with forces that would break them without the pads. They aren't there to keep you safe from being hit, they are there to let you hit THAT much harder!
1st.) I have seen this video maybe a hundred times. (I love seeing peoples reactions to it.) All of the hits it are legal. The one Clothesline tackle on the quarterback in the black-and-white clip is no longer legal but at the time of the clip it was legal and a very common form of tackling. 2nd) I played organized American Football for over 30 years (and even had a few pro tryouts, never made the team though.) I was good enough and fast enough 4.3 40 yard dash, to get invited to 3 training camps but, always too small to make the team, 5'10" 175 lbs as a reciver. I joined a ruby club while living in Europe that had several Australians and 2 New Zealand landers on it and had a British coach. I was not impressed with the hits. Yes there were some good hits but no where near anything that rocked me like in American Football. I was often told I was too violent and needed to calm down. The next year I joined an American Football club and convinced 2 players from the Rugby club to try it and the violence and aggressiveness was more to their liking. They both loved it and never went back to the rugby club. 3rd) in the 60's and 70's the game had a rash of players being paralyzed, so there were a few rule changes and changes to equipment. 4th) before the creation of professional football the sport was HUGE as a college sport. It was so violent and the sport produced so many severe injuries and deaths (yes deaths, not a big number but way bigger than a sport should have had), I believe it was 1 or 2 deaths a year. So many that Congress intervened and forced changes. Now I'm not wanting to diminish the hard hits in rugby, because there are some, but the hard hits happen at a much lower frequency than in American Football. I will also admit that my experiences may be tainted by the fact that I played American Football at a level higher than most people ever will and my rugby experience was only at a club level.
Football was brutal at times. Played 11 years, saw broken legs, arms, collarbones a neck (poor guy), concussions, dislocations, torn ligaments and people knocked out cold. I was once hit so hard that it jarred my retinas in both eyes, leaving me literally blind for about 30 seconds. It was terrifying. I sat out 3 plays before the coach put me back in. I played the rest of the game and that was considered normal. I've played a bit of rugby too. It's no where near as "impactful". It's more endurance based with more rules around tackling, no blocking. It's still rough but it really isn't in the same league in terms of collisions and pain.
Ive always watched college and NFL football, I do respect rugby as a sport, and I do enjoy watching it every now and again. But I do say that American Football is more violent and hard hitting, and I love it. The NFL is actually signing some contracts to get a European leauge, which will play against the 32 already established teams, which I will enjoy very much, and maybe both sports will gain more popularity in eachothers home territories, I would love to see Rugby grow here and NFL grow around the world!
As an american football player, I can confirm tha tthe hits hurt a lot. when you have a 300lbs linemen who runs a 4.8 40 yard dash, and is hits you at a full sprint, there is no avoiding the pain. no pad or heleme can help you in football.The majority of these plays were against the rules, because of targeting, which is wher you dive and make contanct with your shoulder to the front of their body, your helmet to their helmet, or you aming for their helmet.
There is a video on YT called "5 Reasons You Shouldn't Mess With The USA." I personally believe THIS video is THE BIGGEST reason not to mess with The U.S.A. If we hit like this while we are "playing" a game, just imagine how hard we hit when we're serious (ie. the military)! Loved the reaction guys! Keep up the good work!
I don't know if you heard but you should look at damar hamlins injury, that was scary but also its like a one in a million thing for someone to die while on the field. they did resuscitate him thankfully and has been discharged from the hospital.
Hamlin's injury could happen in just about any collision or contact sport. An elbow to the chest in basketball. A kicked ball to the chest in soccer. A baseball to the chest. Hockey is pretty much American football on ice.
The only on-field fatality in modern (post-WWII/Superbowl era) NFL history occured during the 1971 Thanksgiving Day game between the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears when, during the closing minutes of the game, Detroit Wide Receiver Chuck Hughes suffered a fatal heart attack due to an undiagnosed heart condition while jogging back to the huddle between plays. He was 28 years old.
The thing about these hits is that the players use all that "protection" as a weapon when they hit each other. I would not want to take a full-speed hit in the midsection by another player's shoulder pads.
A Detroit lions player died in the 60’s. Darryl Stingley a NE WR was paralyzed by a hit in the 70’s. There have been other neck/ paralysis injuries, and a few players whose heart stopped on the field but were resuscitated. It is actually rare but it is a risk.
It's when you can hear the hits when you realize how hard they were. There is such a loud "crack" and the crowd just goes "OHhhhhhh"! It's worse when the players are miked up.
I played from age 8 to age 18, and the helmets themselves are like battering rams. They weigh more than ten pounds and the facemasks are iron covered with hard rubber. The physics of the game are such that when there is going to be a hit, whoever is moving faster feels it less. So there is incentive to hit as hard as you can. The NFL has cracked down on high hits to the head in recent years so a lot of the hits you saw are now illegal. But in the hey day before they were made illegal, football was an awfully fun sport to watch. As a player even jsut playing through high school I had concussions, broken bones, messed up ligaments, sprains, cracked my sternum, broke my nose, it was a brutal sport. And I wouldn't trade a minute of it. The testosterone rush in the moment is indescribable. When you knock that guy into the middle of next week adn he is afraid to came to your side of the field on a play, you've already won the game. Of course back in the 70s and 80s we didn't have a full grasp about the head injuries and CTE. So we led with our heads to maximize the impact. My neck still hurts and is stiff thirty years later.
Hey Chris . I know this is older posts aka reply . but I just saw the video it was just maybe 🤔 OK at best . anyWho Chris you have some things that are kinda wrong .football helmets do not wait 10 pounds nor is the face mask made of iron . I know a little bit about the sport the highest level I played at was at UCLA as a wishbone veer quarterback or if you will a option quarterback . If I remember correctly about 2 1/2 LBS pounds to maybe 5 1/2 depending on the size of the helmet .most the face-mask are hard plastic that still have flexibility with maybe a thin stainless steel insert or less expensive insert depending on the the helmet requirements now most are carbon fiber at least today . Thanks for the info later bro 😎 ✌️
One of the big differences between Rugby and "Football" is that "Blocking" is allowed - you can collide with a tackler thus preventing him from reaching the ball carrier. Down field blocking during a pass play, or during a kick return or an interception is displayed in a number of these hits. Some of these hits knocked people unconscious... the rules have been changing recently to reduce the number and severity of concussions. People forget that College Football was almost banned by President Teddy Roosevelt - because too many players were getting Killed.
I met an NFL offensive lineman once, and he was huge. I am 5'10" and he was almost 6'8" and easily 280lbs. When he shook my hand, it was like putting my hand in a baseball glove, it was so big. As for hitting hard, I know of a pro Rugby player that got to practice with an NFL team, and he said in his experience the NFL hits harder than rugby players.
Back in my early teens in the 70s I sold concessions in the stands at Texas stadium we had to be at the stadium 2hrs before kickoff so I would hangout in the end zone tunnel watching the cowboys and whoever they were playing warmup, I got to meet a lot of players and get a lot of autographs the 3 years I worked there, I even got Tom Landry's autograph
Just a few weeks ago, Damar Hamlin's heart stopped after being hit during a game. He needed to be resuscitated on the field and the game was called off.
A player from the Buffalo Bills team in 2022 got speared in the chest by another player from Cincinnati, and his heart stopped on the field. He was revived and is now doing well. He did die, but was brought back. If you really want to know what the NFL is like, I read an article that when the offensive line and defensive line come off the ball, it is like a car collision at about 45 to 55 miles an hour.
Side note...that particular injury is more common in baseball & lacrosse. Hence why for little leaguers they have padded shirts available to spread out the impact of the ball hitting the chest. There have been kids that died as a result. It's just a freak "perfect timing" situation. Also why so many youth baseball fields have AEDs. With the padding it's just extremely rare to see that in football. I live in WNY btw...community was really affected by this & there's been a huge increase in folks signing up to learn CPR, which is fantastic.
