And in the same respect, take a 6'5" 330lb DT and make him play both ways, do you think he will still be able to make a play in the 3rd quarter? Joe Thomas played at 310 lbs... His normal body weight is closer to 240... Players adapt to what they need them to be.
If he was conditioned to it...yes. If you randomly asked a guy right now to do it....no. Totally agree. In college I played football at anywhere between 260 to 280. Two years after I was done playing I was down to a much more natural 230lbs on my frame.
So, the 6'2" 305lb Warren Sapp is going to play every play without coming off the field and your contention is he would just adapt and be able to do it?...as you say, easily... BUT, if Hein "grew up playing that style of football", he couldn't adjust to playing HALF OF WHAT HE DID throughout his normal career and be effective?
Lyman is absolutely, 100% correct, you cannot judge players as if they were playing in another era..No one can say what they would or would not be growing up and playing in that era. But we do know they dominated the era they did play in...end of story.
Yes....if he was doing that all his life....I logically conclude it would be easy for him. He was an amazing athlete...I don't see why that is so far fetched. He wouldn't be adapting....it would have just naturally been what he was accustomed to. Why do you get such a joy out of twisting my words? Let's look at what I actually typed instead of your asinine interpretation of my words Irish.... If Hein grew up only playing one side of the ball....suddenly asking him to do both would drain him the same exact way. What I said was if Hein grew up only playing one side of the ball....like most modern football players....and then you suddenly asked him to play every down...he'd probably struggle. Just as asking Sapp in his prime to suddenly do it. See how my words actually make sense when you don't try to twist them to be something different? Again....i find it odd that I always have to correct you on this.
You can't judge....but you can speculate and argue about it using logic. No one can definitely say anything...but there's zero harm in discussing it.
Back to the earlier discussion of should pre-Super Bowl titles be discounted: Only a fool would argue that NFL titles from 1920 to 1931 should count equally to Super Bowl era titles as these titles were awarded based on the "regular season" W/L record - not on head to head (playoff) competition. I personally take this one step further. From 1932 to 1936 there was, in fact, a playoff game between the league's top two teams. But . . . From '32 through '36, the team owners still controlled their team's scheduling. As such, they could (and often did) manipulate their schedule in order to end up with a favorable W/L record and a spot in the championship game in order to reap the additional gate receipts (at the time, their only source of revenue). It wasn't until 1937 that the league started to control the schedule ensuring each team played the same, balanced schedule. Just like they do today.
My two cents. Players have been getting bigger stronger and faster throughout time. Think of the training hours that are dedicated by these guys today. They are chasing riches beyond their wildest dreams these days. That kind of motivation simply didn't exist in the earlier years. Football was something they did on the side.. The general emphasis placed on health today, doesn't even compare to the way society was back in the day....It wouldn't even be close. That's no knock on the players of yesteryear that helped form this game into what it is today, it was simply a different world back then... To speculate that players from bygone era's (where it was commonplace to smoke cigarettes and drink beers in the locker-room) would struggle against the finely tuned athlete's of today, is not a stretch at all...
True and if you moved those guys from that era to this one....they'd likewise be workout freaks too if they were playing football. The difference in natural physical size from era to era isn't the same.
It's a good point because the argument earlier here was teams today don't have to play everyone...and it was inaccurately stated that teams in the 1920-1932 era did. Let's pick a random year and look at it. 1926... There were 22 teams in the league that year. They didn't all play an equal amount of games for various reasons. The Frankford Yellow Jackets, the eventual champion, played 17 games while 7 different teams played less than 10. Frankford only played head to head against half the league...including playing one team 3 times. There's no way you can look at that and see that title as equal to a Super Bowl title today.
One other thing to consider . . . Today's players can dedicate themselves to training/conditioning 24/7/365. Players from past eras, more often than not, had to work a "real" job in the off season just to support themselves and their families.
Again, excellent point. And it illustrates more why this is a fantasy based discussion. But there's nothing wrong with that.
Obviously, I'm not. I even extend the questionable title frame to 1936. That would exclude 4 titles from the Packers, 3 titles from the Bears, 2 titles from the Giants and 1 each from the Cardinals and the Lions.
