Brock Lesnar NFL Highlights; "A-Level Athlete"?

[Gamer2k4]

I stumbled upon this video of Brock Lesnar playing for the Minnesota Vikings back in 2004:



I think the thing that surprised me most is just how ordinary, or even sub-par, he looked. Yes, I understand this was his first attempt at football in nearly a decade (and he had only ever played high school ball), and to make even the practice squad of a professional football team with nothing but pure physical ability is absolutely remarkable. Still, when surrounded by similarly massive linemen, Lesnar loses that "specimen" mystique that he has in both the UFC and the WWE.

We talk a lot about how the best athletes in the world aren't in MMA; they're earning real money in more prolific sports. Does Lesnar's short stint in the NFL prove that? Or does it prove just the opposite - that on pure natural talent and next to no actual training and experience, Lesnar could hang with the pros regardless of all of their supposed advantages, and they're not all the incredible athletes we make them out to be? (For context, if we assume each of the 32 NFL teams has 6-7 defensive lineman, that makes Lesnar in the top 200 in the WORLD - and that's with no prior experience whatsoever.)

EDIT: Sorry the link doesn't embed properly. At least you can still watch it on YouTube.

 

[Drake]

So weird to see, hah.

 

[kashmir]

His NFL combine statistics are better than J.J Watt's. He's clearly a superior athlete than most "A Level" NFL guys.

Terrible ball player though.

 

[Squall Leonhart]

Link don't WORRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKK

 

[true_fan]

I stumbled upon this video of Brock Lesnar playing for the Minnesota Vikings back in 2004:



I think the thing that surprised me most is just how ordinary, or even sub-par, he looked. Yes, I understand this was his first attempt at football in nearly a decade (and he had only ever played high school ball), and to make even the practice squad of a professional football team with nothing but pure physical ability is absolutely remarkable. Still, when surrounded by similarly massive linemen, Lesnar loses that "specimen" mystique that he has in both the UFC and the WWE.

We talk a lot about how the best athletes in the world aren't in MMA; they're earning real money in more prolific sports. Does Lesnar's short stint in the NFL prove that? Or does it prove just the opposite - that on pure natural talent and next to no actual training and experience, Lesnar could hang with the pros regardless of all of their supposed advantages, and they're not all the incredible athletes we make them out to be? (For context, if we assume each of the 32 NFL teams has 6-7 defensive lineman, that makes Lesnar in the top 200 in the WORLD - and that's with no prior experience whatsoever.)

One word consist of 4 letters.

 

[themainman]

You can't play in the nfl or the nba just with great genetics and from a little training, that's mma

 

[Haj01]

LISTEN CAREFULLY TO THIS TIMESTAMP LISTEN TO THE COMMENTARY CAREFULLY



AT 50 SECONDS EXPLAINS IT ALL

 

[capnlarge]

I'm shocked that someone who doesn't know how to play football would be bad at football.

 

[Sirwastealot]

Seems to be more of a mind problem, combined with a lack of skills.

He sort of looks like a deer in headlights to be honest. I've had similar experiences trying to play sports I have no business playing. You tend to look around a lot thinking "what the fuck"

 

[capnlarge]

You can't play in the nfl or the nba just with great genetics and from a little training, that's mma

To be fair, you can win in MMA with just wrestling and Brock has some of the best wrestling credentials of anyone.

 

[The Bard]

Are you kidding me? He looked awesome for a guy in his position. He blew up an interior lineman and scraped down to make a tackle on an outside run at the line of scrimmage, all against guys who at the very least are medium-high division-one level talent playing in an NFL preseason game.

The athletic talent of the guy is undeniable. He was off the charts even by NFL standards.

The fact that he didn't just manhandle and throw around guys like Carwin, Cain, and Overeem shows you that the level of strength and athleticism in MMA is higher than most would think. Hell, even Heath Herring stopped several takedowns.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

His NFL combine statistics are better than J.J Watt's. He's clearly a superior athlete than most "A Level" NFL guys.

Terrible ball player though.

And this is why the Vikings were interested in him. He was an elite athlete. Unfortunately, athelticism is not this completely fungible value that makes a guy great at all sports. He wasn't good enough at football to play in the NFL. Had he played football instead of wrestled in college, he might have made an NFL team.

 

[LouisBolanos]

Brock's combines make him A or at least A- level. Problem is he's in a sea of A+ to A-/B level athletes in an A-level sport, and therefore cannot simply succeed with 6-months training like an A-level athlete would with a C-level sport like MMA.

 

[AndrewGolota48]

You can't play in the nfl or the nba just with great genetics and from a little training, that's mma

That's true of the NBA for sure, but guys have done it in the NFL. Incidentally they are usually college basketball players who were nowhere near good enough to even dream of being an NBA bench warmer.

 

[themainman]

To be fair, you can win in MMA with just wrestling and Brock has some of the best wrestling credentials of anyone.

Yeah but he hasn't done real wrestling in like 6+ years and gained the skill back and adapted it to mma quick

 

[Givvee]

He didn't really know the game and let's remember that he played against guys who played all through HS and College, that's a lot of experience. Let's put it this way, he did way better than any of them would do in a wrestling match against him.

 

[themainman]

That's true of the NBA for sure, but guys have done it in the NFL. Incidentally they are usually college basketball players who were nowhere near good enough to even dream of being an NBA bench warmer.

Well tightend anyways, any other positions? I think the skill set u need for tightend is similar to basketball

 

[blah_blah619]

he was definitely an A-Level teammate tho. This story is actually pretty bad ass.

http://larrybrownsports.com/football/brock-lesnar-suplexed-chiefs-player-daunte-culpepper/268533

 

[AndrewGolota48]

Well tightend anyways, any other positions? I think the skill set u need for tightend is similar to basketball

Ansah is a defensive end for the Lions who got into football after he couldn't make the BYU basketball team. He had never played football until his sophomore year of college I believe. I don't follow football much anymore but geez apparently the guy had 14.5 sacks last year.

Brock's old friend Stephen Neal of course went from college wrestling to the NFL, although it took him a while to get good enough to play. Perhaps Brock would have eventually done so as well but he had too many other options and we'll never know.

 

[Sano]

He looked pretty good tackling that guy at 2:18 (that's how much I know about American football/handegg)