Underappreciated aspect of football: stopping play and resetting everyone every single time the ball is downed. Why? Because it allows everyone to catch their breath and reassess, it means most players on most plays are giving nearly 100% effort, and running at top speed. This contributes to big hits. Also, it means that strategy is of supreme importance. Every play is planned and called for the situation by the coaches, and every player has a specific job to do. The chess game aspect is arguably as significant to the outcome as the physical aspect.
I also think if you want to really get into American Football you have to start by going to a big College game live or an NFL rivalry game of two teams that are playing well that season to get the full experience.
Tell me you don't know anything about football without telling me you don't know anything about football. Most injuries are soft tissue injuries and there have been less than 10 paralysis injuries since Daryl Stingley.
@@kekkomartin5848 Tell me you don't know anything by running your mouth. EVERY SINGLE PLAYER, from High School on who has played real "American Football" (ie not a field goal kicker) has some amount of permanent brain injury from collisions. Please go away. Forever.
Some of these hits were legal at the time and some are still allowed. Mainly they tightened up restrictions on helmet to helmet contact as well as hitting someone before they have control of the ball on punt receiving.
03:15 Up until you asked if the hits you saw were legal hits yes those hits/tackles were 100% legal at the time. As for the rest of the video one would have to do some research on the rules being that the video segments were from NFL games played over the past 70 years. I wish I could give you a straight answer for your question but NFL rules have changed a lot over the entire existence of the NFL because there is always some sort of rule that gets added, altered, or removed every NFL season.
I think they're roughly even in brutality. NFL hits harder but has pads while rugby has no safety net. The big things are the rules added over the years making both sports less brutal, so as new rules come out, the "most" brutal sport will change anyways. That being said NFL players are bigger, faster, stronger but rugbys got better endurance
I love it when rugby fans make the foolish comment reference the endurance capabilities of NFL players endurance is not only your cardiovascular capabilities which the vast majority of NFL players have incredible cardiovascular endurance endurance is also playing four games over the course of a month with three or four broken ribs
I'd suggest this video it does a good job explaining the rules for beginners "The Rules Of Football -Explained! (NFL)" I hope this helps...Great reaction👍
Actually you’d be surprised how many football players die, usually from snapping their necks, also the force of a football hit is a lot more than a rugby hit for multiple reasons. The main reason being that they run just as fast if not faster than rugby players even with all the gear, and the gear adds extra weight which equals extra momentum which means more energy transfer.
Darrel Green was a Corner back for the Washington Redskins. He was the fastest player in the NFL for years and years, and a top corner back who is now in the NFL Hall of Fame. Corner backs are among the smallest players in the NFL, but typically are the quickest and fastest. Their job is to guard the receivers and prevent pass completions.
I think that CBs have to compete with some Free Safeties as the fastest/quickest guys on the field and also a few of the smaller running backs can move along with some of the wider receivers. But yea, you are correct, CB or (defensive backs) if you want to call them that are among the most agile and fastest humans to ever walk the face of the earth.
Most hits are legal, but players do get penalized for certain hits (like taken out of the game). I remember a hit was made on Big Ben in his last year of playing, he got decked hard by a Ravens player when Ben hut the ball and it has legal. The Ravens player timed it perfectly and they even reviewed it and it stood as a legal hit. That's what I remember, its been a while, it could've been two years ago.
I played football in college, go Montana State Bobcats!, and I've had friends that played rugby and I've even played a little, very little, myself. The major difference is that in Football you are allowed to block for your ball carrier, so you are always in danger on the field because you can always be hit, and most of the plays are designed to hit you when you aren't seeing it coming. And even though we wear pads, the biggest concern is that when you are moving full speed one direction and get slammed backwards your brain hits the front of your skull, so concussions are a major thing and hard to completely eliminate since no padding can protect the brain from that violent stop.
To give you an idea about just how big some of these guys are I worked at a hotel in the late 80's that was the NFL sanctioned hotel in Green Bay Wi so the teams stayed there before playing the Packers on Sunday. On a normal elevator the teams were only allowed to have 5 team members and a coach ride the elevator at a time due to the weight limit and the space inside the elevator. I was 6 ft 3in/ 190cm tall and weighed about 300 lbs/137 kgs and the linemen were bigger than I was. They were absolute giants.
Plenty late, but I love watching people who have never seen football react to this video. Most of these hits are legal. Some are no longer legal, but a few weren't legal even when they happened. A large portion are still legal. Grabbing the helmet/facemask is illegal and has been for a long time. You can grab the shirt/jersey. You can't pull the player down backwards from the shirt or collar. Pads protect the person doing the hitting much more than the people who are getting hit. It's similar to what happened in boxing. The gloves actually let the boxers punch harder, because it protected the boxers hands from breaking. The end result is that more force actually goes into the opponent. A good portion of these are what are called "hospital passes". The QB threw the ball to a guy who he could see (or should be able to see) was going to get hit freely. The receiver wasn't going to have time to see the opponent coming in for the hit.
Helmets and pads give you a sort of “false sense of security.” It makes you feel like a robot and you can run through anything, but the way my head felt after every football game I played was unimaginable.
Rugby doesn't allow for working up a head of steam before you crash into somebody and getting hit by somebody with a helmet and pads on is more unforgiving than flesh and bone. Most of these guys are dealing with pain the rest of their lives after a few years in the NFL.
when your lit up like that, if you survive the hit for the rest of the game, you are jacked looking for revenge. and when you lite someone up like that, you get that 10 foot tall and bullet proof feeling. but the next day it's all you can do to roll outta bed. regardless of which one you were for the game. played 3 years in college, never made it to the pros, but damn i miss playing that game.
People seem to have a misconception about the pads and helmets in football they basically serve the same function as boxing gloves. Boxing gloves were added to the sport not soften the blows, but to keep the boxers from breaking their hands allowing them to hit harder. The pads and helmet allow the person tackling to hit harder. Hits in college and profession games often deal the same amount of force as car crashes (at roughly 30-40mph). Side note: The majority of these tackles are completely legal.
Fen, And now for the shocker the NFL is NOT as rough these days as it used to be. Sometimes you can start organized football at 12 years of age. So they have been playing for a LONG, long time. Once in a while there are serious injuries. But speaking about big. Some of these offensive lineman weigh over 300 pounds and can run... The biggest hit usually come from defensive backs, because they get such a running start. I hope you liked it.....
in the last 10 years or so they've also created a rule targeting which is when you more or less lead with your head and your head strikes the receivers head which is been a rule implemented to reduce the number of concussions
Just for some clarification the only hits not allowed are grabbing by the facemask (it's called a facemask go figure), clipping (taking someone out from the front below the knees), and now head to head collisions. Also I played rugby and football growing up and into highschool. Rugby is more cardio intensive but football is way more dangerous and painful. You're basically in a car crash every 5 minutes. Rugby not having pads means that they can't hit full blast or they would get injured. Football having the pads means they can hit much harder and more dangerously. They actually used to not have pads and people dying was really common. If a football game was played at the same pace as a rugby match people would die constantly.
You know what we did in the off-season from football? We played football still, no pads, same style of play..maybe more aware of our heads, but still. So I chuckle at any comparison to rugby..and rugby is an awesome and tough sport but nothing like football.
Being a former football player I can honestly say that with the amount of testosterone and adrenaline running through our bodies, we loose any thought or care about our own health and safety in those moments as well as any amount of consideration for the ones that we hit, and in these moments we push our bodies severely past what they should be capable of. In addition to that, the pads don't do much to stop the pain and when we hit others like that we are also hurting ourselves in the process, but the severity of the pain only hits when the adrenaline and testosterone levels lower. I've had games where I walked off the field and got on the bus but I had to get help to get off the bus and get into the locker room.
