Who is more Athletic, and give me an honest answer?

Question

Who is more athletic? Speed, Power, agility, and good instincts when running the ball. American Football players (NFL) or Rugby Players (Pros).

Answer 1

Rugby players by far. They are like the perfect hybrid. They have the size, power, and ferocity of NFL players, but they have the speed, agility, and mental skills of footballers.

Answer 2

Football players.I havent really seen rugby but from what Ive seen,its a concept which is-Get the ball,pass it and try and kick or throw it into a goalpost?

Football players when running cant really pass the ball like in Rugby and have to have good instincts like finding the hole,speed to go through it,and power to shake off any defenders.

Answer 3

Rugby is a joke compared to NFL.

I wonder if you can even get hurt playing Rugby if you're in shape.

Answer 4

I would say for short bursts of energy (a play a rest, a couple more plays and rests, then a big rest while the ball changes hands) it would have to be the NFL players.

For endurance and still being able to have quick bursts (staying on the field playing both offence and defence, all players needing to tackle, run the ball, pass the ball etc, and playing a game that has 80 mins of playing time with few substitutions or breaks) I would have to say rugby.

Both are very athletic.  You have to ignore my fellow Americans and their comments, we get very little quality rugby to watch in the United States as there is no paid professionals here and it costs a fortune to watch games here (11 american dollars a month for 1 channel added to your satelite bill that few people can get anyway, or 20-30 american dollars a game on pay per view).  Unless a person here is already into rugby, they will probably never see a quality match.

That's why all the lame NFL vs Rugby comments here.  Both are tough and both require athletic ability.

PS

American football was created to be a safer version of rugby (the Americans at the time had strange and dangerous rugby rules that differed from the rest of the world and many prople got hurt)

Answer 5

Rugby players.

Answer 6

Rugby playaz

Answer 7

I hate to say it, but NFL players are more athlestic. But i really cant see where your coming from when you say that rugby players cant get injured. that is ludacris. Rugby is alot more involved and in your face. sure NFL has big clashes, but that doesnt hurt you. you get hurt in the rucks and mauls. or a massive tackle, and in NFL the padding jut takes the whole impact. not to take anything away from the game, NFL seems fairly interesting, bu rugby is alot more aggresive.

Answer 8

Nort its the NFL guys who wear pads not rugby players, and a scrum is much more agressive than anything football offers, in scrums you get stepped on and everything. I feel Rugby is more physically demanding because its 80 minutes and there aren't stoppages every 30seconds. I think NFL players are more athletic so they have more speed. As for running the ball I go NFL again because they have more schemes, and blocking, and its more of a team thing unlike rugby where you want to get it to the outside and have a guy sprint to the corner., and beat guys by himslef. NFL has different "holes" to block and run through and cutback, therefore more instincts

Answer 9

I think that for speed NFL are the fastest, this is their specialization, and also quite agile. But about power i think that rugby players(mainly 1st&2nd lines) are more powerful, in fact in NFL there is no scrum so NFL players don't need to be so specialized in pushing like a tractor...

About agility probably rugby backs are more agile.

For who said that rugby is a joke compared to NFL, in football every time there is a contact and the player fall the game is stopped, while in that situation in rugby there is the hardest game, and remeber that rugby players don't wear any real protection except the T-shirt and little foam protections for shoulders but thinner than 1cm, and some of them wear a foam protection for head, while NFL players wear helmets, and thick rigid plastic protections.

Answer 10

as a massive rugby union fan, i would still give it to NFL boys they're amazing athletes.