Arena The Official NFL Discussion Thread (Now Featuring Time's Person of the Year, Taylor Swift!)

New aptitude test added to the Combine.

Panthers restructure contracts.

 

Bowers arrested on gun charge at airport.

And apparently Matt Barkley has decided not to throw at the Combine.

 

Female kicker tries out for regional combine.

Whether she gets any notice from scouts or not, between her, Danica winning the Daytona 500 pole and the Ronda Rousey/Liz Carmouche UFC fight Saturday, this is turning out to be a great week for women in sports.

 

Jets make cuts.

Former AFL star suffers stroke.

Former QB Plummer mentors Collin Klein.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the ladies. I mean they rev my engines, but they don't belong on the football field.

 

I'd take Ronda Rousey over any kicker in the NFL right now.

 

my only real concern is the fact that kickers do, actually, ya know, get hit and have to make tackles at times. and i just can't see most women being able to tackle pretty much anyone in the NFL. so that's something that anyone thinking about drafting/signing a woman would have to seriously take into account.

 

There are female kickers up to the NCAA Division 1 level... but I don't think they belong in the NFL. And yes, this is as someone who made a film about a high school female kicker There are a lot of levels where it's okay (and, in fact, I'd argue a lot of high school girls are better suited because they've finished puberty already and women have stronger hips to swing from than guys to begin with, so many of them are quite good at kicking).

But let's be real, even big college guys get crushed when they get in the NFL. I just don't think women are physically able to take hits from those guys. Talk about the NFL caring about safety? Yeah... I agree with Tristan. I'm sure there are ladies who could do the kicking aspect. Unfortunately, kickers do occasionally have to take hits.

 

i guess they could make even touching a kicker completely illegal, and by extension make any attempts to block kicks illegal. and also just do away with the kick return, which has been hinted at as being distinctly possible. that is, quite frankly, the only way i can see it being safe for a woman to play in the NFL. as rachel said, even college guys get absolutely destroyed because they haven't spent the time getting the extra bulk to play in the NFL. i just can't see a normal woman (even an extremely athletic one) being able to gain the necessary bulk for it to be even remotely safe. even with all the pads. and kickers pads are complete jokes compared to someone like a linebacker.

 

Right. Because of the motion that a kicker has to do, it's hard for them to have a lot of padding. You can't really have padding on your legs and even your arms and shoulders have to be able to swing freely like a QB's. I suppose a female kicker could just refuse to go after and tackle someone on a kick return or blocked kick, but that would seem to be a huge mark against a team wanting to hire them, no matter how good their leg is.

EDIT: Also, I watched that chick's video... I don't know how far she can actually hit them from, but her form is really sloppy. Her steps are not at all deliberate and I don't know if she'd get the ball up high enough to clear the line, even though she's "making" the FGs we see. I mean, I give her major props for trying, though, as it's not all about whether she can actually make it. If you want to try something you love, go for it. Leave the practical concerns up to the bosses.

 

yea. definitely. and, on another note, if you REALLY wanted to get a female kicker, i'd think about poaching a female soccer player, since they have to be able to kick the thing a pretty damn far distance.

and in other obscure NFL ideas, my dad thought that possibly hiring a sumo wrestler to play center would be a decent idea. because, you know, who could move him.

 

A sumo wrestler would probably never have the conditioning to be able to run up and down the field as even linemen have to, though. Or even side to side to pull and block. As to female soccer players, well this lady is one, but not a pro. I assume you mean a pro soccer player, because yeah, the US has the best female soccer players in the world and I'm sure some of them could kick the crap out of a football.

 

they... have better conditioning than you'd think. they exercise a rather absurd amount. it's more the speed to move laterally that would be a problem. however, if you just need it so you can have on person taking care of the middle cloggers that normally take multiple people blocking them (aka a vince wilfork or a casey hampton, you now the typical 3-4 DT) then it could work. not in a two minute drill, though. most likely.

yea. that's what i meant, a pro soccer player. and just on toughness, they might could take the potential punishment. but you'll still never convince me they could tackle someone. although bob sanders did it, so who knows.

 

Conditioning maybe, but you still have to have speed. Otherwise you can't get in front of your tailbacks to block for them at all. You can't have guys slowing down to run behind you. There's definitely a reason that the guys playing o-line aren't sumo wrestlers. Just a totally different sport and set of needs.

I'm sure some pro female soccer players are pretty tough mentally. It's just that physically they are bound to get breaks and tears more easily if they collide with a dude much bigger than them. Though I have to say, there are some football players who are not much bigger than those ladies and they still take a pounding. There are NFL players who are shorter than I am. Yeah, they have like 50 lbs on me and it's all muscle, though theoretically a woman could get close to that. Still, the bone density thing you just can't change.

Why not just try to recruit more male pro soccer players? I mean, the thing is that kicking is its own skill and you do have to have those mechanics, but soccer players ought to have good mechanics anyway and the ability to learn different ones. It usually isn't a terribly difficult transition for them. The crossover only really seems to happen at the college level, though. Once you're pro, you've kind of already decided on your sport, you know?

 

well, that's a large, large part of the reason that it would probably only work as a center, because they don't tend to pull and so forth very much. would basically need to design a running scheme around it, but i get the feeling that it would help create some rather large wholes in the middle. also would help create a wall if running away from that direction (at least when dealing with lineman).

 

A sumo would get called for holding a lot though.

 

possibly. not disputing that there're problems. just that it might make for an interesting experiment with one of the smaller ones.

 

Yeah, there is a difference between trying out and being on an NFL field. Still it's great to see a woman actually being invited to the combine.

Dick LeBeau bemoans 'lost season'

And basically hates the fact that the Ravens are Super Bowl champions.

 

Ravens center Matt Birk following Ray Lewis into retirement.

 

Chiefs say they're open to trading #1 pick.

Seahawks listening to offers for Flynn.

Dolphins send entire staff to Combine. - 55 people folks.

 

There's no value at the number one pick this year. Chiefs are one year too late.

 

Manti T'eo will speak to reporters Saturday at the Combine. Will they be real reporters or imaginary.

*sorry, couldn't resist the joke*

 

Yes, yes we know. Shut up

 

Wow, didn't see the Chiefs wanting to trade down thing coming

 

For the record, I wanted to tank last season. I really wanted RG3. And we wouldn't have idiotically run him into the ground and possibly ruined his career.