This compilation shows hits over a long period. Many of these hits are illegal in 2023 but were legal years ago. The thing to keep in mind is that sports science is helping create faster more efficient athletes. Most NFL players can spring 40 yards (about 29 meters) in under 5 seconds. When they have the space to move, they can accelerate and have a devastating amount of momentum.
04:20 you cannot grab the facemask of the helmet that penalty is called FACEMASK. You can grab the shirt if the offensive player has possession of the ball. However you cannot tackle the offensive player that has possession of the ball by grabbing the back of the collar of the Jersey from behind thats called a HORSE COLLAR TACKLE. If a defensive player grabs the Jersey of a offensive player who DOES NOT have possession that defensive player can get a penalty for PASS INTERFERENCE or HOLDING depending on the situation.
to answer your question, a lot of these tackles are not legal. A good portion of them fall under "defenseless receiver". That is where the person catching the ball has their arms up and is looking for the ball to catch it. Not only are they 100% focused on catching the ball and can't look for tacklers, they are also vulnerable to major injuries. Having their arms up leaves their vital organs completely exposed in a way that is unnatural otherwise. Anytime we are startled or defensive our elbows automatically come in to our ribs for protection. This doesn't happen when you are trained to catch a football so there has to be a rule to protect the receiver.
For the most part, the hits you're seeing are legal, or were at the time. You CAN tackle by the shirt, but helmet to helmet is illegal today. You can also be called for roughing if the player is in an vulnerable position (up in the air and fully stretched out).
Around the 4:10 mark of the vid on the question of "grabbing the shirt".....One can grab the shirt as part of the tackle, and in fact that it is not allow for players to wear "tearaway" jerseys. Also it is allow to tackle by grabbing the long hair of players sticking out from under the helmet. Not only that one cannot tackle by grabbing the helmet/face mask, one cannot "horse collar" or grabbing the shirt opening and shoulder pads around the neck area.
Rugby is a contact sport, and American football is a collision sport. You don't have to have the ball to be hit, and you don't have to wrap your arms for the tackle. Yes, there are many concussions, and people have died, lost body parts, and been paralyzed playing American football.
Most of these hits WERE legal at the time but they have made blindside blocks and leading with the crown of your helmet illegal because there were too many crippling injuries. Most of the shoulder smashes are still legal but they've been changing the rules a little so that one player can't hold you up and make you take a defenseless hit from a teammate.
I would argue that it's more hard-core than Rugby because they allow the full on open hits (with the pads) where it's the equivalent of a pedestrian being hit by a car going 20mph for the open field ones
In the day it was all legal, now rules have changed. I played for Mainland High School, Daytona Beach, FL. I've seen teammates, teenagers, break their necks tackling, a head to head collision. Being a Defensive Right Tackle, 140lbs., then, and seeing this...The military isn't the only one that needs to be shown respect. America is all or nothing.
I'm pretty sure your average NFL player is bigger than your average rugby player. My roommates played high school football and they're 6'6" twins and over 300 pounds each. Admittedly they've gained some weight since high school, but they weren't small guys then.
During this video I saw exactly ONE flag being thrown. There's a facemask grab that's now illegal, but was perfectly legal for a long time. And the shoulder pads just allows them to hit harder.
The "rules" question is a sticky one. NFL Changed rules after the concussion thing. When I played, it was part of the game. "Oh, you got your bell rung. Shake it off and get back in there." A lot of the hits you see are legal, many were legal at the time. Now it is illegal to lead with the top of your head or to target the other player's head.
I'm a huge football fan, but I will say most of these are older clips. Most of the hits in this video are penalties now as the NFL shifts to the NFFL. (National Flag Football League). Some rules now for reference. 1) No peel back hits (Can't block or hit a player in the opposite direction of your goal line.) 2) You can't put your body weight on a QB as you tackle him. 3) Defenseless player can't be hit. (Have to give a receiver a chance to catch the ball and defend himself before you hit him. 4) You're not allowed to touch Tom Brady. Any amount of contact on the GOAT or an official is a penalty. But it's a great game that I still love. I just miss the football elements of the game.
Rules defining a defenseless player were expanded in 2011 to include eight categories: A quarterback in the act of throwing; A receiver trying to catch a pass; A runner already in the grasp of tacklers and having his forward progress stopped; A player fielding a punt or a kickoff; A kicker or punter during the kick; A quarterback at any time after a change of possession; A receiver who receives a blind-side block; A player is already on the ground.
Damn i must have been playing warrior rugby from y'all's description 😂 rugby for me has always been obviously rugby rules and gameplay. But it has always been full force collision
I don't know if anyone said anything yet, as far as legal hits go. These days, you cannot lead with your helmet. You have to lead with your shoulder, helmet to helmet contact is a targeting penalty. Hitting the quarterback after he throws if you're far enough to come to a stop or slow down to avoid him is called roughing the passer. These are just some of the newer rules, to help protect the players and cut down on injuries and concussions. I do believe there is more, but those are just the ones that I know off the top of my head. I've played in high school as a defensive back (Strong Safety). But that was years ago when rules were different.
In the NFL, when you have the ball EVERYONE on the other team is zeroing in on you - and the team with the ball is looking to block them. This leads to a "collision" sport vs. a full contact sport. I'm an English ex-pat, played rugby as a kid. The two games have nothing to do with each other. Most of these hits are legal. The rules have changed over the years to try and protect players better, some would be illegal now - they have "defenseless" receiver rules. Also, you CAN grab the shirt - not the facemask. You can't grab the top of the back pads to tackle, it's now called a "horse Colar" tackle. And yes, it's hard to understand how big these guys are because they're all big. It's only when a coach or non-player stands next to them that you realize.
![[TH] 2024 PMSL SEA W1D5 | Fall | เก็บแต้มของจริง คือวันนี้](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EciIAlCXg5k/mqdefault.jpg)
I grew up in Japan playing rugby and played college football and it’s a common misconception that football hurts less because of the pads. In rugby people wrap you up to tackle you. In football they just run through you. Football hits hurt incredibly more than rugby hits. While you may have pads and a HARD helmet on the people tackling you also have the same which makes it hurt 10x more.
Yeah I love watching the reactions to these hits, but no one who comments on the pads protecting players seems to realize they can also be weapons.
Pads make ' em crazy.
Plus it has been found the pads actually make them hit harder. They are not as worried about being injured or it hurting so they don't hold back take more risks and just go full force making the hits even harder undue much of what the pads prevent. Making the hits hurt more again and increasing the chances of injures again.
Exactly man, I grew up in Australia playing rugby until I moved to the states in my second final year of Highschool. Got tossed in at wide receiver due to my ruby keeping me so fit. But the first time I truly got levelled by a safety. The knocked me more than any rugby tackle I’d ever received. The two games, while similar in nature, are still quite different.
I'm glad someone said it
Rugby is a "Contact" Sport while the NFL is a "Collision" Sport
Exactly
When things collide they make contact so not seeing the difference. You block, tackle, fight over the ball when it’s fumbled. It’s a chess match with living pieces. The intelligence it takes to recognize a defense formation or a split decision to throw a screen to avoid the blitz. The correct use of leverage to block to create a hole for the running back to run. The proper use of time outs at critical moments. Trick plays and risky decisions that can win or lose the game. It’s a near perfect game. There is so much more to it than colliding.
@Craig Fincher when you have no pads you hit hard but you will always hold back. With pads you don't. Rugby is contact football is getting into car accidents.
