Remaking a new topic from years ago. Look let me get this straight, some NFL athletes are absurdly insane in athleticism. No one is beating Tyreek Hill in terms of explosiveness and speed. But am I wrong to say, that NBA players have the higher ceiling? Like if money and long term health weren’t a concern, if NBA players focused on training their bodies on prepping for football, their ceiling would be so much higher. Instead of Kyle Pitts we have KD at tight-end on the falcons, instead of Megatron on the Lions we have LeBron James on the Browns, 3 inches taller. I’m not saying they WOULD be better. But they have the POTENTIAL to be better, their ceiling is higher. Apparently this is a wild take. NBA players are tall, fast, and leap as high as a lot of NFL players.
You seen the hits Gronk used to take right? KD would take one hit and never get up again.
But back to the point, I think they both require very different types of athletes. For one, the NFL is a specialist sport - linemen for example do one very specific job, which requires them to be huge, wide and extremely strong and durable.
A random NFL lineman would out-lift basically any NBA player in history in squat, deadlift and bench - but would have nowhere near the vertical or speed as your average NBA player. Obviously there are outliers to this, your freak athletes and so on.
Very hard to compare completely different sports.