[lukas099]

He’s the most successful player in the most competitive position in the most competitive league in one of the most competitive sports on Earth.

American football requires a different skill tree than world football. So of course if you only judge by the standards of world football he is not great. But why would you do that?

And athleticism as different from health. In fact, beyond a threshold I believe it is detrimental to it.

[jghn]

> He’s the most successful player in the most competitive position ...

That is likely to wind up true when it's all said & done but Tom Brady still holds that title.

[lukas099]

I meant currently successful, not throughout history, but yeah I can see that.

[acatnamedjoe]

> He’s the most successful player in the most competitive position in the most competitive league in one of the most competitive sports on Earth

Isn't it exactly the point of the article though that this doesn't necessarily mean elite across-the-board athleticism?

Your statement would also have described Tom Brady for most of his career, and I don't think anyone would seriously claim he was a 99%ile athlete (certainly not for sprinting, agility, etc.)

[lukas099]

Personally I can’t see how Brady is not a top athlete. It’s like judging a jazz musician on the skills needed in pop music or vice versa. You have to look at success within the genre or sport.

[acatnamedjoe]

It seems like this is more about the semantics of what we mean by athleticism then?

It sounds like for you, being a top athlete simply means being very good at a sport.

I've always generally understood athleticism to be about raw physical traits, like speed, strength and agility (and is therefore only part of the range of attributes that makes up the overall profile of a sportsperson).

Out of interest would you consider people performing at an elite level in high-skill, relatively low-physicality sports like golf to be top athletes?

[lukas099]

Yes

[jjtheblunt]

He benefits from superlative play calling and a superlative supporting cast (pacheco etc) with no way to clearly establish how much that benefits his stats. Contrast him with same size Caleb Williams and it gets interesting, for example.

[exceptione]

? You can assume that parent knows who Cristiano Ronaldo is.

[lukas099]

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, but I was talking about Mahomes.

[exceptione]

I see you edited your post, it is now clearer what you meant. I think you have a very local perspective, but you have every right to enjoy that. I have nothing to win in a handball versus football debate, besides calling spades spades. :)

[lukas099]

Fair enough. I would submit that you probably have a local perspective as well.

[exceptione]

If you live in the Netherlands you have to assume others don't know as much about you as you do about the bigger boys. :)

We have our own kind of "American Football" in the Netherlands, it is called ice skating. But.. every Dutchman understands that being the world champion in ice skating doesn't say much as it is a highly local phenomenon.

But you still can enjoy the athleticism that such a sport requires.

[lukas099]

It’s not that it’s from my country, it’s that the top athletes from a pool of 350 million or so people are all competing to play it at the top levels. I’m not sure how many are competing to be ice skaters, but that’s why I said it’s ‘one of’ the most competitive sports.

[fear91]

Calling American football “one of the most competetive sports on Earth” feels like a stretch. It’s big in US, but not that popular anywhere else.

[jppope]

The United States debatably has the most athletic population of an country and its the top sport in America where we funnel all of our talent (probably to our detriment). Regardless of the popularity abroad its where our athletes go.

When we do compete in other sports we fair above average to exceptional (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-time_Olympic_Games_medal_t...) with the notable exception of soccer, which we've never broken through despite investment and a decent population of players.

Don't kid yourself, just because other countries don't play American Football doesn't mean the players aren't freak athletes - they are

[lukas099]

It’s not the #1 sport there, but NFL football is popular in Canada too. To me, it’s dominance in North America is enough to qualify but I respect your position.