Definitely and I am in high school and I have hit a person so hard it gave him a concussion want a contact sport go do cheerleading football is a collision sport
@@mudminnow01 lol its the stops in play that the rest of the world have a problem with.
just keep playing the game and it might be the biggest sport on earth.
typical americans too many advets,
there is a 3 hour game with 16 mins of play.
rugby and football (soccer) 90 min game about 60 min of play
As an American that lived in NZ I can tell you a couple huge differences between Rugby and Football. In Rugby, when tackling, you must wrap your arms around the opponent. In Football you simply smash them. In Rugby to can only hit the ball carrier. In Football you can hit anyone (basically). Also, in Rugby it is rare that opposing players are far apart and get up a full head of speed AT each other. That is the norm in Football. Both are very rough sports, no doubt. But it's comparing apples and oranges
Eh Not entirely true. Like 98% of time in NFL they just grab your jersey or hug the wide receiver from behind. I'm pretty sure their are less injuries in the NFL if you compare it to rugby. Rugby is more riskier because they also run full speed and they are also 250 pounds and sometimes when they hit you they hit you wrong and that one hit can send you to the hospital because they have no pads. I would say the 1900s NFL was more dangerous or on par but the current NFL has so many rules now that it's a different game and has more protection. An other thing is in NFL you have offense and defense teams but in rugby it's only one team and the game never stops, it just keep going so they have no rests.
@@richardkim3652 - In a high school football game, there's usually an ambulance parked nearby. At college games, theres two or three ambulances waiting. And in NFL games it's at least three or four. Rugby injuries are scrapes and bruises. Football injuries are broken bones, torn ligaments, concussions, hyperextensions, etc.
@@Mr.Ekshin Not entirely true. Sometimes a rugby player will accidently elbow a runner running full speed at him at his chest or even at his neck. Yes it's illegal but more accident like that happens and that's a literally knockout. If you have seen the hard hitting rugby videos then you will see the rugby players literally just fall asleep knocked out and out cold. Rugby has a lot higher chance of injuries overall compared to NFL.
@@sirwadsontoast5928 Not entirely true. Sometimes a rugby player will accidently elbow a runner running full speed at him at his chest or even at his neck. Yes it's illegal but more accident like that happens and that's a literally knockout. If you have seen the hard hitting rugby videos then you will see the rugby players literally just fall asleep knocked out and out cold. Rugby has a lot higher chance of injuries overall compared to NFL.
I don't claim to everything but I do know they're not allowed to hit just anyone. I do agree with all the rest though! ✌
"I know it's not as hardcore as Rugby?" Mates, are we watching the same video?
One of the best observations I have heard about American football made by an Australian rugby player and TH-cam reactor is that American football players play more aggressively and recklessly than rugby players BECAUSE they wear helmets and pads. He posited that it gave them a sense of protection bordering on feeling indestructible so they could unload full force on an opponent.
I think ik who ur talking about, he on yourube as well?
@@Jaysin999 Yep!
you’d think that’s obvious
The helmets and pads do little to nothing for protection. This is coming from a player.
@@revtoyota Agreed. Historically, padding (and later helmets, face masks, etc.) were added to satisfy public outcry over the brutality of the sport especially by college officials where the early game was nurtured in the late 19th and early 20th centyury. The innovation of the forward pass is also an evolutionary outgrowth of this concern for safety. It transformed the early game of just teams grinding it out in tight phalanx-like formations to allowing for the opportunity to spread out and create more space in which to play. Modern rules against "spearing", "defenseless receivers", "fair catches", "in the grasp", "forward progress", etc. evolved to help keep players safe but also make the "product" more palatable to the viewing public in person at the stadium and eventually on television.
The funny thing about the Darrell Green anecdote was that he was downright small. 5-9, 185 pounds. His deal was being one of the fastest football players of all time.
Darell Green is so chuffed that someone thinks he's HUGE!
Hell... that's Doug Flutie sized.
I love him and hate him. He was my first favorite football player, that became my team, had a few good years and super bowls... then decade... upon decade... of frustration.
They should have had Larry Allen there bench pressing 800lbs or 225lbs at 43 repititions! 😂💪💪💪
Ikr, "ginormous" my a**. That's basically the average American male.
Can't imagine what she would have thought meeting a guy like Tyrone Smith or something who is 6'5 320+ lbs.
Depending on the era.. some of the hits were legal. Most of these are illegal now, but to REAL NFL Fans… a hard it is a hard hit!
Definitely not "most". A few. There's very little targeting head-head first contact. I dunno what your basis is on.
@@Timmycoo agreed. 90% of these hits are still legal. Pretty sure every one of them was legal in their era.
no they are not. defenseless player is applicable to a lot of these. most are illegal now. @@xbeaker
@@Timmycoohead to head contact isn’t the only type of illegal hit. A lot of these were late and while the ball carrier was in the air. That would qualify as defenseless
@@Darealgoat251 I should've used a slash instead of a dash to make my comment make more sense. My b. Because I was referring to targeting and head on head contact. Late hits are subjective so that's hard to justify an era change.
One of the things people don't often think about with football pads is that they allow players to hit harder similar to how a boxer with a boxing glove can hit harder than a bare knuckle fighter cause he won't break his hand. Most football players lead in with their shoulder so the shoulder pads allow them to hit harder without dislocating their shoulders.
Load of bollox
@@andylovatt7836 in what way?
@@andylovatt7836 definitely not
@@andylovatt7836in what way obviously you never watch a NFL game
CTE was literally a thing examined because of American Football. It was looked at in other sports (Rugby etc) BECAUSE of american football. The hits that players take in american football reach unbelievable levels of G forces far beyond any other sport other than a wall crash at 200 mph in F1 / Nascar / Indycar etc.
Hall of Famer Darrell Green was a Defensive Back, which is a smaller faster player tasked with covering the fastest offensive players, the wide receivers. In his prime, Darrell was known as the fastest man in the NFL.
As your partner there said, these guys are very very large human beings. Having a restaurant full of them is another experience altogether. By large, I mean larger than life HUGE. The average (50th percentile) size of an Offensive lineman is 6-foot-5, 314 pounds... that's 195.6 cm, 142.5 kg in non-freedom units. And that's the average. They get bigger. The average receiver (the guy the quarterback passes the ball to) size is 6-foot-1, 193 pounds (185.4 cm, 87.5 kg), and the average quarterback is 6-foot-2, 210 pounds (188 cm, 95.3 kg). When you see them up close, it's kind of humbling. There are a couple of "Biggest Freaks of Nature in the NFL" videos floating around that are worth a watch. You might also like the "Mic'ed up moments" videos.
Correction officer here. Max security prison in Texas. We have some guys that are impressively jacked up - have been working out 2 to 5 hours every single day since they got locked up 5/8/10 years ago.
And the STFU when they face-up with some of these guys. Same with top level MMA - though a couple " mistakes" have been made - and corrected.
Personally, the guys I was "concerned" about when I would confront them - were Special Forces.
Never met a legit Seal at the prison (a few wannabes), but did meet A couple Rangers, one pararescue, a couple (old) Green Berets.
Almost always smallish guys (5'6" to 5'10", 140 to 180 lbs).
When one asked me why I wasn't scared when I faced off against some of the nasty characters we had, I said " Nope. I'm scared. But everyone dies eventually. And I will take a piece with me when I go down."
He paid me one of the highest compliments I've ever got."That was what we used to look for."
Yep. My son is 14, plays defense. He's over 6 ft, 155 pounds, size 13 adult shoes, & growing still. He's 14. And he's not even in high school. My food budget *cry*
Plus, even linemen can run 40 yards in an average of 5 seconds or less. It's not like a car crash. It's like a train wreck.
The level of strategy involved in American football can't be appreciated without years of watching it. It may seem like simple stupid violence, but it's miles deeper than any other sport. Every offensive play is fully planned, and there are thousands of possibilities in terms of runs vs passing, route combinations, the dozens of formations, the blocking schemes, defensive schemes, blitzes, fakes, etc. It's a giant chess match. I could write paragraphs here and only scratch the surface.
Perhaps watching a full game broadcast of a classic game on youtube would give you the chance to see a game and rewatch some of the in-game analysis and replays to start learning the learning the rules, and how the teams are working to overcome their opponents strengths and to create and exploit their weaknesses.
Off the top of my head Superbowl 49 and 51 were great classic games.
