Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NFL players: height and weight over time

noahveltman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 135 posts

Re: NFL players: height and weight over time

#61

Post by ry0ohki »

Zelphyr wrote: post #40
skierscott wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malcolm Gladwell has looked at this issue[1]. He sees football as being analogous to dogfighting. Popular at the time and with fans, but the science behind it is scary. I've experienced a severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI), meaning I've seen many brain doctors. I have seen a neuro-omptomolgist (brain-eye doctor) who sees a football player who can't even add up his checkbook (meaning he can't add, not this his check…

> I'll never let my children play football. I wish more people had this attitude.

Or Hockey or Soccer? Concussions are common in many sports, soccer which is considered a "safe" alternative to football has the second highest rate. Also not unlikely to occur in Basketball or Baseball.

Re: NFL players: height and weight over time

#62

Post by jusben1369 »

mkhaytman wrote: post #23

I'd like to see how the general population changed in the same time, then maybe a revision of this graph keeping it in perspective of how the rest of the population changed.

Yes! That's what I came here to type. What does it really mean if this actually tracks to the general population?

Re: NFL players: height and weight over time

#63

Post by jusben1369 »

romanovcode wrote: post #32
mkhaytman wrote: post #23

I'd like to see how the general population changed in the same time, then maybe a revision of this graph keeping it in perspective of how the rest of the population changed.

I don't think general population changed at all.

I don't mean this in a trolling way but do you really think the US population overall isn't going to be taller and heavier from 1927 till today?

Re: NFL players: height and weight over time

#64

Post by torbit »

Anytime I see a post about football I wonder how it is different from rugby, so I'll just post this intresting article

"In rugby, the only collision (i.e., running at speed for the purpose of forcing a player to the ground) is when one has the ball. The other 29 lads on the pitch are there for support. In American football, 21 of the 22 players had better be colliding with someone on every down - at full speed. In gridiron, there is collision while blocking. In rugby, the equivalent is called "obstruction" and is illegal, thus there are far more opportunities - requirements - for player collision in American football."

http://wesclark.com/rrr/pads_and_helmets.html

Re: NFL players: height and weight over time

#65

Post by troymc »

romanovcode wrote: post #32
mkhaytman wrote: post #23

I'd like to see how the general population changed in the same time, then maybe a revision of this graph keeping it in perspective of how the rest of the population changed.

I don't think general population changed at all.

There has been a general increase in human height, in developed countries, for many decades. Some references:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130902101714.ht...

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad347.pdf

Re: NFL players: height and weight over time

#66

Post by rcthompson »

silverbax88 wrote: post #46
skierscott wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malcolm Gladwell has looked at this issue[1]. He sees football as being analogous to dogfighting. Popular at the time and with fans, but the science behind it is scary. I've experienced a severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI), meaning I've seen many brain doctors. I have seen a neuro-omptomolgist (brain-eye doctor) who sees a football player who can't even add up his checkbook (meaning he can't add, not this his check…

When I was in high school I was a Division I football prospect. I had multiple schools after me: Alabama, Florida, LSU, etc. I really wanted Miami (this was the '80s) but deep down I really wanted to play basketball. I only got a little sniff of DI basketball interest but I went on a football visit to Florida and saw massive guys hitting each other and thought "I'm going to get killed" and never took the football sch…

Well, it turns out football is a no-brainer after all, just not in the way your coaches meant.

Re: NFL players: height and weight over time

#67

Post by pdenya »

deathhand wrote: post #59
jleader wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a few people who do neuropsychological testing (testing IQ, various kinds of memory, spatial reasoning, attention, and so on). Some college athletes are now getting "before" tests, as a baseline to evaluate the severity of damage after any subsequent concussion. One tester says she's seen players attempt to do poorly on the "before" tests, so they'll be able to keep playing even after a concussion impairs thei…

Why can't one sell their the cognitive ability if they choose to? If the player is "smart" enough to cheat the test then ultimately it is their choice. Society has deemed their muscles more valuable then their intelligence and I don't think we would be turning towards them for their thoughts on optimizations for database wrappers.

