is it just me or does football require the least skill of all the major sports?

[squirrel dog]

Its just you.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Originally posted by: Via
I would say between Football, Basketball, Baseball and Hockey....

Yes, Football does require the least amount of refined skill. But it certainly requires some skill.

yup, i never said no skill. just the least amount when compared to the 4 major sports.

the other confusion in this thread is between physical athleticism, and skill.

 

[purbeast0]

baseball requires the least amount of skill.

golf requires the most.

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: vi edit

Originally posted by: jjsole

Originally posted by: bobross419

Originally posted by: jjsole
The threshold of pain it takes to succeed in baseball is second only to golf in terms of being a pansy sport (of the major american sports). Anyone can fire a gun, but not anyone can be successful at it when others are firing back at you. Of course you're going to look more skilled when there's no one there to impede your progress.

Threshold of pain is definitely not a skill, more like stupidity. Why do we feel pain? Because something is causing physical damage. To ignore pain is just a slap in the face. Sure I can stir the coals of a bonfire with my penis, but is it a good idea? I think not...

Lemme guess...desk job?

Pain is a weird thing. I've broke my hand in football and played with a giant cast on my arm. I've injured my toes to the point where I had to drive hot paperclips through them to drain off blood and pressure. I've broke and dislocated fingers playing basketball.

But none of that can really compete with the pain and mental fortitude it takes to do endurance events like cross country and distance racing. I'm convinced that runners have some of the strongest will power of just about any other athlete. The punishment that people push themselves through in these events is just insane.

Yes, those are some extremely painful and grueling events to compete in. Even sprinting has a lot of pain as well, except 99% of it is endured during the daily training sessions and not on race day.

On the other hand, any sport can be painful with injuries, but unless you've got a booboo or have a rare impact, baseball is one of the least painful sports. Its much different to experience occassional pain than it is to know it has to be experienced constantly in order to be successful.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: sao123

Originally posted by: BeauJangles

Originally posted by: sao123

well then if you put it that way, if you remove the intelligence from the game, baseball is a zero skill game.

Given significant strength, any man can throw a ball 90+ mph, and any man can swing a bat and hit that ball.
the intelligence factor is what allows a pitcher to throw different pitches to confuse the batter, and the intelligence factor is what gives the batter the reaction time to know to either swing/not to swing, and where to swing and how hard.

Either way, football requires more skill, intelligence, and physique than baseball for any part of the game.

Yes, that's why every person who decides to play baseball becomes a superstar... oh wait, that doesn't happen at all.

Sure, lots of people can throw 85 - 95 mph, but few people can locate those throws 60 ft 6 inches away accurately enough to not get lit up by good hitters. Fewer people can throw things like curveballs, cutters, sliders, or changeups. Even fewer people can throw that fast and that accurately for 100+ pitchers. Of those few people, only a few have the mental toughness to trust their stuff after getting a rocked or giving up a big hit.

As for hitting, I don't see how you can say that it's luck. Identifying pitch type, figuring out where it is headed, and getting your body in position to hit it is really really freaking difficult. There's a reason that guys like Pujols only come around once every few generations... the guy is talented and busts his ass every day to be a better hitter.

Basically, your argument is so full of fail that it hurts.

It takes less than half a second for the ball to go from the pitchers hand to the plate, there is no time to identify the pitch type or location. Most hitters hit .200-.250 which is 1 per 4 or 5. Every hit is pure reaction and luck.
if you take the time to think about should i swing...the ball is already past you.

The MLB average is much close to .270 than it is to .250. Why don't you actually do four seconds of research and you'll learn that EVERY freaking MLB hitter can identify pitch type. Yes, it's difficult, but based on the way the ball spins and the momentary look they have at the pitcher's hand they can actually figure out what type of pitch is being thrown.

Your reaction time argument is fucking bullshit too. Yes, they only have a brief time to begin their swing, but remember that the pitch has to wind up and deliver the ball. That's when a lot of reads come.

If baseball is all luck...

1) Why do the same guys (in general) wind up hitting the same number of home runs per season?
2) Why are batting averages, in general, stable across the bulk of a player's career?
3) Why is every playing not batting with 1 or 2 standard deviations of the MLB average?
4) Why are pitcher ERAs so wildly different?
5) Why do hundreds of advanced metrics like FIP, tERA, OBP, OBA, etc exist and why do those stats tell us that certain players are significantly better than others?
6) Why isn't every person who chooses baseball successful? If it's all luck, then anybody should be good at the game.

 

[SP33Demon]

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo

Originally posted by: DrPizza
You seem to be missing the difference between athleticism and skill.
The ESPN article you linked to breaks athleticism into 10 categories: endurance (not a skill), strength (not a skill), power (not a skill), speed (not a skill), agility (not a skill), flexibility (not a skill), nerve (nonsense category for the sake of boosting boxing and rodeo), durability (not a skill), hand eye coordination - a skill, analytic ability - a skill

Since you're posting ESPN's article, and assuming that ESPN rated these categories objectively, then the OP is partially correct. Of these 4 sports, football DOES require the least amount of skill. The OP is incredibly wrong by claiming that football doesn't require skill though.