As a Seahawks fan might I suggest Superbowl 48 instead. I'm pretty sure Superbowl 49 was canceled or something... 😭
@@chrissears5482 Spoilers bro, maybe delete that.
@@justinatest9456 I didn't spoil anything. It's a 10 year old game that he isn't gonna watch anyway
@@chrissears5482 Ah so you're an idiot. You did spoil it, which is why you had to then make excuses for why it was okay to spoil it.
You can grab the shirt. However, what she's referring to is probably a "Horse Collar" tackle. Those are illegal. A horse collar tackle is when a guy is chasing another, grabs the runner's jersey at the neck and drags him backwards or to the side. A lot of knee injuries have happened from those kinds of tackles, so they were made illegal.
horse collar tackle is NOT grabbing at the shirt, it's grabbing the guy from "normally " behind by the "neck hole" of the shoulder pads and using that to pull him down. It's bad cause it causes the front of the pads to come up and impact the neck of the player. now let me spin a bit of a tale here, your a tailback running with the ball a linebacker horsecollar tackles you, your forward momentum come to a almost complete stop, and guess at what point on you body where you impact...you neck/adams apple area...that why they have outlawed the horsecollar takedowns.
@@satricv Yeah. That's what I said.
@@satricv It's also a horse collar tackle if you grab the jersey and yank a player down by the name plate.
You can only grab the shirt if the player currently has possession of the ball, if they don’t then it’s holding
@@satricv the horse collar tackles being banned was more of a leg/ankle thing. The foot is planted and the player is jerked backward, possibly twisting, so the body ends up going backward while the foot remains planted. Lots of ligament and tendon damage with that motion on the leg and the way the body gets twisted and jerked. If shoulder pads are on properly, it won't be pulled into the neck as much as you would imagine.
Not all the hits in this video were "legal" hits, and in some cases the rules have changed to not allow those types of hits. For instance, you can't lead with your head anymore (thank God, cause that's how I got KO'ed playing football), and some of the hits you'll see a guy hit low from behind while someone hits high from the front (that one hasn't been legal for a long time). You can grab the shirt, but not the pads (aka Horse Collar tackle). The average size of an NFL player is around 6 feet talk and 230 lbs.
Yeah, many of these would fall under targeting
Yeah, rules for targeting and hits to the head are relatively new rule changes. This video they're watching is pretty old.
Get over yer self dude
the hits were for the most part all "legal" at the time the game was played, they may not be "legal" in the current mamby pamby NFL, but at the time the game was played, they were for the most part "legal".
The general rule is you can hit another player from the top of th shoulder to to top of the knee. (Not always). Usually blows to the head or knee are no longer legal. There is a lot of nuance though.
I went to a European rugby practice in Switzerland once. I kept getting in trouble for hitting too hard with my shoulders and head. Also, I was knocking people down with blocks.
They were amazed I hit that way with no pads. I’m like, yeah and? We only wear pads in school or organized football. We play full contact on weekends with no pads.
After practice the Scottish coach asked me where I was from. I told him, “Texas.” He threw his arms up and chuckled, “Well that explains everything now.”
I played both rugby and football and I'll just say I never got a bad concussion in rugby
The NFL is comprised of the largest, fastest, and strongest athletes in the world bar none. Anyone who thinks ruby is brutal or that American Football players wearing padding makes them “softer” is just speaking out of ignorance. I mean not to be too hard on rugby but it’s a lot of hugging where as in the NFL they HAVE to wear pads because there are literally brutal collisions every single play.
Lol what? Half the players jobs in America football is to spend the entire game hugging in the middle of the pitch. There are only like 5 players who actually run. Also rugby is a far more fluid game. You get tackled, play continues. You play 40 minutes straight, have a break, then play another 40 minutes. Meanwhile in America football you stop every 10s, only half the players are ever on the field and you have ad breaks every 10 minutes.
Fax
Have you watched Rugby properly? If you got padding on it’s easier to go smashing into another player. Rugby players padding is their muscles and strength. This is a subject that there is always going to be disagreements on. I don’t think you have seen a lot of rugby players and how strong and athletic they are also their tackling is very technical. They don’t keep stopping either play is continuous .
@@babomb2146 yea that’s called a high intensity interval sport. Football players exert more power, speed and energy on any given play, then a rugby player does all game. It’s causes you to preform at a peak level all game, whearas stamina can determine a game in rugby.. that’s trash. And the other players on the field are just hugging each other? That’s exactly why OP said y’all speak out of ignorance 😂 you arguably have more work to do without the ball than with it.
@@deb1544 this isn’t a topic of debate. NFL players and even college players are leagues above professional rugby players in all athletic abilities.. proven fact. Padding doesn’t do much protection against collisions comprable to car crashes. Rugby collisions don’t generate nearly as much force specifically because they don’t have pads. Football players having pads is one of the inherit reasons that’s it’s more dangerous. Proven fact
Loved your expression when you saw that first hit! Your eyeballs!
Welcome to America. Enjoy.
They say a full on NFL hit is like being in a 30mph/48kph collision in your car with no seat belt. And over a game you may be in that collision somewhere between 0 and 8 to 12 times depending on what position your playing. I used to play both HS and college ball(left side DE and strong side middle linebacker), loved every bit of it, but now in my 50's am paying for it hard. Even down into HS and junior HS the hits can be quite hard, its a fun game, but a hard game, not everyone can play.
As someone who has played both, I can most assuredly tell you American football hits are harder, more vicious, and result in way more injuries than Rugby. My worst injuries I have ever had came from American football as opposed to Rugby.
A lot of the rules have changed in recent years due to the amount of injuries. In 1984 the Chicago Bears and Raiders played in a game where the Raiders Quarterback had a couple of teeth knocked out, knee cartiledge torn etc, both the starting and backup quarterbacks were injured and the only player they could use as a third string quarterback refused to go into the game. The Bears Quarterback also suffered a lacerated kidney +++ I don't remember all of the injures. Another memorable game was the 1990 game between the Eagles and Redskins nicknamed "the body bag" game. So , the rules were changed for a reason. :D They still hit very hard though and some of these hits are still legal.
Da Bears!
Speaking of Darrell Green, he played for then Washington Redskins (Washington Commanders) from 1983 to 2002 as a Cornerback or CB. His team won 2 Superbowls. Besides playing football, Green was a standout at Track and Field. Green is inducted in both NFL and College Hall of Fame.
and at age 50 still ran a 4.4 40
And he was one of the smallest players out there
Having played both, football is scarier. The injuries in rugby are much more frequent but they aren’t as serious in football because there’s no requirement to actually wrap for a tackle in football so a lot of football tackles are an instant red card in rugby.
Darrell was so huge! Me also at 5'9: (crying) Thank you.
ESPN had a show called Sports Science. One episode tested which sport actually had harder hits/tackles. The fact that American football has pads made the hits harder. It’s the pads and helmet that makes the hits/tackles harder because of their existence. Sounds weird to me but having no protection causes Rugby to have subconscious way of pulling up. It might not be noticeable to the players and watchers but, I guess, their scientific instruments showed it.
The most impressive thing to me is how many times you hear "boom" and the ball DOES NOT COME LOOSE.
10:07 there's only been a single on field death during a game. It was in 1971. There have been several people to have been permanently paralyzed from hits in games. The amount of players that have died later in life at rather young ages due to repeated blunt force injuries to the head, specifically concussions, is staggering though.
We were damn close to another…. Although admittedly not due to the severity of the sport
Nope you forgot last year with Damar Hamlin Died that night when his heart stopped on the field.
That's NFL. College football had 19 fatalities in 1905, and 45 total deaths between 1900-1905.
The person that died was not even touched. He suffered a heart attack between plays. There is a famous picture of Dick Butkus, one of the toughest of all time defenders, standing over the player, Chuck Hughes, but he did not hit him.
I flinched more watching this than I did watching your Rugby's biggest hits video 🤣
Darrell Green was 5'9 and 184 pounds. He was very small by football standards. The average NFL player is 6'2 and 250 pounds.
