Today’s football players are huge.
It’s easy to see the difference when you look at modern players versus the old-school
players side by side.
This is William Heffelfinger.
In 1892, he became the first person to be paid to play football.
And he’s a decently big guy: 6’ 4”, 178 pounds.
But compare that to players today, and he looks tiny.
Take the New England Patriots’ Alan Branch — 6’ 6’’, 350 pounds.
Or the Atlanta Falcons' Jake Matthews — 6’ 5’’, 309 pounds.
Back in 1970, only one NFL player weighed over 300 pounds.
By 1980, there were three.
By 1990, 94.
By 2000, 301.
And in training camps in 2010, 532 players weighed over 300.
These charts by Alex Bresler show the change in NFL players’ height and weight
from 1936 until 2013.
Over time, players got taller and heavier on average.
Notice that while most positions had a slow increase in weight, these two skyrocketed.
Those are the offensive and defensive linemen, the guys that ram into each other at the start
of each play.
You can think of it as a kind of weight class specialization happening over time based on
player positions.
Receivers and the guys who guard them need to be fast down the field, while the linemen
are basically sumo wrestlers trying to either block or buy time
for the players moving the ball.
That size specialization probably had to do with the ways the rules have changed over
time.
Before the 1950s, substitutions were limited, so players played multiple positions, offense
AND defense.
That discouraged specialization.
And then in the 1970s, blocking below the waist became illegal, which basically moved
offensive line action above the waist.
Before that, if linemen were too top-heavy, they would be more vulnerable to “old-school”
blocking techniques that would knock out their knees.
On top of that, new training and dieting practices have helped players get bigger and stronger
more efficiently.
These heavy players are still really athletic.
But the rapid increase in weight comes with some serious health concerns.
A government study in 1994 found that NFL linemen face a substantially higher risk of
dying of heart disease — 52 percent higher than the general population and three times
the risk compared to other NFL players.
And a 2008 study found that retired linemen were almost twice as likely to have metabolic
syndrome, which includes a bunch of risk factors like obesity and high blood pressure.
That makes them a lot more likely to suffer from heart disease and diabetes down the road
than non-linemen.
So yes, many players have gotten bigger as the game of football has evolved.
And they've helped their teams by bulking up, but it does come at a price.