Wouldn't football be more fun if they didn't wear pads and helmets?

Question

It would be like Rugby which is a real man's sport.

Answer 1

Thats why rugby is here.

Answer 2

The short answer to this would be if it weren't played with pads and helmets, it WOULD be, for all intents and purposes Rugby. And we are happier with the way our game has evolved than with Rugby.

Football developed from Rugby rules, but along somewhat different lines. It became a collision sport (not a contact sport). In the early 1900s, there were so many fatalities that President Theodore Roosevelt almost made the sport illegal. It was out of this that padding, helmets, and the forward pass entered the game, giving football its particular flavor.

Even with (or because, which is a consideration for another time) all the padding, professional football players have short careers, and many, if not most have significant health problems in retirement. It is, though, the nature of the game and we are happy with that.

Answer 3

No, it wouldn't. If it wern't for the helmets and pads....

1.) the NFL wouldn't have stuck around for very long when it debuted. It would be just a carbon copy of rugby over in Europe.

2.) many of the great players (Barry Sanders, Micheal Irvin, Peyton Manning) would probably have retired earlier due to career-ending injuries/multiple injuries

Answer 4

rugby is a REAL man's sport. Football is a man's sport. Football and rugby don't compare. It would be more fun, more people would be dead, look how many get hurt now with pads and helmets, imaigine it without it, OUCH

Answer 5

No, it would just hurt more. Ya think that some players would be scared, since football players have a habit of dying of weired things that can be because of football, like Damien Nash, who died of a heart attack lately. If they played with no pads or helmets, some players, like quarterbacks (Some who are not all that strong), would possibly be killed during a game. How would you like to be hit at full impact by people like Ray Lewis, Brian Urlacher, or Derrick Brooks. Not to mention the huge D-Line man who can be like 350 pounds and nearly seven feet tall! You got to think about this kind of stuff.

Answer 6

No, Rugby is not as physical as football is. If football was played without pads and helmets people would be getting concusions left and right.

Answer 7

There would be a lot more deaths, that's for sure.

I'd like to see your "manly" rugby players play American football, WITH PADS ON, with those guys, much less play it without pads on, then we would see some carnage
.
Get over it.... you have your sport, we have ours.

At least your not bitching about soccer.

Answer 8

Well the brits did get one thing right but the only padding that rugby needs is a cup because without that there is no manhood on the field.

Answer 9

No...rugby and football both include tackling but are different. Rugby uses more of the field and results in less collisions. The players are bigger, faster, and more atheletic in Amercian football you have those collisions away from the ball so it would be too dangerous.

Answer 10

Probably not as long came called due to injuries. Rugby is tough but I have neve seen a Rugy game pack 60,000 people in the stands Sorry.

Answer 11

No, there would be so many more injuries, I couldn't stand getting hit by a 300 pound lineman without my shoulder pads or helemt. I mean, why would we want 2 Rugbies? It would be similar, so what's the point of having 2 of them. Just kill one of them, and take your pick. I prefer regular American Football... Because Rugby is like smear the queer with teams...