Straight from the ESPN site:
Sport/eye-hand/analytic aptitude:
Football / 5.50 / 7.13
Baseball / 9.25 / 6.25
Basketball / 7.50 / 7.30
Hockey / 7.50 / 7.50

Football loses this round.

QED

someone that gets it.

Wrong, because even if you assume his argument that skill and athleticism are separate, athleticism heavily influences skill. To say that it's completely separate is unbelievably naive. Let's go through some examples:

-Strength and flexibility allow a batter more time to analyze the ball.
-Power changes the fear factor of opposing managers/players and their strategies (analytic aptitude) to pitch to a batter.
-Speed allows a WR more time to analyze and adjust his route faster than his defenders, a winger/guard more time to blow by a defender to decide whether to pass or shoot.
-Nerve allows a strong personality to talk sht to a weaker minded boxer or point guard and invoke fear/emotions into them which disrupts their analytic aptitude.
-Flexibility, strength, and speed all enhance handeye coordination.

To completely separate athleticism from hand/eye and analytic aptitude is a fantasy. ESPN's rankings are dead on IMO.

 

[DrPizza]

I didn't say that athleticism and skill were separate, just that skill is only a small component of athleticism. ESPN seems to agree - and I'd say their opinion holds more weight than anyone's on these forums in regard to sports.

An aluminum bat is lighter and can be swung faster, thus also gives a batter more time to analyze the ball. If you're saying that factors that give the batter more time are skill, then using an aluminum bat is skill. Hmmmm, I don't think that follows.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Well Blahblah has me convinced. Since football relies on athleticism and very little skill I'm gonna try out for the Dallas Cowboys. I figure as long as I'm strong enough and fast enough the rest of it should be a cake walk. Hell if they just give out multi million dollar contracts for basically nothing I mine as well get in line.

 

[ric1287]

this thread is like a competition to see who knows the least about sports. fantastic

 

[meltdown75]

i joined a 5-week coed baseball league. starts tomorrow. i've never played before. i've played hockey, golf, volleyball, basketball, done track..... i think i played in a baseball tournament about 10 years ago as a spare. should be interesting.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: Feldenak

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo

Originally posted by: Crono

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo

Originally posted by: Feldenak

Originally posted by: BlahBlahYouToo

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Guess you haven't watched baseball or golf, have you?

guess you don't read thread titles, do you?

and baseball requires much more skill than most give it credit for. i'd say it's probably the hardest of all major sports.

Again, different skill sets for different sports. There's much more to football than pure athletic ability. I'd say baseball is a much less mentally taxing than football though because it's the least team oriented. As a fielder you don't really have to worry abuot what the guy beside you or across from you is going to do (pitchers excepted). With football, you have to understand what your teammate is going to do and when he's going to do it (ie. do I have contain on this play? do I have help over the top?).

I have a hard time believing you're quite this dense and am leaning towards this being a troll post.

why are you bringing up any mental aspects of anything? this is purely about physical skill.

Are you an idiot? Physical skill is tied to mental skill. Otherwise you could just bring in gorillas to play all our sports.

ok, then everything can be considered mental then, since every action requires our brain to control it.

you're bringing up the intelligence part of the game.
i'm speaking merely of the physical aspect.

Ok, you're either an idiot or a troll.

You assume he can't be both? because I assure you he is.

 

[SP33Demon]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
I didn't say that athleticism and skill were separate, just that skill is only a small component of athleticism. ESPN seems to agree - and I'd say their opinion holds more weight than anyone's on these forums in regard to sports.

An aluminum bat is lighter and can be swung faster, thus also gives a batter more time to analyze the ball. If you're saying that factors that give the batter more time are skill, then using an aluminum bat is skill. Hmmmm, I don't think that follows.

Ok, here's what you said:

Straight from the ESPN site:
Sport/eye-hand/analytic aptitude:
Football / 5.50 / 7.13
Baseball / 9.25 / 6.25
Basketball / 7.50 / 7.30
Hockey / 7.50 / 7.50

Football loses this round.

QED

I replied with examples proving that you cannot separate eye-hand and analytic aptitude from the other categories (str, power, flex, speed, end) because all of those factors influence the 2 you cherry picked.

This gets to the real point, that if you cherry pick the above then you better weight your scores appropriately since the other categories affect them. For example, it requires more str/power/flex/speed/end to create analytic aptitude in football than in baseball, hence you should have weighted them appropriately... i.e. in Layman's: Making decisions under higher physical duress > making decisions without any physical duress. And yes, the experts at ESPN know more than both of us so that's why football is well ahead of baseball in the overall ranking. Overall ranking = total skill.

 

[bobross419]

I'm so glad this thread is still alive....