But Mr. GREEN was faster over 100meters than every soccer,rugby,aus footballer and most non top 5 countries Olympic 100m guys.
In most cases we find that wearing the pads adds confidence to the player letting them hit that much harder without worrying about getting hurt so much. It liberates them to fully take off the restraints and slam into each other with forces that would break them without the pads. They aren't there to keep you safe from being hit, they are there to let you hit THAT much harder!
1st.) I have seen this video maybe a hundred times. (I love seeing peoples reactions to it.) All of the hits it are legal. The one Clothesline tackle on the quarterback in the black-and-white clip is no longer legal but at the time of the clip it was legal and a very common form of tackling.
2nd) I played organized American Football for over 30 years (and even had a few pro tryouts, never made the team though.) I was good enough and fast enough 4.3 40 yard dash, to get invited to 3 training camps but, always too small to make the team, 5'10" 175 lbs as a reciver. I joined a ruby club while living in Europe that had several Australians and 2 New Zealand landers on it and had a British coach. I was not impressed with the hits. Yes there were some good hits but no where near anything that rocked me like in American Football. I was often told I was too violent and needed to calm down. The next year I joined an American Football club and convinced 2 players from the Rugby club to try it and the violence and aggressiveness was more to their liking. They both loved it and never went back to the rugby club.
3rd) in the 60's and 70's the game had a rash of players being paralyzed, so there were a few rule changes and changes to equipment.
4th) before the creation of professional football the sport was HUGE as a college sport. It was so violent and the sport produced so many severe injuries and deaths (yes deaths, not a big number but way bigger than a sport should have had), I believe it was 1 or 2 deaths a year. So many that Congress intervened and forced changes.
Now I'm not wanting to diminish the hard hits in rugby, because there are some, but the hard hits happen at a much lower frequency than in American Football. I will also admit that my experiences may be tainted by the fact that I played American Football at a level higher than most people ever will and my rugby experience was only at a club level.
Football was brutal at times. Played 11 years, saw broken legs, arms, collarbones a neck (poor guy), concussions, dislocations, torn ligaments and people knocked out cold. I was once hit so hard that it jarred my retinas in both eyes, leaving me literally blind for about 30 seconds. It was terrifying. I sat out 3 plays before the coach put me back in. I played the rest of the game and that was considered normal. I've played a bit of rugby too. It's no where near as "impactful". It's more endurance based with more rules around tackling, no blocking. It's still rough but it really isn't in the same league in terms of collisions and pain.
Ive always watched college and NFL football, I do respect rugby as a sport, and I do enjoy watching it every now and again. But I do say that American Football is more violent and hard hitting, and I love it. The NFL is actually signing some contracts to get a European leauge, which will play against the 32 already established teams, which I will enjoy very much, and maybe both sports will gain more popularity in eachothers home territories, I would love to see Rugby grow here and NFL grow around the world!
As an american football player, I can confirm tha tthe hits hurt a lot. when you have a 300lbs linemen who runs a 4.8 40 yard dash, and is hits you at a full sprint, there is no avoiding the pain. no pad or heleme can help you in football.The majority of these plays were against the rules, because of targeting, which is wher you dive and make contanct with your shoulder to the front of their body, your helmet to their helmet, or you aming for their helmet.
There is a video on YT called "5 Reasons You Shouldn't Mess With The USA." I personally believe THIS video is THE BIGGEST reason not to mess with The U.S.A. If we hit like this while we are "playing" a game, just imagine how hard we hit when we're serious (ie. the military)! Loved the reaction guys! Keep up the good work!
I don't know if you heard but you should look at damar hamlins injury, that was scary but also its like a one in a million thing for someone to die while on the field. they did resuscitate him thankfully and has been discharged from the hospital.
Hamlin's injury could happen in just about any collision or contact sport. An elbow to the chest in basketball. A kicked ball to the chest in soccer. A baseball to the chest. Hockey is pretty much American football on ice.
The only on-field fatality in modern (post-WWII/Superbowl era) NFL history occured during the 1971 Thanksgiving Day game between the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears when, during the closing minutes of the game, Detroit Wide Receiver Chuck Hughes suffered a fatal heart attack due to an undiagnosed heart condition while jogging back to the huddle between plays.
He was 28 years old.
The thing about these hits is that the players use all that "protection" as a weapon when they hit each other. I would not want to take a full-speed hit in the midsection by another player's shoulder pads.
A Detroit lions player died in the 60’s. Darryl Stingley a NE WR was paralyzed by a hit in the 70’s. There have been other neck/ paralysis injuries, and a few players whose heart stopped on the field but were resuscitated. It is actually rare but it is a risk.
Charles Hughes died on the field in 71'
It's when you can hear the hits when you realize how hard they were. There is such a loud "crack" and the crowd just goes "OHhhhhhh"! It's worse when the players are miked up.
I played from age 8 to age 18, and the helmets themselves are like battering rams. They weigh more than ten pounds and the facemasks are iron covered with hard rubber. The physics of the game are such that when there is going to be a hit, whoever is moving faster feels it less. So there is incentive to hit as hard as you can.
The NFL has cracked down on high hits to the head in recent years so a lot of the hits you saw are now illegal. But in the hey day before they were made illegal, football was an awfully fun sport to watch. As a player even jsut playing through high school I had concussions, broken bones, messed up ligaments, sprains, cracked my sternum, broke my nose, it was a brutal sport. And I wouldn't trade a minute of it. The testosterone rush in the moment is indescribable. When you knock that guy into the middle of next week adn he is afraid to came to your side of the field on a play, you've already won the game.
Of course back in the 70s and 80s we didn't have a full grasp about the head injuries and CTE. So we led with our heads to maximize the impact. My neck still hurts and is stiff thirty years later.
Hey Chris . I know this is older posts aka reply . but I just saw the video it was just maybe 🤔 OK at best . anyWho Chris you have some things that are kinda wrong .football helmets do not wait 10 pounds nor is the face mask made of iron . I know a little bit about the sport the highest level I played at was at UCLA as a wishbone veer quarterback or if you will a option quarterback . If I remember correctly about 2 1/2 LBS pounds to maybe 5 1/2 depending on the size of the helmet .most the face-mask are hard plastic that still have flexibility with maybe a thin stainless steel insert or less expensive insert depending on the the helmet requirements now most are carbon fiber at least today . Thanks for the info later bro 😎 ✌️
Dude died on the field a few weeks ago in the NFL from a big hit, he was brought back to life 3 times before staying alive.
He got the Clot Shot, that's why they won't interview or show a close up of him... he dead.
Well that’s good news as any person player sport things happen and nobody wants any person to die.
That was less about it being a big hit and more about the spot he got it. I believe that type of injury is more common in baseball.
That wasn't a big hit. Not at all. He bounced right up from the ground, seemed fine, then flopped over like grandma.
The awesome thing is most of these guys get up and keep playing right after these hits
One of the big differences between Rugby and "Football" is that "Blocking" is allowed - you can collide with a tackler thus preventing him from reaching the ball carrier.
Down field blocking during a pass play, or during a kick return or an interception is displayed in a number of these hits.
Some of these hits knocked people unconscious... the rules have been changing recently to reduce the number and severity of concussions.
People forget that College Football was almost banned by President Teddy Roosevelt - because too many players were getting Killed.
I met an NFL offensive lineman once, and he was huge. I am 5'10" and he was almost 6'8" and easily 280lbs. When he shook my hand, it was like putting my hand in a baseball glove, it was so big. As for hitting hard, I know of a pro Rugby player that got to practice with an NFL team, and he said in his experience the NFL hits harder than rugby players.