I agreed with your moral position that it's the players right despite the fact that it's wasteful.

Your last sentence is out there though. We're talking about kids in college, no one has put a price on their intelligence yet. Also unnecessary to imply that football players wouldn't be able to do anything useful with their intelligence.

Re: NFL players: height and weight over time

#68

Post by jessriedel »

skierscott wrote: post #25
S_A_P wrote: post #10

I wonder if this has compounded the TBI and concussion issue over the years. I think sports medicine in general has gotten much better and the average player is probably bigger and stronger and thus able to hit harder than 20+ years ago...

Malcolm Gladwell has looked at this issue[1]. He sees football as being analogous to dogfighting. Popular at the time and with fans, but the science behind it is scary. I've experienced a severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI), meaning I've seen many brain doctors. I have seen a neuro-omptomolgist (brain-eye doctor) who sees a football player who can't even add up his checkbook (meaning he can't add, not this his check…

Nice anecdotes. Your comments and links are good at triggering fear, but the data doesn't back you up that football is an usually dangerous sport.

Women's soccer has a higher rate of concussions than men's football at the collegiate level, and it has 75% of the rate at the high school level [1]. Similarly, men's college soccer has a higher rate than high school football. In fact, football is higher than the average sport (high school or college) by less than a factor of 2, an average which includes non-contact sports like volleyball.

Will you be preventing your girls from playing soccer?

Yes, football has a somewhat higher rate of concussions than most other sports, a fact that should be considered before participating. And yes, the recent improvement in concussion treatment and monitoring is a great thing which will naturally focus on football since it has a higher concussion rate and since more US high schoolers play football than any other sport by far.

But the idea that football is in its own category of danger is ludicrous. If you're withholding your children from football, you should almost certainly be withholding them from all contact sports.

[1] Table 1 here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/

Re: NFL players: height and weight over time

#69

Post by jleader »

deathhand wrote: post #59
jleader wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a few people who do neuropsychological testing (testing IQ, various kinds of memory, spatial reasoning, attention, and so on). Some college athletes are now getting "before" tests, as a baseline to evaluate the severity of damage after any subsequent concussion. One tester says she's seen players attempt to do poorly on the "before" tests, so they'll be able to keep playing even after a concussion impairs thei…

Why can't one sell their the cognitive ability if they choose to? If the player is "smart" enough to cheat the test then ultimately it is their choice. Society has deemed their muscles more valuable then their intelligence and I don't think we would be turning towards them for their thoughts on optimizations for database wrappers.

I didn't say they don't have the right to choose (though there's a discussion to be had about how informed their consent really is), I just said that their choice horrifies me.

Coincidentally, I've worked with a former Pac-12 football player (who left the game after I think freshman year), and in fact I have sought out his opinions on optimizations for database wrappers (among other subjects). Beware of who you write off with your stereotypes!

Re: NFL players: height and weight over time

#70

Post by ronaldx »

mbauman wrote: post #15
incision wrote: post #6

Craig M. Booth has done some very nice visualizations on this subject [1]. I found this chart comparing height/weight of 2013 rosters by position [2] particularly interesting and this set [3] covers a question that anyone who has read Outliers has probably wondered about. 1: http://www.craigmbooth.com/category/nfl/ 2: http://www.craigmbooth.com/height-and-weight-of-every-active... 3: http://www.sportsballweekly.com/t…

Ugh, on [3], watch out for the non-zero axes. NHL and NBA start their axes at 0, while the others do not. Very tricky, and very deceiving. I think NFL would look very similar to NBA if plotted the same way (they're both within ~10-15% of the expected value).

The author points out in the text that the NFL result is statistically significant and the NBA result is not.

A larger random sample ought to fall closer to the line than a smaller sample: it would be statistically highly remarkable if the graphs did look similar with zeroed axes - the larger sample should look much flatter.

Starting both graphs from zero is unhelpful if the goal is correct visual interpretation.

Post reply on HN