Do Huge NFL Players Help Teams Win?

From Live Science:

When the Arizona Cardinals meet the Pittsburgh Steelers in Sunday's Super Bowl, every starting offensive lineman will be a member of the 300-pound club.

This season, there were more than 600 players — about 20 percent of the league — in triple donuts. Even with 6-foot plus heights, their Body Mass Index (BMI) levels are all in the range of grade 2 obesity, one step below what's called morbid obesity.

This super-sizing of NFL players has accelerated in recent years, and some studies suggest health risks are growing. But studies are conflicting on this point.

And the big question on the minds of coaches and owners: Do heavier players mean more wins? No, one study found.

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2009 Super Bowl Tech

Cool Science News Editor: Popular Mechanics has posted a number of fun and interesting links to the game of football, and to the Super Bowl. They are listed below ... so read and enjoy.

The Tech Behind the Football Broadcast-Only First Down Line. The yellow first down line is so ingrained now that NFL junkies may be disappointed when a real game reminds them its just an effect. Allen St. John explains the origin of the little line that makes first downs stand out, and how it works.

Meet the Guy Behind the Super Bowl's Sound. Scott Carter captures the grunts, chatter and tackles on the playing field for NFL Films. And he uses more than 300 pounds of gear to do it.

When Will the NFL Broadcast in 3D? A stereoscopic first is coming to Super Bowl XLIII in the form of a 3D commercial break, featuring the debut of Dreamworks Animations' 3D trailer for Monsters vs. Aliens as well as a spot for Sobe drinks. Is 3D football around the corner?

10 Steps in the High-Tech Evolution of Pro Football Helmets. In this exclusive kickoff weekend excerpt from the new PM book How a Curveball Curves: The Incredible Science of Sports, track the high-tech history of brain safety on the gridiron, from "head harnesses" to face masks

6 Questions for Telestrator Inventor Leonard Reiffel. On the eve of Super Bowl XLII, the man behind the digital doodler made famous by John Madden talks about his invention and the evolution of touchscreen tech

HDTV: Everything You Need to Know. We untangle television invention from realitymanual-freeby untangling the top 10 hi-def myths.

Football Physics: The Anatomy of a Hit The average football sack can produce a bone-shattering 1600 lbs of force. Armed with new tools, researchers are now studying the science of a gridiron fundamental: The tackle.

From UGO.com: Guys' Guide to Super Bowl History. Our friends at geek guy site UGO take a look at the history of the Super Bowl, the best games played in the history of the big game, and some of the bigger moments in mid-game entertainment.

High-Tech Brings High Stakes for Super Bowl XLI. With an estimated $7 billion wagered on the Big Game, websites vie for action with increasingly outlandish proposition wagersor prop betsthat make up nearly 50 percent of the total wagers because theyre accessible to those who dont exactly sweat the stat sheets.

Super Bowl XLI: Behind the High-Tech Scenes. Twenty-two guys play it, but 80 million people watch it. So for the biggest broadcast of the year, CBS Sports rigged up Dolphin Stadium with some 50 cameras, hundreds of engineers and a state-of-the-art lighting system special for the Big Game.

Head-Coach Headset Tech: Call in the Geeks. While football purists still get misty recalling a solitary strategist in a fedora scribbling X's and O's on a blackboard, that image of the head coach is as outdated as that of every rookie quarterback calling his own plays.


The Evolution of the Football. From round to watermelon to its present familiar shape, the football has been stoking the passions of fans for over 100 years.

The Physics of ‘The Hit’ -- Superbowl Science

Baltimore running back Willis McGahee was seriously injured after a collision with the Steelers' Ryan Clark in the A.F.C. championship game. Julie Jacobson/Associated Press

From The New York Times:

TAMPA, Fla. — Isaac Newton’s apple hurt considerably less than Ryan Clark’s coconut. But they did have a few things in common.

Clark’s shockingly violent hit on the Baltimore Ravens’ Willis McGahee two Sundays ago — a full-speed, helmet-to-helmet crash that left McGahee unconscious and Clark all but — didn’t just follow the N.F.L.’s rules, but Newton’s as well. Force equaled mass times acceleration. Momentum was conserved. And the bodies finally came to rest, McGahee’s on a stretcher.

“How I look at it, you can be the hammer or the nail,” the inner scientist in Clark explained this week. “I try to be the hammer.”

The tackle, the art of making the ball carrier not stay in motion, is football’s most primeval action. Amusing physicists the way batting averages do actuaries, collisions lead the highlight reels, impart the force of a deadly car crash, and rely upon kinematics that date to a considerably different big bang.

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In Baseball, Head-First Slides Are Best

Seattle Mariners' Luis Valbuena, right, slides into third base as Oakland Athletics' Daric Barton waits for the ball in the ninth inning of a baseball game Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008, in Oakland, Calif. Valbuena was called out. Credit: AP Photo/Ben Margot

From Live Science:

A player's slide to beat the throw at home plate is one of baseball's big thrills, especially during the postseason, which begins today. But of the two sliding styles — head-first and feet-first — which is faster?

Head-first, says David A. Peters of Washington University in St. Louis, an engineer and avid baseball fan.

The reasons that it's faster to lead off with your noggin all have to do with physics, Peters said.

Specifically, it's a matter of the player's center of gravity (or center of mass) — essentially the point where gravity exerts its tug. For most people, their center of gravity is right around the stomach area, Peters said.

Whenever you leave the ground, no matter which end of your body you lead with, your center of gravity will move forward with the speed (and momentum) you left the ground with, Peters explained.

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Why Old Athletes Come Back

In this July 23, 2005 file photo, overall leader Lance Armstrong, of Austin, Texas, crosses the finish line to win the 20th stage of the Tour de France cycling race, a 55.5-kilometer (34.5-mile) individual time trial looping around north of Saint-Etienne, central France. Now Armstrong is getting back on his bike, determined to win an eighth Tour de France. The Tour "is the intention," Armstrong's spokesman Mark Higgins told The Associated Press, "but we've got some homework to do over there." AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati

From Live Science:

Maybe its the fear of turning 40. Maybe its the feeling of unfinished business. Maybe its the fire in the belly that has not quite extinguished. For retired elite athletes, the itch is always there to make a return after experiencing "life after sport". For some, it becomes too strong to ignore.

This year has seen the return of at least three champions, Dara Torres, Lance Armstrong and Brett Favre. As they explain their individual reasons for coming back, some similarities emerge that have more to do with psychological needs than practical needs. In a recent Miami Herald article, Torres explained her comeback to competitive swimming at age 41, "For me, it's not like I sat around and watched swimming on TV and thought, 'Oh, I wish I was still competing'. It was more gradual. But all of a sudden, something goes off inside you and you start seriously thinking about a comeback. You'd think the competitive fire would die down with maturity, but I've actually gotten worse. I wasn't satisfied with silver medals. I hate to lose now more than I did in my 20s. I'm still trying to figure out why.''

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