Back in my early teens in the 70s I sold concessions in the stands at Texas stadium we had to be at the stadium 2hrs before kickoff so I would hangout in the end zone tunnel watching the cowboys and whoever they were playing warmup, I got to meet a lot of players and get a lot of autographs the 3 years I worked there, I even got Tom Landry's autograph
Just a few weeks ago, Damar Hamlin's heart stopped after being hit during a game. He needed to be resuscitated on the field and the game was called off.
Exactly. Not even the hardest hit in the world.
A rugby player actually died on the field so which is worse lol
A player from the Buffalo Bills team in 2022 got speared in the chest by another player from Cincinnati, and his heart stopped on the field. He was revived and is now doing well. He did die, but was brought back. If you really want to know what the NFL is like, I read an article that when the offensive line and defensive line come off the ball, it is like a car collision at about 45 to 55 miles an hour.
Side note...that particular injury is more common in baseball & lacrosse. Hence why for little leaguers they have padded shirts available to spread out the impact of the ball hitting the chest. There have been kids that died as a result. It's just a freak "perfect timing" situation. Also why so many youth baseball fields have AEDs. With the padding it's just extremely rare to see that in football.
I live in WNY btw...community was really affected by this & there's been a huge increase in folks signing up to learn CPR, which is fantastic.
Underappreciated aspect of football: stopping play and resetting everyone every single time the ball is downed. Why? Because it allows everyone to catch their breath and reassess, it means most players on most plays are giving nearly 100% effort, and running at top speed. This contributes to big hits. Also, it means that strategy is of supreme importance. Every play is planned and called for the situation by the coaches, and every player has a specific job to do. The chess game aspect is arguably as significant to the outcome as the physical aspect.
I also think if you want to really get into American Football you have to start by going to a big College game live or an NFL rivalry game of two teams that are playing well that season to get the full experience.
The most common injuries in football have been concussions and paralysis, sadly.
Tell me you don't know anything about football without telling me you don't know anything about football. Most injuries are soft tissue injuries and there have been less than 10 paralysis injuries since Daryl Stingley.
@@kekkomartin5848 Tell me you don't know anything by running your mouth. EVERY SINGLE PLAYER, from High School on who has played real "American Football" (ie not a field goal kicker) has some amount of permanent brain injury from collisions. Please go away. Forever.
Some of these hits were legal at the time and some are still allowed. Mainly they tightened up restrictions on helmet to helmet contact as well as hitting someone before they have control of the ball on punt receiving.
03:15 Up until you asked if the hits you saw were legal hits yes those hits/tackles were 100% legal at the time. As for the rest of the video one would have to do some research on the rules being that the video segments were from NFL games played over the past 70 years. I wish I could give you a straight answer for your question but NFL rules have changed a lot over the entire existence of the NFL because there is always some sort of rule that gets added, altered, or removed every NFL season.
I think they're roughly even in brutality. NFL hits harder but has pads while rugby has no safety net. The big things are the rules added over the years making both sports less brutal, so as new rules come out, the "most" brutal sport will change anyways. That being said NFL players are bigger, faster, stronger but rugbys got better endurance
I love it when rugby fans make the foolish comment reference the endurance capabilities of NFL players
endurance is not only your cardiovascular capabilities which the vast majority of NFL players have incredible cardiovascular endurance endurance is also playing four games over the course of a month with three or four broken ribs
Rugby is a Contact Sport, and Football is a Collision Sport!
I'd suggest this video it does a good job explaining the rules for beginners "The Rules Of Football -Explained! (NFL)" I hope this helps...Great reaction👍
Actually you’d be surprised how many football players die, usually from snapping their necks, also the force of a football hit is a lot more than a rugby hit for multiple reasons. The main reason being that they run just as fast if not faster than rugby players even with all the gear, and the gear adds extra weight which equals extra momentum which means more energy transfer.
Darrel Green was a Corner back for the Washington Redskins. He was the fastest player in the NFL for years and years, and a top corner back who is now in the NFL Hall of Fame. Corner backs are among the smallest players in the NFL, but typically are the quickest and fastest. Their job is to guard the receivers and prevent pass completions.
I think that CBs have to compete with some Free Safeties as the fastest/quickest guys on the field and also a few of the smaller running backs can move along with some of the wider receivers. But yea, you are correct, CB or (defensive backs) if you want to call them that are among the most agile and fastest humans to ever walk the face of the earth.
Most hits are legal, but players do get penalized for certain hits (like taken out of the game). I remember a hit was made on Big Ben in his last year of playing, he got decked hard by a Ravens player when Ben hut the ball and it has legal. The Ravens player timed it perfectly and they even reviewed it and it stood as a legal hit. That's what I remember, its been a while, it could've been two years ago.
As a British guy I do really like American football, the hardest thing I found to get used to was how stop starty it is
Down south football ain't just a sport its a way of life here. I live for football. ROLL TIDE ROLL YA'LL. ❤❤❤❤
I played football in college, go Montana State Bobcats!, and I've had friends that played rugby and I've even played a little, very little, myself. The major difference is that in Football you are allowed to block for your ball carrier, so you are always in danger on the field because you can always be hit, and most of the plays are designed to hit you when you aren't seeing it coming. And even though we wear pads, the biggest concern is that when you are moving full speed one direction and get slammed backwards your brain hits the front of your skull, so concussions are a major thing and hard to completely eliminate since no padding can protect the brain from that violent stop.
To give you an idea about just how big some of these guys are I worked at a hotel in the late 80's that was the NFL sanctioned hotel in Green Bay Wi so the teams stayed there before playing the Packers on Sunday.
On a normal elevator the teams were only allowed to have 5 team members and a coach ride the elevator at a time due to the weight limit and the space inside the elevator.
I was 6 ft 3in/ 190cm tall and weighed about 300 lbs/137 kgs and the linemen were bigger than I was.
They were absolute giants.
Plenty late, but I love watching people who have never seen football react to this video. Most of these hits are legal. Some are no longer legal, but a few weren't legal even when they happened. A large portion are still legal.
Grabbing the helmet/facemask is illegal and has been for a long time. You can grab the shirt/jersey. You can't pull the player down backwards from the shirt or collar.
Pads protect the person doing the hitting much more than the people who are getting hit. It's similar to what happened in boxing. The gloves actually let the boxers punch harder, because it protected the boxers hands from breaking. The end result is that more force actually goes into the opponent.
A good portion of these are what are called "hospital passes". The QB threw the ball to a guy who he could see (or should be able to see) was going to get hit freely. The receiver wasn't going to have time to see the opponent coming in for the hit.
Helmets and pads give you a sort of “false sense of security.” It makes you feel like a robot and you can run through anything, but the way my head felt after every football game I played was unimaginable.
Rugby doesn't allow for working up a head of steam before you crash into somebody and getting hit by somebody with a helmet and pads on is more unforgiving than flesh and bone. Most of these guys are dealing with pain the rest of their lives after a few years in the NFL.
This is college football and NFL. This is not just the NFL.
you cannot grab the facemask but you absolutely can grab their jersey lmao
when your lit up like that, if you survive the hit for the rest of the game, you are jacked looking for revenge. and when you lite someone up like that, you get that 10 foot tall and bullet proof feeling. but the next day it's all you can do to roll outta bed. regardless of which one you were for the game. played 3 years in college, never made it to the pros, but damn i miss playing that game.
I remember reading about an Australian rugby player who tried out for the NFL and gave up because he couldn’t take the hits.
People seem to have a misconception about the pads and helmets in football they basically serve the same function as boxing gloves. Boxing gloves were added to the sport not soften the blows, but to keep the boxers from breaking their hands allowing them to hit harder. The pads and helmet allow the person tackling to hit harder. Hits in college and profession games often deal the same amount of force as car crashes (at roughly 30-40mph). Side note: The majority of these tackles are completely legal.
Fen,
And now for the shocker the NFL is NOT as rough these days as it used to be. Sometimes you can start organized football at 12 years of age. So they have been playing for a LONG, long time. Once in a while there are serious injuries. But speaking about big. Some of these offensive lineman weigh over 300 pounds and can run... The biggest hit usually come from defensive backs, because they get such a running start. I hope you liked it.....
in the last 10 years or so they've also created a rule targeting which is when you more or less lead with your head and your head strikes the receivers head which is been a rule implemented to reduce the number of concussions
Just for some clarification the only hits not allowed are grabbing by the facemask (it's called a facemask go figure), clipping (taking someone out from the front below the knees), and now head to head collisions. Also I played rugby and football growing up and into highschool. Rugby is more cardio intensive but football is way more dangerous and painful. You're basically in a car crash every 5 minutes. Rugby not having pads means that they can't hit full blast or they would get injured. Football having the pads means they can hit much harder and more dangerously. They actually used to not have pads and people dying was really common. If a football game was played at the same pace as a rugby match people would die constantly.
You know what we did in the off-season from football? We played football still, no pads, same style of play..maybe more aware of our heads, but still. So I chuckle at any comparison to rugby..and rugby is an awesome and tough sport but nothing like football.
Being a former football player I can honestly say that with the amount of testosterone and adrenaline running through our bodies, we loose any thought or care about our own health and safety in those moments as well as any amount of consideration for the ones that we hit, and in these moments we push our bodies severely past what they should be capable of. In addition to that, the pads don't do much to stop the pain and when we hit others like that we are also hurting ourselves in the process, but the severity of the pain only hits when the adrenaline and testosterone levels lower. I've had games where I walked off the field and got on the bus but I had to get help to get off the bus and get into the locker room.
And we start them young! You should watch hardest hits in little league football! It's crazy!
Every single hit is clean asf
This compilation shows hits over a long period. Many of these hits are illegal in 2023 but were legal years ago.
The thing to keep in mind is that sports science is helping create faster more efficient athletes. Most NFL players can spring 40 yards (about 29 meters) in under 5 seconds. When they have the space to move, they can accelerate and have a devastating amount of momentum.
04:20 you cannot grab the facemask of the helmet that penalty is called FACEMASK. You can grab the shirt if the offensive player has possession of the ball. However you cannot tackle the offensive player that has possession of the ball by grabbing the back of the collar of the Jersey from behind thats called a HORSE COLLAR TACKLE. If a defensive player grabs the Jersey of a offensive player who DOES NOT have possession that defensive player can get a penalty for PASS INTERFERENCE or HOLDING depending on the situation.
Another big thing for him to realize is that some of these videos have players as young as high school doing these big hits
to answer your question, a lot of these tackles are not legal. A good portion of them fall under "defenseless receiver". That is where the person catching the ball has their arms up and is looking for the ball to catch it. Not only are they 100% focused on catching the ball and can't look for tacklers, they are also vulnerable to major injuries. Having their arms up leaves their vital organs completely exposed in a way that is unnatural otherwise. Anytime we are startled or defensive our elbows automatically come in to our ribs for protection. This doesn't happen when you are trained to catch a football so there has to be a rule to protect the receiver.
She said “see he’s dazed” lmao nah that man has a TBI 😂
A Bills player died on the field after a hit just before the playoffs just this year. He was shocked back to life thankfully.
For the most part, the hits you're seeing are legal, or were at the time. You CAN tackle by the shirt, but helmet to helmet is illegal today. You can also be called for roughing if the player is in an vulnerable position (up in the air and fully stretched out).
Around the 4:10 mark of the vid on the question of "grabbing the shirt".....One can grab the shirt as part of the tackle, and in fact that it is not allow for players to wear "tearaway" jerseys. Also it is allow to tackle by grabbing the long hair of players sticking out from under the helmet. Not only that one cannot tackle by grabbing the helmet/face mask, one cannot "horse collar" or grabbing the shirt opening and shoulder pads around the neck area.
Even though imma seasoned fan I still go "whoah!" when it's a big hit. I hate seeing them seriously injured too, especially when helmets fly off 🤯
Rugby is a contact sport, and American football is a collision sport. You don't have to have the ball to be hit, and you don't have to wrap your arms for the tackle. Yes, there are many concussions, and people have died, lost body parts, and been paralyzed playing American football.
Most of these hits WERE legal at the time but they have made blindside blocks and leading with the crown of your helmet illegal because there were too many crippling injuries.
Most of the shoulder smashes are still legal but they've been changing the rules a little so that one player can't hold you up and make you take a defenseless hit from a teammate.
I would argue that it's more hard-core than Rugby because they allow the full on open hits (with the pads) where it's the equivalent of a pedestrian being hit by a car going 20mph for the open field ones
In the day it was all legal, now rules have changed. I played for Mainland High School, Daytona Beach, FL. I've seen teammates, teenagers, break their necks tackling, a head to head collision. Being a Defensive Right Tackle, 140lbs., then, and seeing this...The military isn't the only one that needs to be shown respect. America is all or nothing.
I was a small linemen when I played, 6'2, 330 lbs, and could run a 5 second 40 yard dash. NFL players are big guys
I'm pretty sure your average NFL player is bigger than your average rugby player. My roommates played high school football and they're 6'6" twins and over 300 pounds each. Admittedly they've gained some weight since high school, but they weren't small guys then.
THE MIGHTY GEORDIES!BIG GAME TUESDAY
During this video I saw exactly ONE flag being thrown. There's a facemask grab that's now illegal, but was perfectly legal for a long time. And the shoulder pads just allows them to hit harder.
The "rules" question is a sticky one. NFL Changed rules after the concussion thing. When I played, it was part of the game. "Oh, you got your bell rung. Shake it off and get back in there." A lot of the hits you see are legal, many were legal at the time. Now it is illegal to lead with the top of your head or to target the other player's head.
Yeah, that's a good way to describe American Football tackles: A human car crash.
I'm a huge football fan, but I will say most of these are older clips. Most of the hits in this video are penalties now as the NFL shifts to the NFFL. (National Flag Football League). Some rules now for reference.
1) No peel back hits (Can't block or hit a player in the opposite direction of your goal line.) 2) You can't put your body weight on a QB as you tackle him. 3) Defenseless player can't be hit. (Have to give a receiver a chance to catch the ball and defend himself before you hit him. 4) You're not allowed to touch Tom Brady. Any amount of contact on the GOAT or an official is a penalty.
But it's a great game that I still love. I just miss the football elements of the game.
Rules defining a defenseless player were expanded in 2011 to include eight categories:
A quarterback in the act of throwing;
A receiver trying to catch a pass;
A runner already in the grasp of tacklers and having his forward progress stopped;
A player fielding a punt or a kickoff;
A kicker or punter during the kick;
A quarterback at any time after a change of possession;
A receiver who receives a blind-side block;
A player is already on the ground.
Damn i must have been playing warrior rugby from y'all's description 😂 rugby for me has always been obviously rugby rules and gameplay. But it has always been full force collision
I don't know if anyone said anything yet, as far as legal hits go. These days, you cannot lead with your helmet. You have to lead with your shoulder, helmet to helmet contact is a targeting penalty. Hitting the quarterback after he throws if you're far enough to come to a stop or slow down to avoid him is called roughing the passer. These are just some of the newer rules, to help protect the players and cut down on injuries and concussions. I do believe there is more, but those are just the ones that I know off the top of my head. I've played in high school as a defensive back (Strong Safety). But that was years ago when rules were different.
In the NFL, when you have the ball EVERYONE on the other team is zeroing in on you - and the team with the ball is looking to block them. This leads to a "collision" sport vs. a full contact sport. I'm an English ex-pat, played rugby as a kid. The two games have nothing to do with each other.
Most of these hits are legal. The rules have changed over the years to try and protect players better, some would be illegal now - they have "defenseless" receiver rules. Also, you CAN grab the shirt - not the facemask. You can't grab the top of the back pads to tackle, it's now called a "horse Colar" tackle. And yes, it's hard to understand how big these guys are because they're all big. It's only when a coach or non-player stands next to them that you realize.